Two-Year MPA Program Session

We're going to get started in just a second, but in the mean time would be helpful just to know that you can hear me if you can can you just type hello in the check box?

Hello and welcome to this virtual session about the two year. MBA program at the Harvard Kennedy School. Just a few logistics. You can submit questions anytime during a presentation in the chat section an when you're posing a question here try to remember that this might be your only chance to hear from students currently enrolled in the program. We're going to bring in a panel of current M, PS after a few minutes of me, giving you some answers to our FA QS an I'll be available for questions by.

Email or Phone after the session and so will the rest of the MPA team and the admissions office. So I encourage you to take advantage of this chance to hear about our students experiences.

Um this presentation, I'm going to start by answering some questions that we get most often about the two year. MBA program and afterwards will pause for a second while I bring in the group of current students and if we don't get to your questions. You can always follow up with either me or the admissions team and if you miss any part of this hour. You'll find a recording available on the admissions website in about a week.

So let's start with introducing the MPA team. MBA programs at HKS have a dedicated team of 4. Full time staff with almost 20 years of combined experience working specifically with MPA students.

Uh this is Kate like you so I'm the assistant director of MK programs. I've been at HKS for about 3 years and I bring with me over a decade of experience of working with graduate students in graduate programs and the Heffern is the MPA program director and she's been working with MPA students for 8 years.

Suzanne shende is our associate director of impa programs and director of the Mason program, which is a cohort within our one year. Mid career program. She's been here, she never started. It roughly the same time, and then our new program. Assistant Taylor started this summer, so between the four of us. I just want to emphasize that we've seen just about everything and we are your first line of Defense. We advise support and run programming for all MPA students in both the two year program.

And the one year maker program.

So here are is an overview of the questions covered in this presentation. What are the degree requirements canicross register for courses outside of HKS? What is different for concurrent degree students or what we call do leave sometimes can you tell me about my classmates? What about life outside the classroom? What do students typically do during the summer between the 1st and 2nd years? When does the program start? How do I apply an? What do I do if my question is not frequently asked.

So I'm going to jump right in and start with probably our most frequently asked question. What are the degree requirements for the MPA program one of the features that might have attracted you to our MPA is the flexibility that it offers in its curriculum. The requirements are very simple. You have to successfully complete 64 credits 48 credits if you're enrolled in a concurrent degree will talk more about that in a second you have to fulfill our policy area of concentration.

Which means taking 2 courses in one of the schools policy areas and fulfill the distribution requirements and that means taking one course in each of 3 policy. Areas from we create pre approved lists the three areas are economics and quantitative analysis management and leadership and public ethics and political institutions. So even within our degree requirements. There's actually flexibility in there and we cover degree requirements in depth during orientation week.

Um during that week, we also start with goal setting we cover the distribution requirements, the details. Of course selection registration and of course, get that full list that needs to distribution requirements, so you don't need to worry about that at this stage.

And I also want to note that as a first year. MPA you will be assigned an academic advisor who be another resource to help you navigate these requirements.

Uh we also encourage students to make use of other resources at this school, both faculty and administration. We tend to refer to this as your mentor network. But I've also heard students refer to it as their board of directors.

Canicross register for classes outside the Kennedy School. Yes, absolutely of course, you can. I do want to plug for HKS, though so before I get to all the cross registration options. You've probably already found that there are a large number of courses available at each chaos and that they cover a wide spectrum of skills. I heard you to take a look at those course offerings on the HP S website. You'll find that you can view a lot of the syllabi and that will give you a good sense of the courses workloads and deliverables.

Once you're ready to look beyond the Kennedy School, though there's of course opportunities to cross register. You can count on a limited number of Cross Road courses towards your degree and some of the schools where you can gross register are obviously Harvard Business School Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Divinity School Law School School of Education School of public health and then of course, graduate schools outside of Harvard. You can also cross register into the Fletcher School at Tufts and the Sloan School of Management at MIT.

So what is different for concurrent degree students a portion of the class would be will be pursuing concurrent degrees at other schools as well as HKS.

Concurrent students are responsible for 48 credits rather than 64 so essentially forgiven. One semester of classes. They're still responsible for meeting the distribution requirements that I mentioned earlier, but they don't have to meet the policy area of concentration requirement. One note that's important is that as a current concurrent degree student. You can't get credit for a cross registered course in your area. That means if you're a concurrent degree student who's with one of the our partner Business Schools getting an MBA.

You cannot also cross register for a course at the Harvard Business School and have that count towards your MPA.

