What is Stanford's Master's in International Policy program like?

March 19, 2020 10:55 AM

I have been thinking of doing a master's in political science with a co-op or a master's in public policy/international policy. I have also been told I sgould do a master's in political science at a top school in Canada (McGill, uWaterloo, or U of T) first and then apply to the Stanford's after finishing a master's in political science. I do not have much feedback on Stanford's Ford Dorsey's master's in International Policy and would like to learn more.

Does anyone know much about Stanford's Master's International Policy program? Would it be worth the time even though there is only one summer internship? This is a two-year program. I am not sure if it would be a good degree, or if it would be better to get into political science/research or something like a law degree. Is public policy an in-demand skill? Would it be good to know some programming? This specific degree is heavily focused on econmetrics and statistics, so I would need to brush up on my math and stats for sure. I have always wanted to work for a tech start-up as well, but I doubt this kind of degree would be handy for it? Something like blockchain for food sustainability.

posted by RearWindow to Education (2 answers total)

Okay, as someone who used to work in post-secondary education, majored in something similar to what I think one of your majors is, went to grad school for something similar to what you want to do, and is an alum of one of the institutions you mentioned, I'm somewhat unclear on what your goals are, but I'm going to make some assumptions that indirectly answer your questions in a long-ass essay:

In general, it isn't advisable to get two master's degrees in cognate fields, which political science and public policy very much are. It's also unlikely to be a good investment of your time, and may raise questions for hiring managers, as well as your academic referees. This is something that you'll begin to notice as you search for entry-level jobs and do more informational interviews with folks who are a few years ahead of you career-wise; you'll figure out quickly that lots of your target entry-level jobs are held by people with either degree. Public policy degrees (MPP/MPA/MPS/etc) have a bit of an advantage in that they are professional degrees* so their curricula is better designed to efficiently give you job-ready skills. That doesn't mean, though, that folks who come out of MA programs like Norman Patterson or Global Governance at Waterloo are at all unlikely to have developed a similar skill set through their coursework and/or research choices*.

Reading between the lines, you also do not need to use a graduate program's internship to get entry-level experience if you held a related internship through another graduate program. I also wonder if you have a realistic understanding of how the acquisition of analytical skills doesn't quite line up to specific disciplines, especially at the graduate level, especially in the social sciences, and how those work to move people into the labour market. The more you talk to recent-ish grads in the kinds of jobs you want (or the people who routinely hire and train those people), the more you'll understand what graduate training options make sense for you.

Also reading between the lines, if the real issue here is that your statistics and economics background prevents you from being admissible to a Canadian public policy or public administration graduate program (or any graduate program that has a significant quantitative focus), there are far more efficient ways of fixing that than through pursuing another graduate degree. For example, I know a lot of people with humanities undergrad degrees who did a few 200- and 300-level credits in econ and stats as non-degree seeking students prior to applying and successfully being admitted to a public policy program. People usually do this through either their undergrad alma maters or Athabasca, but there are other ways of solving this that do not involve matriculating into a graduate program. One of the people I know who was in this situation ultimately matriculated at an American public policy program at an Ivy League institution. I have no knowledge of your transcript so I can't tell you specifically what could be realistic for you or what your available options are for taking pre-reqs, but your university will be able to help you with the latter.

As for the Stanford program, this goes back to the whole professional vs. academic master's issue and your understanding of the differences*. Again, enrolling in an academic MA program to improve your chances of getting into a professional master's program in a related field is unlikely to make sense or be a good use of your time. Unlike in the United States where students sometimes enrol in terminal non-professional MA programs to improve their chances of admissibility to a doctoral program*, that's not really the point of Canadian MA programs vis a vis further admission to a professional program, at least for the disciplines you're considering. People do this for med school here, yes, but the context is very very different.

Just based on the gestalt of your questions about choosing a public policy-related program, it sounds like your goal is to efficiently combine social science and data analyst skills so that you can be employable. The long and complicated answer to that is that there are a lot of ways to get there at the graduate school level, but almost all of them involve having a bit of undergrad econ and good performance in a statistics course intended for social science majors. Look at admissions requirements for the top MPP programs in Canada, as well as MA programs intended for students who want quant-y social science preparation for the labour market (e.g. MA in Econ Policy at MacMaster) to get a sense of the range of additional undergrad courses you may need to pick up, then talk to someone in your registrar's office or faculty about what approach is best for enrolling in these courses.

I'm not trying to be unnecessarily difficult on you. Depending on which university you're at now I can completely understand why you may not have a good understanding of how non-STEM grads transition into the labour market. Education is important, but credential-seeking without being able to understand a path towards your long-term goals isn't in your best interest.

* If you don't entirely understand the implications of being in a professional vs. academically-oriented master's program, or the difference between the context of these programs in Canada versus the US, then you really need to hold off on applying or matriculating until you talk to people at the programs you're interested in.
posted by blerghamot at 3:15 PM on March 19, 2020 [2 favorites]

The previous answer was great but really there is no need to do 2 Masters!
posted by k8t at 6:40 AM on March 20, 2020 [2 favorites]