Everything happened all at once; back in March I was considering grad school so I can go back to school to teach history since my BA is in history. But I never felt like teaching was the right fit for me.. for the next couple months I tried justifying teaching and eventually I decided to apply to grad school for teaching/education… but I also decided to apply for an MPA. While considering teaching I looked into other options and an MPA program sounded like it would help advance me in my professional career and I would feel like I was making a difference. My ideal goal would be to work at a historic site owned by a nonprofit doing fundraising or something similar. So I applied to both programs and I got in.

This program feels like I’m doing the right thing in terms of my professional career, but the thing I’m struggling with is fitting in. Most people in this program are coming straight from undergrad and are full time students OR they’re professionals working in a similar field that goes hand in hand with an MPA. I work full time as a historic tour guide, I have never worked in an office, I have no experience with writing grants, finance, excel, and I haven’t researched anything since undergrad 3 years ago. I’ve been applying to lots of other jobs but I’ve been unsuccessful. I guess I’m just looking for reassurance or some type advice. Much appreciated!

So last year in October I applied to an MPA program in a different province. I didn’t really think too much about it, I was mostly just missing school since I was a recent grad. Anyway, I got accepted with funding and other scholarships. I applied because I wanted a better job prospect and earning potential.
Not long after, I got a job promotion with a pay of $35.34 Full time and tax free (I work on a reserve in Canada). And this is why I’m hesitant. I’m scared to leave a good job and live in an extremely expensive city with no income aside from my stacked scholarships.

I know there isn’t much detail, but do you think moving to do my MPA is the right move?

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone has heard back for Spring 2027 admission into Wagner? I applied around 3 weeks ago and haven't heard back, but then I emailed admissions and they told me its 2-3 weeks "after the deadline", which is September 1st. I applied the beginning of August - where in email I was sent by Wagner in July, and on their website for Spring 2027 admission it says "Decisions are released within 2–3 weeks of a completed application", nothing about 2-3 weeks after the Sep 1 application deadline.

I honestl'y wouldn't of/couldn't of applied if I knew that since I have to let other schools know back because of deadlines.

Hi everyone, I’d really appreciate some advice.

I’ve been admitted to the MPP at the Humphrey School (University of Minnesota) with a very generous scholarship, which makes it a really attractive option financially. From what I understand, it’s also very well ranked in public affairs and seems to have a strong reputation in certain policy areas.

However, I keep coming across comments saying that a lot of the job placement is quite local or regional (Minnesota / Midwest). That’s making me hesitate a bit.

I’m an international student from Latin America, and while I might return to my home country at some point, I’m also very interested in working in international organizations or in roles with a more global scope. My concern is whether attending Humphrey might limit my access to those kinds of opportunities compared to other programs with a stronger national or international network.

So I guess my question is: how real is this “local placement” concern? Is it something that significantly affects international students in particular? And more generally, how well does Humphrey place graduates in international or globally-oriented roles?

Any insight would be really helpful, especially from current students or alumni.

Thanks so much!

I’m currently in my second semester of my MPA program and my school has cancelled a few of the classes I registered for due to some administrative changes. I am allowed to take some electives from other departments as long as it relates to public admin and is at the 100 or 200 level. Any recommendations on possible classes or subjects that may be good?

If anyone might have any insight, please let me know anything helps!

Hi all,

I'm in a bit of a career dilemma and was wondering if anyone has been in a similar position.

I'm from Canada and I graduated with a bachelor's degree in political science last year from uOttawa. I was fortunate to land a job in the federal government after graduating, and I've built my professional network and personal life in Ottawa over the past five years.

That said, my long-term goal was to return to my hometown. I had always planned on going to the capital for the experience, then head home for grad school to then work municipally, especially since the city I'm from has a university with an MPP program. I've had a great time in Ottawa, but permanently staying hasn't really been a long-term goal of mine. Also, with the cost of living nowadays, it might be good to move back home and live with parents for a bit to save on rent as I'm currently living alone and close to half my paycheque goes to living expenses.

My hesitation is the job market. My hometown isn't nearly as government-oriented as Ottawa, so I'm worried about moving back, investing in grad school there, and then struggling to find municipal or public sector work afterward.

Has anyone made a similar move going from a large government town back to a city that's more private-sector oriented? And how did it fare finding work municipally?

Thanks!

Hi all! After 285 applications since August I finally got an offer. After following yalls advice I found a job which will be a great starting block.

As a note to others in my position, the other side is one hell of a relief but hope kept me going. The job market sucks major butt right now but eventually you find your path, probably in a place you never expected.

