Description of the video:

Hello and welcome, my name is Patrick Lewis. I'm an assistant director of graduate student recruitment here at the O’Neill School and today we're going to learn a little bit more about our Master of Public Affairs program.

 But first, a little bit more about the O’Neill School.

We are the number-one ranked Public Affairs Graduate School in the nation, recently ranked by U.S. News and World Report. We also have several top-ranked specialty areas like environmental policy and management, nonprofit management, public finance and budgeting, public management leadership, as well as public policy analysis.

We have over 600 graduate students which makes us one of the largest and oldest schools of our kind. Founded in 1972, we are celebrating our 50th anniversary this year.

10 percent of our student body are international students and we have more than 37,000 living alumni around the world.

We like to say that we study people, policy and the issues that affect the

planet and our motto is leading for the greater good and all of our faculty, our staff, and our students embody that every day.

More about the MPA program. It's a 48-credit hour degree program. It can be completed in two years as a full-time student.

It is innovative interdisciplinary and a professional degree program. It prepares you for a career in the public, private, or non-profit sector and often our graduates find that they are able to move very fluidly throughout those three sectors.

We have start terms available in the spring and the fall semesters, and we're just launching our brand new 24 credit, cutting edge, core curriculum which includes classes like: managing and leading in public affairs, social equity and justice, rights and responsibilities how laws shape public affairs, and public finance and budgeting. You can also customize your degree through our concentrations and elective courses.

We offer concentrations like: energy, environmental policy, health policy, all the way to international development, local government management, as well as a specialized concentration. If there are bits and pieces of each of these concentrations that pique your interest, it's possible for us to further tailor the program via a specialized concentration for you.

There is also an experiential requirement for the program and students can fulfill this requirement through one of the following options: an approved internship which is typically completed during the summer between year one and year two of the program, or receiving credit for prior professional experience, military service, or volunteer service, such as work with the Peace Corps, Americorps, or Teach for America. Lastly, it's possible to fulfill this option through an independent or group research project.

And here's some examples of previous internships that our students have completed.  They've worked with the Brazil Government Internship Program, with the Environmental Defense Fund, the World Bank, and even the U.S. Government Accountability Office. 

Our capstone experience is a culmination of your degree program. It's a semester-long group project where you solve a real-world problem for a real-world client, and you're working with many different students in the program that all come from different backgrounds, and have different skill sets, and each bring a different lens to the table when examining these capstone projects.

It is a collaborative learning format, and as well, it's interdisciplinary. It integrates your management, your policy, finance, and science skills that you've acquired during the program. And here's a glimpse at some of our past capstone examples: we've addressed homelessness in Washington County; enhanced renewables in the state;  worked with the Kroger Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Foundation; completed an analysis of brick and mortar retail in downtown Bloomington; worked with electrical charging infrastructure for fleet applications; and Advancing India: a transformation of its manufacturing ecosystem; lastly, we've also worked and completed a study with the Monroe County Stormwater Management.

Ultimately, it's about the outcome, and our degree will give you actionable skills, and hands-on data analytics understanding legal practices, statistical analysis and management, and practical implementation of those skills.

We also offer several dual degree options and I’ll talk more about those now. You can add our Master of Science in Environmental Science program to your MPA dual degree for 12 additional credits and one additional semester. You complete two master's degrees, so you earn both the MPA and the MSES. There are specialized concentrations available, and this program combines rigorous scientific training with coursework in policy and management.

Next, you can add our Master of Arts in Arts Administration to your MPA degree. So, this dual degree requires 15 additional credit hours one additional semester, and again you're earning two complete master's degrees your MPA and your MAAA degree. Your Master of Arts in Arts Administration, this degree will help you gain the unique skill set needed to work in the critical crossroads between arts and policy.

Lastly, here at the O’Neill School, we offer our MPA with a MIA dual degree, our Master of International Affairs. This requires 12 additional credits and one additional semester to earn two complete master's degrees, and the dual degree provides you with a thorough understanding of international affairs in theory and practice combined with a robust skill set in public affairs and policy analysis. 

It's also important to mention that outside of the O’Neill School there are other dual degree opportunities available with our Master of Public Affairs program. We are able to partner with other schools here at the IU campus.

