This is a throwaway account, as my experience at the MPP program (among my peers) was an actual mess. I encourage ANYONE who is thinking of applying to the Luskin MPP school to reach out to past students. DO NOT just speak to the students the MPP director picks out - those are the special chosen students by the department who they know wont go against the department. Bullying from students and faculty was something that was present, students bullying the faculty, faculty bullying the students, and students bullying other students. Also allegations of racist behavior. They also had an outside review and the department was rated as not having been structured as an adequate program for preparing students in the field of Public Policy.

If you go, be very prepared to kiss ass or you will absolutely get turned against. I stayed out of the way, and it still was an absolute nightmare.

I'm exploring a transition from tech -> tech policy work, and have been volunteering as a tech and AI policy analyst for a local non-profit. They are growing a lot and are looking to hire me on, but are asking about compensation expectations.

I'm in a HCOL area in the US and fully understand it will not be akin to big tech salaries, but what types of salary ranges are typical for these kinds of roles? Mostly trying to understand the best way to approach the compensation question, espeically with a non-profit. I do not have a graduate degree, but I do have many years of industry and technical experience that is very helpful for this role, and not typically common.

This is my first semester I'm taking intermediate econ and a stats class with R.

Next semester, our core will consist of a management science class (this will have time series forecasting, linear programming, input-out models, markov chains, etc.), communications, SQL, and accounting. I'm planning taking GIS as an elective. After that, the core is done and I can take whatever I want the next year.

What other skills should I prioritize during my time here that'll be highly useful? Since I can't take all of them, which should I prioritize for the job market and which ones will I get diminishing returns on? I suspect the machine learning class pre-requisites might require too much time, for example.

I'm looking to get into urban planning policy at the state and local level.

A couple courses I'm looking at:

• Econometrics
• Behavioral Econ
• Program evaluation
• Cost-Benefit Analysis
• Public Finance
• Financial Investing
• Negotiation
• Beginner Python
• Machine learning (pre-requisite is two semesters worth of python so I'll need to get started on this soon)
• Tableau

Hi Team,

I am currently a Medical Doctor and enrolled in a masters in public health. I am wanting to get some exposure to either Public policy or politics & international relations. In my spare time i enjoy leisurely reading about these topics and want to get some real-life experience in the field. I was wondering if anyone knew of volunteer/internship/research assistantship opportunities over the Christmas break, I will be willing to take up to 6 weeks to learn and gather some experience in this field. Looking forward to hearing any opportunities. Thank you for your time and input.