Applying to NPSIA for 2018

[sunshine18]

57 minutes ago, alexma63 said:

@sunshine18 Congrats on your offers

Ah okay, so it is online? That's helpful as I will be completing an internship this summer. I will also already be paying full time tuition to Carleton so at least it shouldn't cost me anything extra. Yeah, I think a tutor might be necessary... I'm just not sure where to find reliable ones... from what I've seen of ads on Kijiji I'm not impressed. Any ideas?

Like you Im bad at numbers haha. If I have a lot of difficulty, I'm gonna hire a tutor! I've been looking at kijiji because I am not sure how else I can I find tutor.

[sandradee]

11 hours ago, jasper28 said:

Long time lurker here  posting to ask @sandradee how exactly did you find the funding for the second year? I also received my official offer this week and can only find my funding for the first year, which is similar to yours. I am wondering if this is really all I got or if I'm just not looking in the right place. I feel like I've tried every possible link on the website but can only seem to find the first years funding... Thanks for any help you may provide! 

What you need to do:

Login to carleton central > Under student records, hit graduate admissions > hit view application details next to you application > next to "statement of standing" hit "View/Accept/Decline Offer of Admission" and then scroll down to funding. That is all your funding. If you don't see anything for the 2019/20 year, then its not a part of your package. Check every Award name. As in I only have a row for 2019/20 under teaching assistantships, I do not have that same row under any of the scholarships.

What I originally did was this:

Login to carleton central > under "Awards and Financial Assistance" I hit "Student Award Information" > scrolled down and saw only funding for 2018/2019

 

Hope that helps!! 

[sandradee]

8 hours ago, alexma63 said:

Hi everyone! 

Just catching up on this thread now. I received an acceptance email from Tabbatha (NPSIA) on Feb 23rd and from GSPIA in early February. 

I still haven't gotten word on official funding from NPSIA yet... hoping to hear back next week. 

My biggest struggle at this point is the economics requirement. I am still in the process of completing my MSW at Carleton (@sandralee - so nice to see another MSW accepted to the program) and am finishing it in July. I am taking microeconomics online through Ryerson right now, and I can't say it's been easy... that being said I'm juggling 4 grad courses (not including the microecon course), working outside of school and two part time TAships. I am concerned that I might have to retake the course over the summer... numbers and particularly anything algebraic have never been my thing. Does anyone know what the course offered by Carleton over the summer looks like? The benefit of accepting GSPIA's offer is that the econ course is included in the program and it seems like, as indicated on the offer letter, that I do not need to complete any extra course work prior to starting the program.

Would anyone be able to provide some advice on NPSIA vs. GSPIA? I realise it's quite contested, but I'd love to hear what your opinions are. My understanding is that GSPIA has more international opportunities (uOttawa's international office is seemingly on point) but I could be very wrong in that.

 

Thanks!

I feel you! I know for me as a social worker, economics does not and will not come easy. I still have to do the econ requirements as well. Here are my two cents

 

1.) IM TOLD (and the 2017 NPSIA grad cafe forum also confirms) that the NPSIA online economics course is graded on a curve... just on that notion itself, ya girl is out!

2.) Im also told through two friends who did them, that the Athabasca University courses are way easier to complete. The grading break down is clean, you're not graded against anyone, and its self paced. This is what I will be doing, and I spoke with the faculty who stated these two courses (ECON 247 and ECON 248) are totally acceptable

3.) My official letter states we have until October 15th 2018 to submit our B- or higher grades in those courses. I was under the impression we needed it before we could start the program. This really took a lot of pressure off of me. 

and my only two cents in regards to NPSIA and GPSIA is that NPSIA's reputation exceeds that of GPSIAs. Do I believe the actual education is better? No. But (and this is literally just what I'm told from working in development and having a foot in the scene in ottawa) is that NPSIA grads have the NPSIA advantage when competing against GPSIA. That being said, I know some dope GPSIA grads doing dope things, so I wouldn't be all too worried about it if you decided thats where you needed to be! 