If you have specific questions about concurrent degree programs. You can follow up with us directly you can also email. The joint and current concurrent account that's listed on the slide.

Another reason that I know students enroll in this program is the MBA cohort so I'd like to tell you a little bit about your classmates before we bring in a panel of students that you can ask them about their cohort experience.

Um typical MPA class is made up of about 85 students say like plus or minus 5 from around 25 countries. The overall makeup of the class is about 40% from within the USA and 60% are non USS ends.

Students in the MPA Program have a minimum of 3 years work experience, but most come with an average of 5 and that background is spread across all sectors.

And at HPS you'll find an even broader range of backgrounds. Uh you might find yourself in class or listening to speaker or in a student group or having lunch in the cafe with students from our other degree programs. Masters in public policy. The MPA ID, which focuses on International Development and the one year, mid career MPA program.

Anne what about life outside the classroom, so every day on this campus. There are speakers events and programs that are open to the Hughes community every morning, you get an email called the HKS. Today, that list. Everything that's happening at the school and it's an incredible selection just today. So I just took a quick scan before coming over there was one lunch 2 workshops for seminars, 2 study groups one with a former US senator, an one with the former vice president of Panama, Adform event.

That's a panel called I think what does conservatism mean today and 3 announcements for research centers that are hiring research assistance so this is just what's happening on campus. Today it can truly be hard to keep up with everything that's happening around here. In addition to all of this there are also things that are designed just for MPA students this year, we have a seminar series that starting this Thursday that.

Our faculty Rick Astley Hung has arranged for some of our faculty to come and speak to the theme of building support for change with the idea that are MPA. Students are all experts in both Policia policy area, but also because we require previous graduate experience. You're an expert in some other area as well. And so you need to build support for change across these 2 disciplines an MPA students actually organized themselves too.

There are we've seen all kinds of things. Uh small dinners storytelling nights. Um group runs before our weekly brunch. You can ask them when they get here about social gatherings weekend retreats and the kinds of things that they organized.

So there is no internship requirement the MPA program between the 1st and 2nd year. Most students do use this time for internships. The Office of career advancement is a great resource for students searching for internships. Whether that's through 1. On one coaching group workshops and they have an employers on campus program or these karere chats that are happening all the time where we bring in often alumni who work for prominent organizations and they'll sit and have what's commonly called an informational interview you know just.

View it's an opportunity to learn about an industry an secondary MPA. Students can also be extremely helpful in sharing their experiences and lessons learned in finding an internship were actually having an intern's internship session in a few weeks where we ask second year. MPA is to come and talk about their experience with finding an internship so first your MPs can get a better sense of how this tends to work.

Uh. When does the program start there is a required week long orientation in August this year August 2428 and full attendance is required in that program, one of the most wonderful things, I think about that orientation week is that it's designed an run by second year student so it's really puts at the center. The what MPA students need in order to have a successful time here at HPS and How do I apply?

The application deadline this year is December 3rd, 2019, 5:00 PM. Eastern Standard Time and that is. It's important that you know, both the time and the time zone because the application will not accept applications. The application portal system won't accept applications. After 5:00 PM. Eastern Standard Time, all of your materials have to be included with the application submitted by this date and you can find more information about the admissions process on the admissions website.

And the HKS admissions blog and I wanted to give you a sense of a couple of our frequently asked questions regarding the application. One are there any cut offs for test scores no no there are not for many of you we know that taking the GRE or the gmat can feel intimidating the scores are really just one part of the application and we look at each application in a holistic way. It's all about balance. We're looking for evidence in an applicant can handle the coursework at HPS and test scores might give us a sense of that, but it's not the only piece of information to look at.

And the 2nd question, we get from applicants all the time is who should I have write a letter of recommendation for me the best letters of recommendation are from Recommenders, who really know you sometimes applicants choose a recommender because of that person's title or credentials. But that person doesn't. If that person doesn't really know you well it's not going to be a powerful letter. Ideally, we'd like to see a mix of Recommenders 1 academic if possible. At least one person who has supervised your work.

OK, that's all for me, I'm going to pause this on while I go get our current students and then we'll start posing your questions to them.

And we're back with our panel current students. So I'm going to ask them to just go around the room and introduce themselves before we get started with your questions.

Hi guys, I'm Jamie Bloom I'm from the Washington, DC area before school I was doing management consulting and then I lived in SE Asia working for the UN for a couple of years I'm currently in my 3rd year of adultery program with MIT. Sloan and I'm doing the MPA program. Originally from Nigeria. So I'm also doing a degree program at MIT. Sloan so I'm in my 3rd year as well. Getting my Masters in public administration here at the Kennedy School.

