Have you ever considered what you could get from an education in Public Service? For the past few months, I've been exploring Masters and Ph.D programs in Public Service, trying to figure out what value I could get from it. My most recent trip included an open house visit to NYU Wagner's School of Public Service. Here are a few observations/conclusions I made from my trip.
1) MPP programs are really managerial training programs. The core skills that you learn are the same ones that you'd pick up in an MBA program: how to manage, how to lead, and how to measure.
2) Whil both MPP and MBA programs utilize a socratic case study method in the classroom, the actual material is different. MPP programs focus on social problems and emphasizes readings in current methodologies, while MBA programs focus on business problems. Skillls derived from either programs should be transferrable.
3) Students in MPP Programs seem to be relatively deficient in Mathematics and Economics compared to their MBA counterparts. It seems odd that students could successfully deal with government problems without having a better grasp of the underlying economic theories that explain public sector programs.
4) MPP programs seem to be a less rigorous version of law school, and a less managerial version of Business school. Law schools students learn the underlying theories that govern society, while business school students learn how to manage and measure change. MPP programs seem to fit somewhere in the middle of these two programs, but lacks the strength of either.
5) MPP classses appear to be extremely interesting, as classroom discussion is centered around fixing large issues that haunt our world.
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