[sandradee]

Speaking of being awful at numbers, I'm from the west where one course is 3 credits, not 0.5, I'm trying to do the tuition calculator to understand how much tuition is for the two years (I'm actually shocked this didnt come in the formal letter) Does anyone have the figures on this? I think i had it as 4 courses a semester, times four semesters, equalling 16,000 but i really dont know if thats right. 

[Scuderia]

Hey Everyone,

I’m a long time lurker who finally decided to pipe up and say hi lol  

I am also an honours criminology and environmental studies (3.9 CGPA, 4.0 final year gpa) student like Delidas.

I received the email from Tabbitha on the 23rd and the offer of acceptance on the 1st of March with 27k funding. 

Congratulations to everyone who has been accepted, and hang tough to those who are still in limbo. I’m rooting for you guys.

Curious as to your thoughts regarding npsia vs munk? 

 

Cheers!!

 

 

 

 

 

[Delidas]

1 hour ago, sandradee said:

Speaking of being awful at numbers, I'm from the west where one course is 3 credits, not 0.5, I'm trying to do the tuition calculator to understand how much tuition is for the two years (I'm actually shocked this didnt come in the formal letter) Does anyone have the figures on this? I think i had it as 4 courses a semester, times four semesters, equalling 16,000 but i really dont know if thats right. 

https://central.carleton.ca/prod/pkg_online_fee_assess.p_main

Using this calculator, it looks like we'll be paying closer to 11K per year. I, too, find it strange that this information wasn't included in our admission offers.  

[Lucky_Tere]

Thank you so much @LoopyLex for sharing insights about the co-op, and @Darda 18 @Delidas @abibret for the advices to extend the deadline. I have made the final decision - NPSIA!

[Lucky_Tere]

1 hour ago, Delidas said:

https://central.carleton.ca/prod/pkg_online_fee_assess.p_main

Using this calculator, it looks like we'll be paying closer to 11K per year. I, too, find it strange that this information wasn't included in our admission offers.  

It shows a total of $5,382.40 for me. I am wondering if this is the amount per semester or year. Maybe @LoopyLex can provide us some insights. Also, I am wondering if you know what will happen with the funding (TAship) if we do co-op during the fall term of the second year. Thank you

[Risotto]

43 minutes ago, Lucky_Tere said:

It shows a total of $5,382.40 for me. I am wondering if this is the amount per semester or year. Maybe @LoopyLex can provide us some insights. Also, I am wondering if you know what will happen with the funding (TAship) if we do co-op during the fall term of the second year. Thank you

That should be per semester.

As for the Carleton Econ course, I took it last summer online (VOD) while taking 2 other courses and working fulltime. It was challenging because of the sheer volume of readings and work you need to complete in such a short period of time. If you fall behind it can be very difficult to catch up. On the flipside, the prof and TAs were very responsive to all student questions.

[sunshine18]

34 minutes ago, Risotto said:

That should be per semester.

As for the Carleton Econ course, I took it last summer online (VOD) while taking 2 other courses and working fulltime. It was challenging because of the sheer volume of readings and work you need to complete in such a short period of time. If you fall behind it can be very difficult to catch up. On the flipside, the prof and TAs were very responsive to all student questions.

Despite that, was it manageable to get at least a B- in the course? The only thing pushing me away from Athabasca is that I'll be taking the 2 courses separately meaning I would have to dedicate more time to it in the summer. How was the exam at carleton?

Edited March 4, 2018 by sunshine18

[LoopyLex]

5 hours ago, sandradee said:

3.) My official letter states we have until October 15th 2018 to submit our B- or higher grades in those courses. I was under the impression we needed it before we could start the program. This really took a lot of pressure off of me. 