And prior to this, I was a consultant and I had to start up that I was running full time in Nigeria as well.

Everybody on Aaron Barnett in the second year in PA from upstate New York immediately before well, mostly before the Kennedy school have been working in USA politics and campaigns and immediately before coming here was working on a number of projects in northern Iraq to build up the startup ecosystem there. Everyone my name is Jackie. I'm returning from Israel spent 10 years in this way defense forces.

And I'm doing a dual degree between MP and the work in school and this is my 3rd and finally hear you and I'm happy to be everyone. I'm Hudson shake I am originally from Ontario, Canada, and working and living in Toronto. Before I came here to AJ S in my second year of the MPA program and before this, I was working as an ER doctor. Annan addictions doctor in Toronto and working around the social determinants of Health and policy interventions.

Awesome. Thank you guys so much. Let's start with a simple question. That's coming through the chat. What are some of the skills that you learned so far age gas?

I think I can start off with this one. I think for me just that. I think I've always been introspective. But I think it gets took it to like another level. When I took the leadership from the inside out. Klaus class an introspective internship this past summer and I was really able to leverage some of those like little cubes that you pick up if you're just paying more attention.

And I could directly relates like that new behavior an how I was like just acting to the fact that I took that J term class and I just learned like so many new ways of handling different situations in it. So I think for me that has been like I would say almost like almost I would say life changing for me and it's something that I'm actually very happy and I'm like OK. This is now in my tool kit.

Nice.

And I took the opposite approach and for Windows soft skill classes and focused much more on subject matter and areas. So I came in knowing there was alot did not know about tech policy about energy policy and energy markets, instead of taking classes to beef up on that and then just really doubling down on a lot of the international fair stuff that is the Super interesting to me in line here.

I came in knowing that I want to do energii and that I had little experience with energy and basically. I took most of the energy related calls. He causes here from energean geopolitics to infrastructure investing and I've filled it over the last 2 years I've built a very good skill set on how to approach energy projects an out work in the energy sector in a way that actually create sustainable growth.

So I've done that I've been able to kind of work on a pretty broad range of skills here from some of the hard skills and some of the soft skills. I think that's kind of the beauty of the MPA program is you kind of need to figure out what you need to get out of it and then you can kind of have the flexibility to do that, so given the work I was doing before I focused a lot more on kind of some of the writing, and public speaking skills to help with the advocacy work. I was doing also took a bunch of kind of leadership in organizing classes.

And then took a sprinkling of kind of quantitative classes as well. and I think they've all kind of serve me in very different ways, so you can really make what you want out of it.

Yeah, and Lastly it can just a little different. I've taken a lot of things on econ economic classes. There's a lot of really great economists running around HPS from all over the world, so that's been very helpful, even though ecom major in college. It's been kind of a different level of depth and then the last thing is that all about policies. So I've taken classes on how to foreign policy how to work with policymakers even how to write policy memos, so just all that kind of even from Business School very different look at how you work with government and how you can move the needle.

In the public sector perspective, you only thing I would add to that is that we all just talked about the course is we've taken in there. That's just one of a number of different ways. You can build skills here. The kind of school I mean, you can get involved in research projects an extra extra curricular stuff working the professor who made their classes are obviously the main point of why you're here and the majority of what you should be spending your timeline, but there are tons of other avenues. You can pursue to get the skills. You want that couldn't be more perfect pivot so thank you.

Why don't you guys spend a little time talking about the outside of the classroom experience so a few minutes ago I mentioned that it was there's a lot to choose from both stuff at HKS designs and puts on but also you guys within your classes so can you speak to both of those levels sure yeah, so I was going to say in the previous question I think one of my favorite parts is just my general awareness of what's going on in the world and opportunities out there is.

Is super hide in just talking with my classmates on a daily basis. Whether that be over lunch or just organically in the forum in these main common areas of the Kennedy School but also we have a lot of formal and informal events kaden. Mo organize things monthly or biweekly and then organically as a class. We're always getting together and we have a really diverse class. I think probably over 50% international people from bunch different business schools. We live all over the Boston area socially. It's pretty dynamic and like me a lot of people come here with very little.

Social life in Boston or friends and family. So this is really become kind of an outside family for a lot of us that are going to school here.

Yeah, so I am both the president of the Israeli club here. The Candy School in that hat.

