MPP Grads/Students: What level math needed?

[DogsArePeopleToo]

This for all of you who have done or are doing your MPP, especially if your school is Georgetown: What level of math/stats skills is recommended/needed to do well in the program? I took intermediate economics courses in college, but I am not sure how different the quant level is for intermediate econ courses in grad school, if at all.

I did calculus 13/14 years ago and remember nothing of it. Is that bad? I am trying be ready for fall.

Separately, I am looking at the MPP and MIDP course sequences from Georgetown. Two questions:

1. For MPP: What quant concepts are used in Microeconomics II and Advanced Regression? Do the courses expect students to be quant gurus?

2. MPP vs MIDP: Some of the courses seem to be the same but with slightly different titles (and maybe content), e.g., Intermediate Microconomics for MPP vs Intermediate Microeconomics for Development for MIDP. Are they interchangeable? I am asking because I am an MIDP student but I want to do a joint JD degree, which is only available with MPP.

Thanks for any insights.

[SenNoodles]

Hi! MPP at Georgetown here (who's focused on international development/am friends with most of the MIDPs). If you consider math/econ/quant in general to be a strength, I wouldn't worry. There's a math camp during orientation that will remind you of everything you need to know. You also don't *need* calculus, but you're definitely better off if you can remember how to take basic derivatives/integrals and what they mean. This will be reviewed during math camp, though, so there's little need to stress out about it. Technically, you aren't supposed to have to know it.

Micro II is focused on market failure and how government policies come into play when the private market can't provide (largely with social services). The underlying concepts are largely the same between the MIDP and MPP versions though they have different course names, but the applications are much different. On the MPP side, we're applying these concepts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc., while my MIDP friends are more focused on developing country contexts/programs. Quant II is actually far less numbers-y than Quant I was - lots of interpreting residual graphs, learning how to overcome biases/errors in data, plus some slightly more advanced OLS techniques from Quant I as well as learning the basics of probit/logit. As someone who likes numbers, Quant II has been slightly tougher than Quant I because it's more qualitative.

Finally, in terms of the MPP vs MIDP course sequences - overall, the first year curricula are pretty similar in that the foundational concepts you learn in both are pretty similar, but the applications are different (as explained above wrt Econ). The MPPs also take policy process (basically a poli sci course) that's different from what the MIDPs take that semester. In the second year, I'm not as sure of how similar the courses are (since I'm a first year), but I do know the MPPs get an extra elective each semester while the MIDPs don't. However, we have the option of taking the extra MIDP core course as one of our two electives each semester.

Overall, I've worked almost exclusively in development, am a part of development-focused groups on campus, hang out with a good number of MIDPs, and am doing a development internship this summer, but I don't regret doing the MPP. I feel like I get the best of both worlds in that I have a bunch of MPP and MIDP friends, while most of the MIDPs I know tend to hang out with each other and don't really get to know many of the MPPs.

My 2 cents! Feel free to PM me if you have more specific questions! 

[DogsArePeopleToo]

10 hours ago, SenNoodles said:

Hi! MPP at Georgetown here (who's focused on international development/am friends with most of the MIDPs). If you consider math/econ/quant in general to be a strength, I wouldn't worry. There's a math camp during orientation that will remind you of everything you need to know. You also don't *need* calculus, but you're definitely better off if you can remember how to take basic derivatives/integrals and what they mean. This will be reviewed during math camp, though, so there's little need to stress out about it. Technically, you aren't supposed to have to know it.

Micro II is focused on market failure and how government policies come into play when the private market can't provide (largely with social services). The underlying concepts are largely the same between the MIDP and MPP versions though they have different course names, but the applications are much different. On the MPP side, we're applying these concepts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc., while my MIDP friends are more focused on developing country contexts/programs. Quant II is actually far less numbers-y than Quant I was - lots of interpreting residual graphs, learning how to overcome biases/errors in data, plus some slightly more advanced OLS techniques from Quant I as well as learning the basics of probit/logit. As someone who likes numbers, Quant II has been slightly tougher than Quant I because it's more qualitative.

Finally, in terms of the MPP vs MIDP course sequences - overall, the first year curricula are pretty similar in that the foundational concepts you learn in both are pretty similar, but the applications are different (as explained above wrt Econ). The MPPs also take policy process (basically a poli sci course) that's different from what the MIDPs take that semester. In the second year, I'm not as sure of how similar the courses are (since I'm a first year), but I do know the MPPs get an extra elective each semester while the MIDPs don't. However, we have the option of taking the extra MIDP core course as one of our two electives each semester.

Overall, I've worked almost exclusively in development, am a part of development-focused groups on campus, hang out with a good number of MIDPs, and am doing a development internship this summer, but I don't regret doing the MPP. I feel like I get the best of both worlds in that I have a bunch of MPP and MIDP friends, while most of the MIDPs I know tend to hang out with each other and don't really get to know many of the MPPs.

My 2 cents! Feel free to PM me if you have more specific questions! 

Thank you! I just sent you a private message.