Will I make it as an MPA?
May 28, 2010 10:58 AM Subscribe
Were you a Liberal Arts undergrad who got an MPA and ended up in government? I need your help. (Snowflakery inside)
(TL;DR under all this stuff)
Here's my educational history with proper names for NYC residents:
Went to a Moderately Prestigious Engineering High School (Brooklyn Tech.)
Went to an Moderately Prestigious Engineering University for Computer Science in NYC (Brooklyn Polytech.)
Nearly flunked out and transferred to not-too-selective Liberal Arts University as an English major (Brooklyn College)
Dropped out (due to documented and corrected health issues) before flunking out with a semester and a half of Fs on my transcript.
Worked for a few years.
Went to Community College in Los Angeles for a year. Got straight As and one F in a one-credit course.
Came back to Liberal Arts University and had a semester of Fs withdrawn due to retroactive documented medical exemption.
Got straight As for a year doing part time. Straight As for three semesters full time. Almost all in upper-level Literature courses.
Mom got sick, died during the middle of the Spring 09 semester (just ended) and I became head of the family, consisting of my mom's recently-emigrated new husband and three elderly, ailing grandparents.
Grandfather and mom's husband ended up in hospital with serious issues around finals, so I might not have straight As this semester.
Also, for the last three years I've been working in a Big Name non-profit directly providing social services (employment) to the disabled and disadvantaged population, although this is not what this non-profit is generally known for. I maintain records and do QA. I've written minor office policy and done legal research and given training. The fact that I Help People, no matter how minor my position is, is the only thing that gets me out of bed when I have to go to work. Working in a big system that helps people is the only kind of work I honestly think I could do, never mind enjoy.
Now, I want to work in government, preferably on the back-end of providing social services. My best friend does this and she'll be able to help me in all sorts of ways, possibly even with getting a job (in the connections way, not nepotism.) So, I plan to go to CUNY Baruch to get an MPA.
TL;DR:
I didn't major in History or PoliSci, although I've taken a few classes in the latter and I'm taking the one and only policy class my college offers next semester. I've never done political action or volunteered. I've never had an internship, although I plan to quit my job and bust my ass to find a good internship when I get into grad school. Is this all a big pipe dream? Do I stand a chance in government?
(TL;DR under all this stuff)
Here's my educational history with proper names for NYC residents:
Went to a Moderately Prestigious Engineering High School (Brooklyn Tech.)
Went to an Moderately Prestigious Engineering University for Computer Science in NYC (Brooklyn Polytech.)
Nearly flunked out and transferred to not-too-selective Liberal Arts University as an English major (Brooklyn College)
Dropped out (due to documented and corrected health issues) before flunking out with a semester and a half of Fs on my transcript.
Worked for a few years.
Went to Community College in Los Angeles for a year. Got straight As and one F in a one-credit course.
Came back to Liberal Arts University and had a semester of Fs withdrawn due to retroactive documented medical exemption.
Got straight As for a year doing part time. Straight As for three semesters full time. Almost all in upper-level Literature courses.
Mom got sick, died during the middle of the Spring 09 semester (just ended) and I became head of the family, consisting of my mom's recently-emigrated new husband and three elderly, ailing grandparents.
Grandfather and mom's husband ended up in hospital with serious issues around finals, so I might not have straight As this semester.
Also, for the last three years I've been working in a Big Name non-profit directly providing social services (employment) to the disabled and disadvantaged population, although this is not what this non-profit is generally known for. I maintain records and do QA. I've written minor office policy and done legal research and given training. The fact that I Help People, no matter how minor my position is, is the only thing that gets me out of bed when I have to go to work. Working in a big system that helps people is the only kind of work I honestly think I could do, never mind enjoy.
Now, I want to work in government, preferably on the back-end of providing social services. My best friend does this and she'll be able to help me in all sorts of ways, possibly even with getting a job (in the connections way, not nepotism.) So, I plan to go to CUNY Baruch to get an MPA.
TL;DR:
I didn't major in History or PoliSci, although I've taken a few classes in the latter and I'm taking the one and only policy class my college offers next semester. I've never done political action or volunteered. I've never had an internship, although I plan to quit my job and bust my ass to find a good internship when I get into grad school. Is this all a big pipe dream? Do I stand a chance in government?
My resume looks a lot like yours, in the negatives at least:
Didn't major in History or PoliSci -- yep, that's me too.
No political action or volunteering -- nope, me neither.
Never had an internship -- nor have I.
Good grades, minus some documented reasons why not -- well, no. I always had decent-but-not-spectacular grades.
And yet, I got into a highly prestigious MPP/MPA program on my first try because I laid out pretty well in my Statement of Purpose why all of that crap doesn't matter and I'm better than some 22-year-old Political Science major who's never had to work a day in his damn life. Go for it.
But, as k8t very reasonably asks, do you need an MPA? Get the job via your friend. See whether you like it. See if there's some way you can go to Baruch on someone else's dime. Audit courses, or take one at a time for credit and assemble your own degree.
You will always, always, always wonder whether you could have. Either way you do it, at least if you try, you'll know.
posted by Etrigan at 11:17 AM on May 28, 2010
Didn't major in History or PoliSci -- yep, that's me too.
No political action or volunteering -- nope, me neither.
Never had an internship -- nor have I.
Good grades, minus some documented reasons why not -- well, no. I always had decent-but-not-spectacular grades.
And yet, I got into a highly prestigious MPP/MPA program on my first try because I laid out pretty well in my Statement of Purpose why all of that crap doesn't matter and I'm better than some 22-year-old Political Science major who's never had to work a day in his damn life. Go for it.