This year, I'm leaving for the second time the usual track from again school to Israel and this is an amazing experience. The fact that you can take 100 classmates from the can school to your country show them your country and the fact that it's a Harvard delegation opens up so many doors for you so basically every minister in Israel that we asked to meet gives us a stage and wants to talk to us and we can actually get a very unique view into that country and I know of many of my colleagues that are leading tracks to their respective countries.

And the other thing is that I've spent, the last year. Here they can school working on a new economic treaty between Israel and the US?

Anne I cannot stress enough how much the platform. We can school. The connections the professors and even like the writing classes. I took help me promote that to a degree that I would otherwise not be able to do.

Yeah, so, so I really what's been said. So far I think that kind of meeting people from all around the world and getting different perspectives on situations in different countries and just meeting people from such a broad range of different sectors has been really eye opening and fascinating. It's also led to a bunch of different opportunities being here at HPS so this summer. I spent in the mayor's office in Calgary, working on their addictions and mental health strategy and so that was something that.

It was kind of a unique experience through the Bloomberg City leadership initiative that I wouldn't have otherwise gotten or known existed had. I not been here at HPS and then yeah, being going on a couple of the tracks going to Ottawa to meet with a whole bunch of policy makers last year. I went on the Palestine track last year as well. And so just getting very different perspectives that you would otherwise not get if you were going through kind of HPS in terms of these different opportunities.

I mean, I would just add that so here I've been I'm involved with the Africa caucus, which is today in Group. But it's just quite fascinating the things that we've been up to an older different talks are just bring up with leaders who are coming from from Nigeria, so like just prior to this meeting with the governor of the state of progressive across the country. Nigeria you know they're all these opportunities that come up as well beyond your school curriculum.

And that I think are great unhelpful in meeting and like broadening your network, especially so for me. I'm looking into going into politics back home in Nigeria and so it's just like fantastic because I get to meet these people whereas like if everybody who like you would they would have like convoys. I know these different then it would just be impossible so that's something else to consider.

How do you guys manage to balance the course work with the?

HKS outside of the classroom life with your own personal life.

How do you make it work?

So I'm looking at shy because he has a 4 month old baby. I had a full month old baby. I name is Leanne, an and this semester. I decided to focus all of my classes on 2 days a week and what I've learned over the last year and a half is that the candy school is super busy you can be here from 8:00 AM till 10:00 PM everyday and you will always have something to do at each point in time. There is there at least 3 different events going along and speakers coming from all kinds of different countries.

But it's up to you to focus because last year. I would run around someone event. Lynn event and this year because I am a parent. I'm only going to events that are in my field of focus, which is enerji and I'm only moved all of my classes, so I can be home. Together with my daughter more days of the week.

And I think that the key here is to prioritize to to know what you want to get out of there cancel experience and to end to focus on those specific things.

But if you want to.

I would say that if you would like to minimize the your class time in order to do other things, it's definitely doable.

Yeah, I think that's the that's the key right is being very deliberate and thoughtful before you get here and get suck up in all of the excitement and the activities and what not being giving yourself the time before you get here to be delivered about what you want to get out of your 2 years here and then just check in and see make sure that the way that you're spending your time supports that extent that you can control it like after you leave.

But I don't know it seems like that. I think that when you go to the real world and you have a kid. You still need to be in the office 95 when your school. You have a lot more flexibility and you can put your classes on a Friday or you can decide what times the classes are going to be and you can do most of the homework from home. So I would say that you have a lot of flexibility here it can school, especially if you go to the MPI program.

Which has no core curriculum you can decide what you want taken at what days and also at which of the Harvard schools?

Yeah, just a little different perspective is I'm big on routine so I usually treat Monday through Thursday. Kind of like a work day, I come to school 8:00 AM and no matter what time my classes and leave around 5:00 and I'm also newly married and live in downtown Boston. I lived in Beacon Hill. So it's a little bit more of a commute, but kind of a separation from school and my wife works downtown for those that are bringing significant others. It's a very kind of convenient way for me to be a student in Cambridge, and her to be a professional downtown Boston, but then we always not always but.

Most classes don't mean on Friday, so I kind of keep that day open to either have meetings go to speaker series. We have a regular IHOP meeting. That's fun with former NBA classmates. International House of pancake, yeah, Freedom is not an issue. But in general. I also leave my lunch is open every day, they have a newsletter goes out with events that are happening. HPS so I'm probably going to speakers 3 to 4 times a week and not nearly always interested in Mycareer, but just general interests and educate myself on a new issues.