Yep! There were folks who were still finishing up econ related stuff at the start of the semester. They're fairly lenient on this. They just want it to be done before you start the required econ class in second semester. The one advantage to having econ done early though is that you can register for classes before everyone else, since the system won't let you register automatically if you haven't completed econ. Instead, you have to send things in manually. 

5 hours ago, sandradee said:

Speaking of being awful at numbers, I'm from the west where one course is 3 credits, not 0.5, I'm trying to do the tuition calculator to understand how much tuition is for the two years (I'm actually shocked this didnt come in the formal letter) Does anyone have the figures on this? I think i had it as 4 courses a semester, times four semesters, equalling 16,000 but i really dont know if thats right. 

2 hours ago, Lucky_Tere said:

It shows a total of $5,382.40 for me. I am wondering if this is the amount per semester or year. Maybe @LoopyLex can provide us some insights. Also, I am wondering if you know what will happen with the funding (TAship) if we do co-op during the fall term of the second year. Thank you

Checking my student account right now, Fall/Winter was 11, 134.16 as a full time student taking 3 master's level classes a semester (the max allowed) and a language class, although I don't think costs change at all if you take a language class. Most students take at least 5 semesters to graduate, especially if you're planning co-op.

Things get tricky if you do co-op though. You're only allowed to take one class, and can choose to be either part time or full time. At part time, its around 1.6k for the summer. At full, its over 4k. Basically, depending on how you've gotten your funding changes whether you should go to part-time or full time during the co-op terms. I'm planning on part-time for this summer and fall (so around 3k + co-op fees at 1k) and then full time again in the winter to keep funding and take three classes. So it should end up costing me around 20k from start to finish. I ultimately will end up making money though because of funding and co-op, which is great!

Also, you're not allowed to TA/RA when on a co-op term unfortunately. However, the average amount made for a co-op is something like 10-12k, so that makes up for the funding lost.

Hope that makes sense and helps a bit.

4 hours ago, Scuderia said:

Curious as to your thoughts regarding npsia vs munk? 

NPSIA is more work force based. Munk from my understanding is more academic still. I'd suggest finding the Munk forum and asking there, I believe there's a current Munk student who's been answering questions about it. Personally, I think the facilities and faculty are of similar quality. I like NPSIA more because 1) way, way, way cheaper. Munk is obscenely expensive. So unless you have some real savings, rich parents, or are willing to go into debt, I'd avoid it. They're pretty notorious for giving out little funding compared to GPSIA and NPSIA as well, and 2) Ottawa advantage. Toronto is huge and all, but Ottawa is still THE government town. There's a lot of work opportunities here during and after your degree.

As always, I'm about if anyone has questions, just tag me and I'll appear. 

[abibret]

3 hours ago, Lucky_Tere said:

It shows a total of $5,382.40 for me. I am wondering if this is the amount per semester or year. Maybe @LoopyLex can provide us some insights. Also, I am wondering if you know what will happen with the funding (TAship) if we do co-op during the fall term of the second year. Thank you

Like @LoopyLex said, you can't be a TA while on a co-op term, although you'll make more as a co-op student than a TA. However, the TAship doesn't just disappear - it gets deferred. For me, my fall TAship (when I did a co-op) was deferred until next fall. I'll lose the funding because I'm graduating in the spring, but if you were going to take longer than the two years to graduate, then you could just do the TAship in a later term.

[Corenn]

A bit confused about NPSIA's tuition, why do I remember reading that the annual tuition cost should be like around 8000?

https://carleton.ca/studentaccounts/tuition-fees/fw-gr/fallwinter-2017-18-domestic-graduate-tuition-fees/

@LoopyLex or anyone else, would you be able to help me understand the difference?

Thanks again!

