Orientation was on Thursday. Almost the whole entering class of 85 MPP and MPA students gathered in the Michigan Union to eat two meals; meet each other and the Ford School faculty and staff; and get some advice for navigating the coming months. Afterwards, I went for a self-guided tour of brand-new Weill Hall (Aside: every time I move into a new department, that department seems to get a new building.), registration on the school's eRecruiting system, and a math test to get me out of the standard first-year calculus course. It was a day of name tags, where-are-you-froms, and folders filled with multicolored handouts.
My classmates are a genuinely interesting crowd. Having spent two years on a mission, I had expected to be older than most of them, but that's not actually the case. Many of the others have been working at non-profits, doing extended internships for government, or otherwise kicking around for at least as long as I have. I'm probably just a little younger than average.
Like me, many of the other students don't really know what they're planning on doing, careerwise. The common denominator among public policy grad students seems to consist of two factors: 1) a scarcely bounded sense of idealism and personal responsibility for improving the world at large, and 2) no solid idea about where to start. It's an unusual kind of ambition.
My classes reflect that. I'm signed up for four three-credit classes starting next week. Later, I may add a half-credit seminar on China or macroeconomics, but for now, the lineup is:
- accelerated microeconomics
- program evaluation
- issues in education policy
- elections and campaigns
yoroshiku
-Abe
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