So we're getting a lot of questions about the application process. And so I'm going to just sort of pose a handful of them to you guys you can respond as you like So what made you decide to apply to the Kennedy School? How did you know that it was the right time to pause your career and go back to school and how? Did you prepare for the application process?

Answer any and all parts.

I feel inclined to add this to say this. I'm not directly answering but I was having a conversation recently with someone looking at to apply and I had asked why do you want to come to the Kennedy school and his response was I think you'd be cool and I want to learn new stuff.

Try not try to go a little deeper than that is what I would say like mini ask yourself animal for snow because this is it's a huge financial task. You're going to take on you know, depending on how you decide to find out ways. Still, money, you're going to be spending so try to really just ask yourself. You know why am I doing this like? What is that why it has to be able to go beyond?

I think it would be cool.

I read admission files and that's true definitely want to go back that I think if you're you've made the effort to be on the virtual session. I'm going to go ahead and guess if you guys have better reasons than that, so I have a bit of a different background than most people in our in our cohort kind of working clinically as a physician in Toronto and I was working for about 4 years before I came to HSN for me, it was the fact that.

As kind of at this point in my career where I felt more comfortable in what I was doing and had these ideas of where I thought I could go with it and so came here kind of very deliberately with an idea of what kind of skills and what kind of career. I wanted to work towards I think having that perspective was really helpful. If I was coming here as a way of exploring what I cared about what my values are like what possibilities are out there.

I think the possibilities are endless it might you might not find it that easy to refine your thinking if you come in with a bit more experience. We have more focused. I think you can get a lot out of it, but that's just my perspective.

I would like to offer a slightly different views or I can after 10 years in the army and I came to the cancel because I decided that I don't want to have a career in defense so I came in, not knowing what I want to do, but knowing that I want to change my career.

An when you talk about when is the right time I would say you can either use the cancer experience as has mentioned to accelerate your career or if you want to do a career transition, then spending 2 years in one of the if not the best school for that specific topic focus on there getting your professional skills and getting prepared to get onto your new Rd.

Can be very beneficial so those would be the two scenarios and I would say stop everything your doing and go through the Kansas score right time to apply and come here is when you have a good answer to the question that you dispose of looking well. Why do you say question like? Why do you want to come here and if you don't have a good answer to that.

Probably give yourself some more time, ideally time when you're not working 80 hours a week till like actually think about. That and the answer doesn't have to be. I know I want to go and do this. It can be like, I said it can it can be like, I know I don't want to what I'm doing right now, so I want to change.

Yeah, for me, Summerside is I've been working for 6 years and I felt like I had a good enough skill set to bring something to the table. Everyone MPI classes definitely has some good work experience and a lot. We do is talk about past experiences and how we handle them. So I felt like I had enough experience in the real world to really benefit from these classes but I also was in a Business School setting and I kept gravitated towards more International Development and policy classes and so when I went to HPS I started talking to them.

Students and I really vibe with the students were thinking it's a very socially minded group of very religious group in a lot of people here, especially the MPA Program, or pursuing careers from politics. The policy to private sector. So I felt like even though it's more maybe private sector focus. I still fit in with the group and want to expand kind of my mindset of what's possible out there, so now that was my draw to the school and as far as the application process kind of what they said, is really thinking. Why I wanted to come here and would bring to my career and also what I could bring to HPS as well.

Thank you guys one more question about the application process and then we'll move on. I'm curious to hear anyone says it come through the chat, but I'm curious to hear. It's been a year or in some cases, too since you applied? What do you wish you knew then that you know now?

I would say the deadlines for Harvard Housing and financial yes, remember when of those deadlines and be Keenum submitting it on time.

Um.

It obviously is only additive if you have a great standardized Test score, but you can get in without the great one. And so don't let that don't let your scores dictate where you apply and don't take it like 4 times in order to increase your score by 30 points, which I did not do it once it is not particularly good. But it's good enough like see your application as he putting together a complete package.

One thing is not waiting more than it might but like try and think about it as you're telling a complete story and each piece like adds to what the story looks like so don't kill yourself over like the team out of the GRE. But like and if you think you can improve your score then try and do better, but be honest. I'm just kind of like OK, you need to also focus on your essays on your recommendations and everything else as well. I don't think certain profile to come here there's people from.

Most background somewhere journalist somewhere working as doctors somewhere in defense somewhere in the private sector. So I'm I would embrace your background say more of what you're trying to do after and what you're going to get out of the coming school instead of trying to mold your background into what you think is a profile or Kennedy Student 'cause I don't think there is an exact one.

