JD vs. MPP vs. PhD for foreign policy

[spicysalmonroll]

Just for some background, I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from a top Ivy (HYP) recently. 

It may be a pipe dream but foreign policy is my passion and I aspire to a career that will eventually allow me to play a role in US foreign policy.
In planning my next steps, I've considered 3 degrees, but still remain conflicted over which I should pursue. I have a week to make my final decision and, out of desperation, am seeking help from this forum.

MPP
Logically, someone hoping for a policy career should go to policy school. A policy degree for a policy career--plain and simple. But I've decided it's not so simple. I have contemplated this for over a year but especially in a world of credentialism I really cannot see the benefit of a master's in policy. That is to say, a master's is so commonplace these days that I might as well put in a couple more years and churn out a PhD thesis. With the exception of Princeton's WWS, most policy schools would cost money and I don't think an entry-level postgrad job would offer sufficient compensation to offset both the tuition and the opportunity costs of attending grad school. Moreover, after speaking with some MPP students, I've come to believe that the skills you learn in an MPP program aren't even that profound or extremely useful. They seem to be mostly "soft" skills, i.e. BS (for qualitative), and on the quantitative side, mostly superficial unless you REALLY get serious about statistical analysis/modeling. The only benefit of a policy school might be to find the connections necessary to enter government, but that brings us back to my first point about compensation and there are other, more cost effective ways to enter government.

PhD
The alternative would be to get a PhD in political science, then become a professor or a think tank researcher until by divine providence someone decides that my work should matter for US foreign policy. I actually was set on pursuing a PhD and almost applied in the previous cycle, but decided against it because my research on PhD programs in political science seemed to scream "STAY AWAY." First, I don't think I can deal with the extreme uncertainty of a PhD life. Even after 5 -7 years of toiling, I would be one of the lucky few to even become a professor anywhere straight out of grad school. To get from there to where I want to be would easily be another decade in the best case scenario, and with no guarantees. I also am not particularly passionate about teaching, so this does not bode well for a career in teaching. As uncertain as it seems, a PhD nonetheless remains an effective way to find a role in US foreign policymaking, hence my continued dilemma. 

JD
Frankly, I wasn't even thinking about pursuing a JD, because I have never been fascinated or passionate about "the law." I have friends who have read the Constitution for fun and that is not me. I cannot name most of the Supreme Court justices and honestly don't really care, beyond a superficial level, about the landmark Supreme Court cases that came to define US history. Nor am I particularly interested in a career in politics, for which a law degree may be useful. I'm only considering a JD degree because I've come to understand the role of law in negotiations and international agreements, and have come to believe that a JD would allow me to do everything in policy that a PhD would, except to become a professor which I was never interested in to begin with. If anything, a JD would also be more effective and practical than a MPP in equipping me with the expertise and (literally) license I may need for the actual PRACTICE and execution of policy (in the form of documents and contracts.) Of course, a law degree is infinitely more expensive than any of the other degrees mentioned, but I'm cautiously hoping that I could enter a career in corporate law and later in life find ways to leverage my way into the senior echelons of policymaking in DC (would love to hear feedback on this part)

Working from the bottom up
The final option would have been to do a public policy fellowship or enter the State Department (or some other comparable institution) to gain experience and work from the bottom up. I threw this option out the window because I had legitimate concerns about security clearance that made this path less feasible for me. 

I've shared my options because I want to hear people's feedback on whether my analysis of these options are correct or misled. I'm currently leaning toward applying to law school and would also love to hear about any people who have successfully managed to transfer from a career in corporate law to policy in DC.  Thanks in advance.

Edited August 11, 2017 by spicysalmonroll

[Ben414]

Based on what you wrote, don't get a JD or PhD. A MPP might be worth it down the road if it's at a top school at a low cost. Start by working. You seem like a thoughtful person, so you're going to have to trust me when I say that you have zero idea what you're going to want to do for a career until you've tried it. With a HYPS (Stanford really should be in that grouping) undergrad degree, you should be able to corral enough connections to get a relevant (or at least partially relevant) starting job. Work for 2-4  years, potentially switching jobs if a better opportunity becomes available. Understand what it means to do the same thing 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year for multiple years. This will give you some idea of what type of job skills/areas you might enjoy. You cannot understand this until you've been forced to do the same thing for at least 1-2 years; it's not at all like undergrad. If your career goals remain the same, re-evaluate at that point whether a MPP is worth it (hopefully you'll have garnered good enough work experience to make WWS or Yale or high scholarship at SAIS/SIPA/Fletcher/etc.) If your career goals change, re-evaluate what options might be worth it while acknowledging that PhDs and JDs are bad choices for foreign policy careers.

Edited August 12, 2017 by Ben414

[ExponentialDecay]

The answer is the same for Phi Beta Kappa graduates of HYP as for everyone else: get 2-3 years of work experience first. If you like, approach it less from the perspective that you don't know squat about this career or whether you'd be a good fit for it (which is also true), and more from the perspective that nobody is going to hire an untested person whom nobody knows in a career as sensitive and soft skill-heavy as foreign policy, no matter how many 4.0s that person has.

See you in 2020!

Edited August 12, 2017 by ExponentialDecay

[mapiau]

I agree with the other posters. (Disclaimer: I do not work in foreign policy, nor plan to.) I think it's important to also remember that 'playing a role in US foreign policy' is an extremely broad category, and that the day to day experience of a career diplomat/analyst in a federal agency/think tank scholar/government lawyer are very different. This diversity includes things like compensation, job security, and so on. (For example, once you get them government jobs are decently compensated and tend towards security, while the think tank world seems more boom and bust and sometimes brings limits on the positions you can take, and so on.) How you view frequent travel might be different in ten years than you do today, and it's good to try and anticipate what you want professionally might change.

I would recommend that before going to graduate school you make an effort to talk to people working in jobs you find interesting about what they actually do, and how their education helped them reach their position. This will help you focus your ambitions more tightly.

Similarly, I would caution you against pursuing especially a PhD or JD right now. You sound very lukewarm on both, and no matter how driven and disciplined you are I suspect it will be difficult to stay motivated and perform if you outright see the degrees as only a means to an end. This is particularly true for the PhD—the problems you cite are true, and even if some political science PhDs end up working in government, it's a very long, uncertain, and expensive (in foregone earnings) path.

Finally, the MPP/International Affairs MA is a "soft" degree. Despite what some recruiters say these programs are, for the most part, not intended to produce data scientists. If focusing on data analysis is what you want these may not be the path for you, but I would not discount the importance of soft skills like writing well, being able to give a good presentation, and knowing the code of how people in these types of positions tend to talk and behave. It's easy to dismiss these skills, but I've found them to be the most important thing to get out of professional school.