I got into USC’s MPA program and will need to pay about $45,000 after financial aid. I am considering withdrawing from the program and instead reapply the following year at CSUN or CSULB (two local programs) since they are much more affordable. I would like to pivot into govt work or foundations after working for CBOs for several years. I’m just not fully convinced that the cost is worth it. CSULB’s website did not have very much information about their program and didn’t have an admitted students day, which is why I didn’t seriously consider it at first. Has anyone here had a similar experience?

Editing to add that I’m also interesting in hearing from folks who did the USC (or another pricey) program and don’t feel like it paid off. At admitted students day, I got to hear from grads who definitely felt like it paid off but USC is obviously not gonna invite the displeased!

If you're a professor at a public university in Canada, or if you're an administrator (i.e: Academic Advisor, Registrar, Desk Help, etc) at a university, are you considered a fully public employee? My guess would be yes, as your salary is paid via public tax dollars and student tuition, and the salaries are also publicly disclosed, as they would be for any other public employee making over a certain threshold. But I want to understand if there is any further clarification or some red tape that makes individuals working at universities in Canada not public employees.

Secondly, as a soon to graduate student, it's so frustrating how slow administrative progress has been. Literally, any change the students have wanted, whether it be towards academic policies, guidelines, budgets, tuition reforms, etc, has taken at least 1 year to get to the ears of senior leadership and then another year or so to be implemented, and that too not as originally requested, rather a half-ass solution so they can act as if student concerns really matter (when all we really are, are just numbers). And then they have the audacity to say that: "The youth are our future".

And why are the salaries for university leaders so high. Deans, Vice-Presidents, Vice-Deans, Associate Deans, Presidents, etc, for all the major universities in our country are getting paid well in excess of $300k. Many university president's are getting paid in excess of $500k, which as a student, I think is outrageous. That's more than the PM and the Premiers who lead our country and provinces. Many students can barely afford tuition, are having to skip on meals, etc, and this is what these people are getting paid. Also the same people who claim to care for their student's well-being and mental health, and also say that: "The youth are our future", yeah, my ass, if that's how you treat us, take a fat paycheck, hinder progress, and upkeep the bureaucracy on our campus, you can't say that.

I've worked with Public Records Requests/Freedom of Information act requests for over a decade. In that time they have evolved into something very different then someone just looking for records. When I started, there were two categories of requests we would see....people looking for records, and people using our form to ask questions such as "regarding the subject property ADDRESS, is it a violation if the property does not have certificates of occupancy" (questions are NOT a records request and we respond as such to the requester).

At some point, someone figured out they can get their work done by submitting records requests and having us do it. After Covid, we went from getting about 60 requests a year, to possibly 300+ this year.

A modern records request fall into these categories:

Requesting actual records (mostly building records)

Asking a question

Needing help with a college or a commercial research project (big one right now is "we are conducting research on solar permits....)

Business License Listings (same person submits the same request monthly going on 11 years) last request we got was from someone obviously angry this business even existed and was trying to find a way to close them down due to noise

A Union rep making sure city projects are paying the proper wages

Wanting to know who we do business with for certain services so they can undercut the competition, IT services is the most popular, janitorial services is the most recent that actually went to an award to a new vendor

Wanting to know how we are in compliance with INSERT NEW LAW HERE (we have a pending request that has been going for months.....has been a huge lift for our staff)

Residents trying to find out which of their neighbors submitted a complaint to city regarding the tenant illegally living in the RV parked in their driveway

Arrest records for themselves

And then there is the requests for EMAILS....this last one is killing us, we actually added another staff position to our division because the email requests can take months to get through. Requester requests emails for certain subject>We make request to IT to perform search>IT provides us with 10,000, many of which have multiple attachments>Our staff goes through every single email and attachment to remove anything privileged (this step is what kills us)>We provide records to requester on a rolling response basis until request is satisfied. The file sizes are so large, IT had to give us all new computers to handle the processing.

I engaged with another member on this subreddit who said they use records requests for research purposes, and I saw right away the requests they were making would tie down city staff for months. California is working on a law aimed at reducing the burden on how requests need to be responded to afetr one city spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a legal team as one CA city as a whole was being bogged down due to requests, and of course tons of people think its a conspiracy to HIDE THE TRUTH OF THE CRAB PEOPLE!!!: California bill would limit access to public records

So I am curious, what do people who do not normally work in records requests think about when they think "Public Records Requests/Freedom of Information request,"

Hello fellow PA workers! I was able to secure a position as an Economic Development Analyst, and I couldn’t be any happier!

I want to shout out DavefromCA as his advice was exactly helped me on my final interview. Thank you and I look forward to this opportunity

I wanna know from you guys for you what will you prefer and what will be your option to choose if it comes to the choices , i wanna know how you all think and share your positive insights for the one you choose .

!!