Agreed on all counts up OK, changing gears, a bit have any of you guys.

How did you guys do internship spring your first and 2nd year?

Getting a handful of nods. I had a job that was supposed to last longer than the summer, but that didn't so I came back not sure if we want to return to that will find out can you talk about how you found your internship and what you thought of it?

Sure, so I'm a dual degree of MIT Sloan and so I.

A Muse Belt routing services. I recruited for more public sector oriented jobs, such as the World Bank or the UN or some USA agencies through HPS, but then I did some private sector stuff through the Sloan school ended up working at Apple. My experience is actually a great when I worked in the kind of trade policy for Apple. So my HS degree was very relevant in their decision to staffing on something that was really high profile and super relevant so although.

I didn't directly get my job through the Kennedy school. Portland certainly helpful and just the resources around and all the other students here were ascension kind of my networking to figure out what I was going to do this summer.

So since I'm I'm doing a 3 year program. I had 2 summers and for the first one, I interned in a venture capital firm para todo in Enerji Investments and for the 2nd one, I worked at McKinsey and I did NRG consulting.

And as you can hear the theme about NRG going along. I feel I do prefer that I wouldn't have gotten the projects. I did or linear ships. I have without a candy school background because this is specifically a topic that you have to understand that policy.

Carter feet in the government background in order to be effective.

So I'm mentions bit earlier at but I worked in the city of Calgary Mayor's office and I found that through the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative. I think there's like 30 cities or so that they partner with and then they they send students to for the summer. It was a great experience. It was extremely kind of flexible in terms of me. Being able to craft the project in the way that I wanted to. I was able to use a lot of my kind of clinical background to shape that and so it was.

A particularly positive experience.

So I was supposed to do a state Department internship in Beijing and while I was waiting for my security clearance, which I just got last week, two months after my internship would've ended on I had an offer to join a presidential campaign and so I did that and service digital director on a presidential campaign built a team of like 8 people and.

Shoveling tons of money into Facebook ads and things like that, and because I was running a team. I couldn't very well. Even so, works with M&K in new super easy to just take a semester or 2 off if necessary, and then the campaign ended and improved not necessary and so then I got to travel to Hawaii and London had a great second half of my summer internships.

Hawaii, a note from the program team, so there's a question about how many students are pursuing that second Masters degree. So it's around half of the class is doing a konkurent degree. Most of them are students doing an MBA with one of our partner schools. We also had students who do the second degree with either the Harvard Graduate School of design of Harvard Divinity School in a small handful who do concurrent law degree.

Um 3 of you are in concurrent degree programs. You guys are not right. Can you talk a little bit about pairing up an MBA with an MPA?

I'm sure I can start so for MIT Sloan. It's a pretty easy transition 'cause. It's right down the street. I think it's I think it's a great mix. My classes at Sloan tend to be much more technical towards finance and accounting and business fundamentals. Why here I'm much more exploratory with classes in policy, classes in pure passion and things in a lot of leadership in solve skills where I think the Kennedy School is really superior in a lot of ways in those type of classes and I think most Business School students here.

Recognize that so I think a lot of times the strength of the County schools are weakness of the business schools and vice versa, so for me, it's a great mix and it's really been a compliment and you add one more year and you're already in the groove of school so in general. I think now is the time to do it. This will be my last year of school for sure, so but it's been a great 3 years in the mix has been exciting and kept me energized.

So.

When I was interviewed today, MBA program because there aren't any interviews to those of you replying to them, which is a good advantage by the way when I was interviewed to the MBA degree. They asked me why I wanted the degree and the response I gave was that I honestly believe that in order to not only make a difference in the public sector. But make a positive difference. You have to understand how the private sector works and having been in the cans hula even.

I it is only strengthen my notion that you need to understand how to combine those 2.

An I feel that the private just having an MBA it might teaches you some finer skills and maybe we should do something about how to make money. But how to create a better place an better word for look into graphing you won't get any other place.

Thank you all so let's talk about the cohort a little bit. You guys review are concurrent degree students. So you return to your home campus for a semester at some point and 2 of you are. We calling you purists now. I think we can come up with something better than that. For now, but for the full 2 years. Can you talk a little bit about what you're experiencing the cohort?

That's been HPS.

Enter it said I just think it's a phenomenal group of people like even though I haven't. I've had to because so when you're doing the door. There is MIT and I'm not saying this to scare anybody off.