 

 

[jasper28]

@LoopyLex Would you be able to elaborate on how full time status works? From what I read on the website, they suggest taking 4 terms to complete your MA if you take the course-based option, which requires you to complete 12 courses, which would come to 3 per semester. However, since 4 of them are 0.25 credits are you still considered  full time if you were to take 2 0.5 credit courses and 1 0.25 credit courses? It doesn't make sense to me that you would have to take more in your first year and then have to fall to part-time in second year. I hope this makes sense, I'm a bit confused by it all myself 

[Risotto]

5 hours ago, sunshine18 said:

Despite that, was it manageable to get at least a B- in the course? The only thing pushing me away from Athabasca is that I'll be taking the 2 courses separately meaning I would have to dedicate more time to it in the summer. How was the exam at carleton?

It was manageable. I would suggest touching base with friends or colleagues who have a solid understanding of economics before you start. It could be helpful to bounce ideas off of them as you go through if you are not sure of some of the subject matter.

[A2018]

9 hours ago, sandradee said:

Speaking of being awful at numbers, I'm from the west where one course is 3 credits, not 0.5, I'm trying to do the tuition calculator to understand how much tuition is for the two years (I'm actually shocked this didnt come in the formal letter) Does anyone have the figures on this? I think i had it as 4 courses a semester, times four semesters, equalling 16,000 but i really dont know if thats right. 

It's not the "east" thing... It's definitely a Carleton thing! Many other schools in Ontario have 3.0 credit courses too lol 

[Scuderia]

3 hours ago, LoopyLex said:

NPSIA is more work force based. Munk from my understanding is more academic still. I'd suggest finding the Munk forum and asking there, I believe there's a current Munk student who's been answering questions about it. Personally, I think the facilities and faculty are of similar quality. I like NPSIA more because 1) way, way, way cheaper. Munk is obscenely expensive. So unless you have some real savings, rich parents, or are willing to go into debt, I'd avoid it. They're pretty notorious for giving out little funding compared to GPSIA and NPSIA as well, and 2) Ottawa advantage. Toronto is huge and all, but Ottawa is still THE government town. There's a lot of work opportunities here during and after your degree.

As always, I'm about if anyone has questions, just tag me and I'll appear. 

Thanks for your reply. I actually had a different impression, since Munk is only a coursework based masters, I thought it was geared more towards employment, and seeing as Npsia offers a thesis component and a subsequent PHD program after, I believed that it was geared more towards academia. But of course a lot of the NPSIA students end up in government after so there’s that factor as well. 

Just my impressions thus far, it’s a really difficult decision!

[LoopyLex]

3 hours ago, Corenn said:

A bit confused about NPSIA's tuition, why do I remember reading that the annual tuition cost should be like around 8000?

https://carleton.ca/studentaccounts/tuition-fees/fw-gr/fallwinter-2017-18-domestic-graduate-tuition-fees/

@LoopyLex or anyone else, would you be able to help me understand the difference?

Thanks again!

I'm really not too sure. Might be worthwhile to call and get an actual answer from a real person, haha. I just have what I'm attempting to read from Carleton Central...it's a bit of a confusing mess.

1 hour ago, jasper28 said:

@LoopyLex Would you be able to elaborate on how full time status works? From what I read on the website, they suggest taking 4 terms to complete your MA if you take the course-based option, which requires you to complete 12 courses, which would come to 3 per semester. However, since 4 of them are 0.25 credits are you still considered  full time if you were to take 2 0.5 credit courses and 1 0.25 credit courses? It doesn't make sense to me that you would have to take more in your first year and then have to fall to part-time in second year. I hope this makes sense, I'm a bit confused by it all myself 

The 0.25 courses run for 6 weeks. So you'll do two of them in one semester, one after the other. You'll always have 3 classes in each of the first two semesters and will ultimately complete 8 classes worth 3 credits (4 0.5s and 4 0.25s). You do end up taking way more classes in first year, because the expectation is that second year most people are doing co-op. Then you have the next 2-4 semesters to get the remaining 2 credits. More semesters are needed if you go the co-op route, less if you just do course work. You basically get to chose whether you want to be designated as part time or full time during co-op semesters. You'd likely be better off talking someone with Carleton for details about how that works, since I'm currently trying to figure it out myself.