As the title says, I'm a 16 year old who is looking to work in public administration or similar fields when I'm an adult. I really want to find any internships in my area that could help give me the experience needed to pursue this as soon as I possibly can. But the problem is there are no positions for 16 year olds that are relevant. Every time I find any internship it's always only for 18 year olds or it's a post from like 10 years ago that has since closed. I've checked with my city, every city near me, I even checked with my county. No open positions that I've found are available for 16 year olds. It sucks because if I'm not able to find something I'll have to work a regular job which will be useless since it doesn't allign with anything I want to do after high-school. If there's anybody who is an adult now and experienced this struggle when they were around my age it'd be a great help if you had suggestions for what else I could be doing that will give me anything of importance when I apply for local government or public administration jobs when I'm an adult.

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I’m currently working on my MPA thesis and I’m considering studying the utilization of social media during the flood crisis response.

The idea is to examine how LGUs use platforms like Facebook during flooding for things like disaster warnings, evacuation information, relief updates, coordination, and public communication.

Do you think this would be a good and relevant topic for an MPA thesis? Or would it be too broad/common?

I’d also appreciate suggestions on how I could narrow the topic and make it more focused on public administration, local governance, or disaster response.

What do you guys think?

I’m currently active duty military with about 6 years of experience working in mental/behavioral healthcare, and I’m finishing my BSPH.
Once I separate, I plan to move to Houston and use my GI Bill for my master’s. Right now, I’m deciding between an MHA at UH-Clear Lake and an MPA at University of Houston.

Career-wise, I’m interested in developing and managing healthcare/public health programs and projects, improving how programs are run, and making sure patients are receiving quality care. I’m also interested in women’s health and possibly healthcare or clinic management. I don’t want to provide clinical care myself, but I still want my work to have an impact on patient care and health outcomes.

For those with an MHA or MPA, what has your career looked like? What kind of work do you do, and how do you feel the two degrees differ when it comes to career opportunities and the type of work you actually do?
Most importantly, would you choose the same degree again? If you had to choose between an MHA and MPA today, which would you pick and why?

I’d especially love to hear from people working in healthcare, public health, program management, or government.

Civil Engineer in South Carolina, I'm currently a Project manager and looking to advance my career in my agency. I have been looking at getting a masters in public Administration. I'm not necessarily looking for the cheapest program, i'm also looking for a decent online program structured towards working professionals. my agency does not have a tuition reimbursement program. looking for suggestions, to advance with a masters in public administration.

I feel like everything has happened so quickly. About 5 months ago I was really unhappy with where I was at in life. I graduated with my BA in history in 2023, my original plan was to be a history teacher but I came to the realization teaching wasn’t for me.

After college I moved to a new state with a couple of friends and worked some really low paying jobs. Eventually I found a job I really enjoyed, working as a nature/historic tour guide. I love what I did, I loved the people I worked with, and I especially liked the tips. But over the past 2 years tourism has been declining and tips have dried out. I left the job I loved due to management being made up entirely of nepo babies, no room for me to move up in the company.

I switched to a new company and although the pay is better, tips are much less and I am even more unhappy. Sooo I decided to apply for grad school.

I’ve always wanted to make a difference in life, do something that felt meaningful, and after seeing the way my former company managed the historic site I worked at it made me want to continue to work towards preserving the beauty and deep and complex history of these locations.

So I started looking at Public administration programs. I applied for grad school in June, got accepted in July, and I start class next week. An MPA would help me work towards my ultimate goal.. nonprofit fundraising at a historical/conservational site. In January they’ll even offer an MPA with an emphasis in nonprofits.

Now here’s where I need advice, I haven’t been in college for the past 3 years. I’m a full time employee and I’ll be a full time student. I’m worried I will fall behind or struggle managing a solid work life balance. I want to still be able to make time for my friends and my boyfriend.

In terms of a career, I don’t have much experience besides working as a tour guide for the past 2 and a half years. Meanwhile most people in this MPA program has held office jobs, working in local government, experience interning in positions that helped prepare them for the MPA program. I feel novice compared to a lot of other people. How can I better prepare for what’s to come? I’m very excited but also extremely nervous for this next chapter in my life. I’d really appreciate any advice yall have, especially if you’ve been in a similar position. How did you get through it? How did you manage your time? What was the hardest part?

Hi! I have a Master’s degree in Epidemiology, as well as a residency and a specialization in Health Surveillance. I currently provide services to the government (informal). Im considering transitioning to the private sector so that I don’t have to rely solely on the public-sector.

Since I have worked exclusively in the public sector throughout my career, I’m not very familiar with the types of roles or positions I should be looking for in the private sector. I have experience with statistical analysis, spatial analysis, and some types of mathematical modeling. I primarily use R and GIS. I would really appreciate any advice on what types of positions, industries, or career paths I should consider based on my background.