MIT would make you take all your credits there's no leniency. There you must take your 144 credit. So you're going to have to get creative about how you're going to navigate both schools. But even going through that I haven't felt like MIT. This semester to something else, I should note. I like just like a week ago, I got a message from one of my classmates very caring group of people.

The Super interesting I like Super Brilliant, an the conversations you have. You don't know where like we were just in the whole we talking about Israel and politics or? What is happening there like there's no way to predict that this is the conversation you're going to be having so I think I think the admissions team does a great job of actually selecting people that you would like if the program.

Value prop of the program for a lot of people I think they're incredible professors who you can learn a lot from lawyer in class. You can also watch them on TV. Most days and learn that way. The readings are super interesting you can get them online in your personal time as well. The one thing that you and talks are super interesting but you can also watch them watch. YouTube videos with them when they were the president or whatever country they were president of the one thing you can only get while you're here is the time with your classmates and I would certainly encourage everyone to.

Prioritize how they spend their time accordingly.

Yeah, just some concrete examples like last year organically. We organize a retreat up to New Hampshire. I think we had 60 people in one cabin, really fun and a lot of people have kids a lot of people have significant others. They were all brought in and welcomed the other day one of my European classmates wanted to try making fried chicken, so there was 15 people over there, eating fried chicken. There was kids running around it's a It's a really fun. Environment really open and the size of the Class I think it's about 75 or.

7580 is really nice eyes. You definitely know everybody you recognize people and there's no little cliques within the class. It's just a really big group of people.

You mentioned partners and families. I want to give you guys a chance to speak to that just a little bit opportunities for your partners with the experience been like for them. Have you felt supported that they felt supported and they take advantage of HKS resources at all?

Yeah, so everyone is looking at me my wife is an electrical engineer by training, just out of the new job here in the area and I can say that last year while she was pregnant and she will come with me every Friday, too. I hope and meet everyone and now will bring in the baby too. I hope to meet everyone and the baby has become the main attraction, but also she started taking classes last year and she took a bit of classes. She attended them. She even got a certificate which.

Is Santa real certificate they don't really gave you credit but it's nice that you get a certificate that you attended a class at Harvard or MIT.

An and I feel that partners and spouses are included in pretty much every activity that goes.

On campus an outside of campus.

Yeah, and I'm just happy that I think one of the big appeals is also you're in a major city in Boston. There's lots of jobs that removed from elsewhere. There's lots of there's a million schools here for something to be able to attend if they're disrupting their life or whatever you're coming from my wife, also comes to IHOP and she sat in a lot of classes whenever there's a speaker. She's also on the mailing list and sometimes she'll go to speakers without me at the Kennedy School and that's totally OK and people are doing that all the time so I think like I said the snipping brothers are really valued and.

Sometimes there's not really distinction between peoples partners and the rest of the class.

Right we have about 10 minutes left. I love to turn to this last question. I'm interested in hearing. You guys talk about working with the office of career advancement. I think this is a great question because our model is so different from career services at something like an MBA program where the degree paths are not quite so customized. The second part of that are you at a disadvantage do not concurrent degree. I mean, I can answer that with inv attic. No.

Uhm I think that everyone is experiences the same support and exposure. But how about your work with the office of career advancement.

A bunch of work with them and I think it's important to make you understand what career services does and what they don't do they are not?

Yeah, I'm not good use of Career Services is to go to them and say like.

Here's what I'm interested in what kind of jobs do you think I should look at that's not really. It's just not what career services does and I think a lot of people coming into grad school take some time to realize that and I certainly did when I did before this.

What they're really good at is if you go in and say Hey I'm thinking about this particular Department or this company or like this, this kind of structured recruiting program on what advice do you have for people have gone through it or to do? When I talked to who's done it before and they will be whether it's the presidential management. Fellow ship or something for an internship like they have 20 people have done it before they know what that process looks like what?

You need to do to be successful in it, and then we'll be like can point you in the direction of like $5 have done it already.

Another advantage of the career office here is that they're they bring to campus alumni who had firms in practices.

Globally, so let's just last week. We had a very simple director from the World Bank coming to campus. He was a candy school graduate 15 years ago and he talked to us about what it's like transition from the candy school to the World Bank and also what is the advantage of candy school students.

And I feel that because of the breath of the of the alumni of the candles will do.

The career office has a lot of capacity to bring people like that, on campus and actually expose you to.

Very unique and different experiences like Aaron. Tell me if I'm wrong, but did you ever thought that you would have a chance to go to Beijing to work for the State Department know know right, yeah, exactly.