1 hour ago, Scuderia said:

Thanks for your reply. I actually had a different impression, since Munk is only a coursework based masters, I thought it was geared more towards employment, and seeing as Npsia offers a thesis component and a subsequent PHD program after, I believed that it was geared more towards academia. But of course a lot of the NPSIA students end up in government after so there’s that factor as well. 

Just my impressions thus far, it’s a really difficult decision!

I could be super off on my assessment of Munk, I never applied there, haha, just heard things from others. So I'd probably ignore my thoughts on Munk.  Very few people at NPSIA go the academic route. I know all of 3 who are doing the research essay, and none who are doing a thesis. Just about everyone is participating in co-op though.

[sandradee]

Can alumni/people with insight shine some light on the type of co-op placements one can get? Specifically outside of fed government (if there even are any)? Just speaking for myself, I'm much more attracted to NGO work and aid work and career wise I would like more of a job where I actually get to visit the field. As such i'm drawn to orgos like CARE, Plan, Red Cross etc. (Also not opposed to places like GAC, I just hear they are slower, more paperwork etc). 

Also, I know this is a bit ahead of myself but I'm just wondering if full-time job prospects post NPSIA really increase. One of the biggest reasons I'm going back to school is because I'm tired of casual contract work. Im just nervous I may not end up any better off after taking two years to go to school. So just want to make sure investing in NPSIA is actually has the career rewards that I hear many people talk about. 

I know these are two loaded questions so any insight is helpful. 

 

Also- I just emailed Tabbatha regarding tuition and I will post here once I get an answer.

Edited March 4, 2018 by sandradee

[sandradee]

Alumni- Can you also speak to working while in the program that is not as a TA or coop? Student loans aren't an option for me and i recieved only 27k in funding. If tuition is 20k, then ill need to work. Just wondering if you think this is manageable or maybe how you personally manoeuvred it? 

[jasper28]

Thank you for the quick reply @LoopyLex! That makes a lot more sense and really clears things up, not sure how I had missed that the 0.25 credit classes only went for six weeks... Not sure if you can answer this or if anyone else here knows but I am curious when the timetable with the courses for the fall 2018/winter 2019 usually comes out and when registration usually opens? I know some universities in Ontario where registration is as early as February and others where it is as late as June so I am just curious to know where Carleton and more specifically NPSIA falls into this.. 

[Lucky_Tere]

11 hours ago, sandradee said:

Alumni- Can you also speak to working while in the program that is not as a TA or coop? Student loans aren't an option for me and i recieved only 27k in funding. If tuition is 20k, then ill need to work. Just wondering if you think this is manageable or maybe how you personally manoeuvred it? 

I also hope to work extra beside the TA position during school, so I am also wondering if it is possible to get a part-time job (FSWEP for example) and if it is manageable to do so. 

[alexma63]

I am curious, like @sandradee, about placements. I am particularly interested in human rights advocacy through policy change. I would like to do a placement abroad or even better, an exchange for a semester... living in Oslo or Copenhagen for a semester would be a dream. Also, I spoke to Prof Jean Daudelin about international opportunities and he mentioned that many students end up studying at Sorbonne... can anyone speak to this? 

I wanted to offer some comfort to anyone who is not receiving TA funding on their offer. I'm a student at Carleton right now and there are a substantial amount of Out of Priority TAships (OPTAs). I did not have funding as part of my current program but have had a TAship fall and winter both years of my MSW. The only catch is that you might have to apply to a variety of disciplines. 

I also wanted to say I'm rooting for the people who haven't received any confirmation of admission. I'm crossing my fingers for you guys!

P.S. A lot of administrative staff went on strike today at Carleton FYI. Not sure how this will impact admissions/program administrators but I am fairly certain they're not functioning at full capacity. 