But, as k8t very reasonably asks, do you need an MPA? Get the job via your friend. See whether you like it. See if there's some way you can go to Baruch on someone else's dime. Audit courses, or take one at a time for credit and assemble your own degree.
You will always, always, always wonder whether you could have. Either way you do it, at least if you try, you'll know.
posted by Etrigan at 11:17 AM on May 28, 2010
Response by poster: Can you get that government job doing social service work WITHOUT an MPA?
Yes, but at a certain point, you can't advance any higher. Whether I will be satisfied before I reach that point or not is opaque. However, my mom went to grad school part-time while I was in high school and based on her experience I want to get the degree while I can actually work on it full-time.
What about your current job? Can you stay with it?
For many, many reasons both within and without: under no circumstance.
posted by griphus at 11:20 AM on May 28, 2010
Yes, but at a certain point, you can't advance any higher. Whether I will be satisfied before I reach that point or not is opaque. However, my mom went to grad school part-time while I was in high school and based on her experience I want to get the degree while I can actually work on it full-time.
What about your current job? Can you stay with it?
For many, many reasons both within and without: under no circumstance.
posted by griphus at 11:20 AM on May 28, 2010
Response by poster: Oh, and just to add: the type of job I would be doing would not be conducive to part-time grad school -- synthetic work, 60 hours weeks, etc.. I'm a bit ...fragile... regarding stress, especially w/r/t school, and while I can handle either/or, I don't think I'd be able to work and go to grad school at the same time.
posted by griphus at 11:25 AM on May 28, 2010
posted by griphus at 11:25 AM on May 28, 2010
Has your friend indicated that they would be unable to get you connected without an MPA? I would be surprised if this is the case. I know the economy feels horrible right now and that it feels like there are lawyers and former US Presidents stalking the streets looking for every entry level job that you might try to get, but I assure you that is not a great reason to just jump into a graduate program.
I work for a nonprofit that subcontracts with the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Disaster Housing Assistance Program. My primary contact from within that organization holds a bachelor's degree in business. She is in charge of all social services for the agency. I would be surprised if the individual caseworkers had college degrees, let alone master's degrees.
The director of the (HUD organized) Housing Authority, which is administering FEMA's program, has a JD. I think she and I are the two people in the building with the highest educational credentials except possibly for a couple post-disaster therapists running around with MSWs and PhDs.
Honestly, I think you're better off just looking for a job that requires a bachelor's degree and some years of experience which you have. If you play your cards right and get in with the right agency, you should be fine to work your way up the civil service chain, and at some point down the road you might meet the glass ceiling that seems to indicate that you'll need to get a graduate degree to progress any further.
posted by greekphilosophy at 11:27 AM on May 28, 2010
I work for a nonprofit that subcontracts with the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Disaster Housing Assistance Program. My primary contact from within that organization holds a bachelor's degree in business. She is in charge of all social services for the agency. I would be surprised if the individual caseworkers had college degrees, let alone master's degrees.
The director of the (HUD organized) Housing Authority, which is administering FEMA's program, has a JD. I think she and I are the two people in the building with the highest educational credentials except possibly for a couple post-disaster therapists running around with MSWs and PhDs.
Honestly, I think you're better off just looking for a job that requires a bachelor's degree and some years of experience which you have. If you play your cards right and get in with the right agency, you should be fine to work your way up the civil service chain, and at some point down the road you might meet the glass ceiling that seems to indicate that you'll need to get a graduate degree to progress any further.
posted by greekphilosophy at 11:27 AM on May 28, 2010
I wonder if a Masters of Social Work might be a better credential for you anyway, if you're more interested in social services.
FWIW - I'm in government, in doing policy, reporting and research for an economic development agency and my masters is in International Relations (and has very little in common with my job). Only about half of my colleagues have post-graduate degrees (the rest have BAs), and it's pretty mixed between MBA/MPA (technical sort of degrees) and Political Science/History/English, etc.
Transferable skills are big here and the point isn't to necessarily have one specific degree that prepares you for job X (that's the point of trade schools, universities are designed to be something more than that!), but to have an advanced degree in something that employs the correct skills: writing, analysis, administration, etc. and demonstrates your capability to think critically, produce quality work and defend it. (Unless you're wanting to be in Finance or some other more technical field that requires more particular credentials.) If you'll be intellectually stimulated doing an MPA, then go ahead, but I wouldn't discount more traditional academic programs in favour of the technical MPA/MBA route necessarily.
posted by Kurichina at 1:19 PM on May 28, 2010
FWIW - I'm in government, in doing policy, reporting and research for an economic development agency and my masters is in International Relations (and has very little in common with my job). Only about half of my colleagues have post-graduate degrees (the rest have BAs), and it's pretty mixed between MBA/MPA (technical sort of degrees) and Political Science/History/English, etc.
Transferable skills are big here and the point isn't to necessarily have one specific degree that prepares you for job X (that's the point of trade schools, universities are designed to be something more than that!), but to have an advanced degree in something that employs the correct skills: writing, analysis, administration, etc. and demonstrates your capability to think critically, produce quality work and defend it. (Unless you're wanting to be in Finance or some other more technical field that requires more particular credentials.) If you'll be intellectually stimulated doing an MPA, then go ahead, but I wouldn't discount more traditional academic programs in favour of the technical MPA/MBA route necessarily.
posted by Kurichina at 1:19 PM on May 28, 2010
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Can you get that government job doing social service work WITHOUT an MPA? MPA = 2 years and loan debt probably.
What about your current job? Can you stay with it?
posted by k8t at 11:13 AM on May 28, 2010