Next, we'll discuss a little bit more about career development and career opportunities.

We have a really robust alumni network that spans the globe, but here's just a little glimpse of what it looks like here across the country. About 50 percent of our students choose to stay in state and about 50 percent of our students choose to move out of state when pursuing their careers. You see that we have a large contingent here in the state of Indiana, as well a large contingent in Chicago, along the west coast, and along the east coast, specifically in Washington D.C.

Our Career Hub provides students with dedicated graduate career coaching, resume and cover letter tips and workshops, career catalyst and focus fairs, on-campus recruiting events, sponsored networking opportunities, and valuable connections to our alumni network.

Some data from our class of 20-21: 98 percent of our graduates were employed or are continuing their education six months post graduation. About 3 percent found employment specifically in the health care field, 7 percent specifically in higher education, about 24 in the public sector, 37 in the private sector, and 28 percent in the nonprofit sector.

And here's some of our most recent employers: we have Deloitte, Grant Thornton, as well as state organizations like the Indiana Department of Transportation and federal government organizations like the EPA as well as the Government Accountability Office, and you can see here from this list that our students found positions at all levels of government, and in all sectors, as well.

Now a little bit about our estimated expenses and funding opportunities.

Here's a look at the estimated cost for attendance for the MPA based off of our 22-23 academic year rate. Tuition and fees for the total program, for a resident, are just over 28,000 and for a non-resident we're looking at just over 65,000 dollars to complete the program.

We also have our O’Neill fellowship award. To be considered for this award you must complete your application for admission by the priority deadline and for the fall of 2023 the priority deadline is going to be January the 15^th of 2023. So as long as you're completing your application for admission by January 15, 2023, you will be guaranteed to be considered and reviewed for our O’Neill fellowship award. There is no separate application and the award is a 25 to 50 percent off tuition remission award.

We also have our service corps program. You must again apply by the priority deadline of January the 15^th, 2023 and you must complete your FAFSA and be eligible for federal work study. There is an interview process that is required as we want to make sure that we place you in an organization – a local organization – that is a good fit for you and you could be placed in an arts non-profit or public organization here in the community. These are also paid hourly positions.

Next we have our assistantships. We hire about 200 assistantship positions a year here at the O’Neill school and there are many many many more opportunities available all across the IU campus. Here at O’Neill, you could work as a Teacher's Assistant, as a Faculty Research Assistant, or even in one of our academic offices, our administrative offices. These are paid hourly positions and students are typically working about 10 to 15 hours per week.

And here's just a quick look at what the total tuition and fees would look like for our dual degree programs: our dual MPA-MSES program, dual MPA-MAAA and dual MPA-MIA program.

Last, we'll cover how to apply. The Indiana University graduate application is available completely online you can get started on that by going to our website and clicking on apply now. For the online application you'll need to upload a personal statement and the prompt is loosely “What does ‘leading for the greater good’ mean to you and how will an O’Neill degree help you achieve your career goals?”. I recommend that this personal statement be 800 to 850 words, but it can be less, it can be more.

We also require that you upload unofficial transcripts to the application. Unofficial transcripts are required for an admissions decision, but we would eventually require your official transcripts to be sent to us as well.

We require three letters of recommendation preferably from faculty members but letters of recommendation from professional sources such as direct supervisors who would be able to speak objectively to your skills and abilities are also perfectly acceptable.

The admissions committee likes to see a really holistic look at our applicants and so your resume or CV can be as many pages as you need it to be, but they like to see all of your academic, professional, your involvements and all of your volunteer history.

Lastly the GRE or the GMAT is completely optional the scores are not required, and they will not make or break an admissions decision.

If you have any questions for us, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at oneillgd@indiana.edu or reach us directly in the Master's Programs Office. You can also schedule an appointment, a one-on-one, via Calendly, a virtual meeting with my colleague Mallory and I, and our Calendly links are listed below.

There are yet more ways to engage with us here at O’Neill. I would recommend anyone interested to attend a virtual live Tuesday session with us, our Topical Tuesday events, where we explore various O’Neill topics and there's the link to find our upcoming events. Next, you can also stay engaged with us by email by signing up on our website.

We thank you for joining us today and please let us know if you have any additional questions. Thank you.