Prior Professional Experience Benefits

The O’Neill School values professional experiences and expertise that our students acquire prior to beginning their degree programs. Course credit may be provided to students who have had relevant professional experience above the undergraduate level gained prior to the start of their graduate program at O’Neill.

Professional experience credit earned may result in a reduction of the total number of credit hours required for the degree and may satisfy the experiential requirements, if applicable.

Programs that offer prior experience credit reductions:

  • Waiver of experiential requirement: work experience should roughly equal or surpass that of a summer internship.
  • 3‐credit hour reduction: 2‐4 years of full-time technical, administrative, or policy‐level work experience with a government, nonprofit, or private agency.
  • 6‐credit hour reduction: 4‐6 years of relevant full‐time managerial and/or policymaking experience in any sector, such as program leadership, budgetary oversight, organizational or staff development, fundraising, analysis, planning, or human resources supervision.
  • 9‐credit hour reduction: over 6 years of relevant full‐time managerial and/or policymaking experience. At this point, at least one higher‐level, multi‐year assignment is expected, including responsibility for supervision of staff, budget preparation, or organizational control of public or nonprofit agencies.

* Students pursuing outside dual degree programs (e.g., MPA-JD, MPA-MA, etc.) in which the total credit requirements have already been reduced are not eligible for Prior Experience credit reductions.

  • Waiver of experiential requirement: work experience should roughly equal or surpass that of a summer internship.
  • 3‐credit hour reduction: 2‐4 years of full-time technical, administrative, scientific, and/or science-based environmental policy experience with a government, nonprofit, or private agency.
  • 6‐credit hour reduction: 4‐6 years of relevant full‐time analytic, technical, administrative, scientific, and/or science-based, environmental policy experience, with significant responsibilities, for example, in research design, program leadership, budgetary oversight, organizational or staff development, analysis, or planning.
  • 9‐credit hour reduction: over 6 years of relevant full‐time research, analytic, technical, administrative, and/or science-based policy experience. At this point, at least one higher-level, multi-year assignment is expected, including directing research, responsibility for supervision of staff, budget preparation, or organizational control of public or nonprofit agencies or private companies.

  • 3-credit-hour reduction: 2-4 years of technical, administrative, scientific, or policy-level work experience with a government, nonprofit, or private agency.
  • 6 credit-hour reduction: 4-6 years of relevant full-time analytic, technical, managerial, scientific, and/or science-based policymaking experience in environmental science, environmental management, or science-based, environmental policy, with significant responsibilities, for example, in research design, program leadership, budgetary oversight, organizational or staff development, analysis, or planning.

  • 3-credit hour reduction: A minimum of two years of relevant full-time professional experience.
  • 6-credit hour reduction: At least 5 years of relevant full-time professional experience.