He did have a chance.

Uhm yes, I'll mention a few things out. So I also meet with a career coach in the very helpful. I think the.

One thing to note is there is like all that structure recruiting that happens in Business School of consulting and whatnot that does still happen at the Kennedy school so if you're interested in that route that is that is still here. And people will get plenty of jobs through that Route 2 resources that I found very helpful is the alumni of the current score really loyal, they will answer emails. They are here to reach out to. I don't think I've got a note from a single Kennedy School online. I've asked to reach out your Harvard email is like incredibly powerful in the 2 years. She is mentioned in the 2 years I've been here, using that email just to reach out to employers or networking has been.

I'm almost 100% success rate, and I've also been a professor so professors lot in and out of private and public sector and really willing to help students helped me with research before, but they've also helped me paramount professional Contacts that has been kind of invaluable and an I think they're openness to help you and meet you for an hour is awesome, here, so that's definitely something people take advantage of as well.

And one of the resource. I want to mention as I didn't hear it mentioned is the mid carriers like those people like the mid carriers from the African continent here. They were like former minister, is like these people like new stuff really good friends internship through a mid career who used to work at the African Union.

You know, so they're just like so many other definitely very good resource as well in that regard.

They will be very happy to know that.

Uh OK, so we just have a couple minutes left. Um how about some parting advice parting advice for applicants.

What to focus on what not to stress about?

Strategies.

My one piece of advice would be to like actually.

Have fun with the essays or use it as a time to kind of sit and reflect about where you're at in your career and where you're going with it idea of where I was going with my essays. When I started writing it and I actually refined a lot of what I wanted to get out of the 2 years here in the process of writing so try not to stress too much about it and see. It is A is a real opportunity to sit and reflect.

Yeah, real similar to Hudson.

An when I started the application. I only knew I had a defense background and someone told me while you. You have to take the green. Maybe you should do application fintech that will make you a good candidate and I tried writing my application fintech.

After 2 weeks. I came back and I was like I am there is nothing I'm less interested in this application that let alone a good application.

And I tried it out of things and then when I started writing about energy policy. I realized I'm really passionate about the topic, and through the application. I said that's actually how I found my.

Post Army Service fashion so I would say to to your take this application seriously as an opportunity to.

Really put yourself out there and says there is no one profile of who's a good candidate.

Just be yourself tell what your passion is and how you plan to change the world.

And trust me if it will be genuine, then the admission team here can know that.

Yeah, I mean, there is a question earlier here, you guys all seem super interesting what, if I'm boring. Afghan, like what should I do and I like that. I think that's total appreciate self deprecation, but that's nonsense. There's definitely something interesting and unique about every application and you just have to take time to figure out what that is for you and if you put forward a genuine application that conveys who you are what you care about who you want to be the admissions office at all these schools are like this is what they do for a living. They're pretty good at picking people who are the right fit for the program and.

As someone who applied to plenty of schools got rejected from plenty and like feel very confident. They ended up in the right schools for me like.

Just put your best foot forward and let the emissions. People do their job and you'll probably end up in the right plot right list.

Yeah, I think I would echo everything that has been said the underlying thing I'm hearing is to start early because what that does is it gives you time to Japan. When I say start alien Gmail Jerry. Yeah, there's nothing like just that I wanted. But in terms of like really, really just means that you have it at the back of your mind and as you're going through your daily work on stuff like this. Maybe I can fit this into my essay like taking those little notes.

If you're that kind of person and that's what I mean by start early and I can just help to ease the process is it too.

Yeah, the only thing I have to say is uh make sure you just don't in corporate gesture career into your essay. I think a lot of people were focused on just a work experience, but a lot of people volunteered or do things on the side or have aspirations or passions that aren't necessarily found at the Top of the resume so I think those are just as important an incorporating those as I did think it was very beneficial and text you more as a well rounded person because there are no interviews. So you want to get everything done in those papers and make sure they know that you do things beyond your career and things that are super important to you that you can contribute to a chess community.

That's a high note to end on. Thank you very much to our student panel and thank you to everyone listening. As I mentioned earlier. We're going to post a recording of this call where you can do. The slides and listen to our conversation that will be up in about a week and you'll get a link to it, and of course, you're welcome to reach out to the MPA program team at NP underscore program in hps.harvard.edu. If you have any questions that we didn't get a chance to answer.

Uh and enjoy the rest of your

Tuesday. Wednesday. I know what day it is.