Edited March 5, 2018 by alexma63

[spadeofhearts]

15 hours ago, sandradee said:

Can alumni/people with insight shine some light on the type of co-op placements one can get? Specifically outside of fed government (if there even are any)? Just speaking for myself, I'm much more attracted to NGO work and aid work and career wise I would like more of a job where I actually get to visit the field. As such i'm drawn to orgos like CARE, Plan, Red Cross etc. (Also not opposed to places like GAC, I just hear they are slower, more paperwork etc). 

Also, I know this is a bit ahead of myself but I'm just wondering if full-time job prospects post NPSIA really increase. One of the biggest reasons I'm going back to school is because I'm tired of casual contract work. Im just nervous I may not end up any better off after taking two years to go to school. So just want to make sure investing in NPSIA is actually has the career rewards that I hear many people talk about. 

I know these are two loaded questions so any insight is helpful. 

 

Also- I just emailed Tabbatha regarding tuition and I will post here once I get an answer.

I have the exact same Q as you, Sadradee. Interested to see other's perspectives on this. 

Edited March 5, 2018 by spadeofhearts
morning grammar :(

[LoopyLex]

17 hours ago, sandradee said:

Can alumni/people with insight shine some light on the type of co-op placements one can get? Specifically outside of fed government (if there even are any)? Just speaking for myself, I'm much more attracted to NGO work and aid work and career wise I would like more of a job where I actually get to visit the field. As such i'm drawn to orgos like CARE, Plan, Red Cross etc. (Also not opposed to places like GAC, I just hear they are slower, more paperwork etc). 

Also, I know this is a bit ahead of myself but I'm just wondering if full-time job prospects post NPSIA really increase. One of the biggest reasons I'm going back to school is because I'm tired of casual contract work. Im just nervous I may not end up any better off after taking two years to go to school. So just want to make sure investing in NPSIA is actually has the career rewards that I hear many people talk about. 

I know these are two loaded questions so any insight is helpful. 

Also- I just emailed Tabbatha regarding tuition and I will post here once I get an answer.

There haven't been many NGOs (if any) posted to the co-op board as of this year that I've seen. This does change each year though. There was one job for a corporation doing aid work in their philanthropy department, but that's about it as of now. The issue is that NGOs typically don't have the budget to pay for a full time co-op student. However, you may get opportunities to work with them through the internship program that goes on in the winter term. I'm currently interning at Mines Action Canada, which does work lobbying against non-discriminate weapons. The internship is a good chance to get an opportunity at a place that otherwise couldn't afford you, but you also don't get paid and its only once a week.

Full-time job prospects increase from what I've heard from second years and alumni. They call NPSIA alumni the NPSIA mafia in Ottawa, cause they're everywhere, haha. Many people move into full time positions right after they graduate, because the co-op they did likes them and keeps them on. Someone who has finished the program could likely speak better to this.

17 hours ago, sandradee said:

Alumni- Can you also speak to working while in the program that is not as a TA or coop? Student loans aren't an option for me and i recieved only 27k in funding. If tuition is 20k, then ill need to work. Just wondering if you think this is manageable or maybe how you personally manoeuvred it? 

Lots of people work part-time. I know a few nuts that do full time. If you're only taking three classes, this comes out to a whopping 10 hours of class a week (9 hours of lectures, 1 hour of tutorial). The workload for each class varies, but so long as you keep on top of it, it never gets too overwhelming. I definitely think it's manageable.

15 hours ago, jasper28 said:

Thank you for the quick reply @LoopyLex! That makes a lot more sense and really clears things up, not sure how I had missed that the 0.25 credit classes only went for six weeks... Not sure if you can answer this or if anyone else here knows but I am curious when the timetable with the courses for the fall 2018/winter 2019 usually comes out and when registration usually opens? I know some universities in Ontario where registration is as early as February and others where it is as late as June so I am just curious to know where Carleton and more specifically NPSIA falls into this.. 

Looks like registration was in late June this year. As for when courses become available to search, I don't know if there's a set date for that. I would likely think sometime in May.