Career Services
Client-Based Projects
First Year Group Projects ( IPA )
We are now no longer accepting projects for Spring 2008. Please check back in September 2008 for projects for Spring 2009.
Dear Potential First-Year Workshop “Client”:
In the spring of their first year, Goldman School of Public Policy (GSPP) graduate students take a workshop class called Introduction to Policy Analysis, or IPA. During the course, students work in groups of three to five to produce a policy analysis for use by a real world “client,” typically an individual in a public sector organization confronting some policy problem or opportunity. Might you or someone else in your organization benefit from the “staff assistance” of a group of eager and talented policy students working for about 12 weeks beginning February 2008.
If you or a colleague would like to discuss the possibilities, please email or call me (510-642-4512, ) or Jessica Rider, our IPA Project Assistant ( , 510-643-0525) now through January 2008 (when we assemble the menu of possible projects offered to the students). Below is more information about how the IPA program works.
Characteristics of "Good" IPA Projects
An ideal IPA project involves an intellectually challenging question that can be satisfactorily analyzed during the 12 week timeframe of the course. Projects should be:
- Centered on a decision faced by your organization. Our goal is for students to confront a difficult tradeoff inherent in a choice between two or more alternative courses of action.
- In need of resolving some uncertainty about the projected effects of a policy choice where the alternative outcomes are very different and very consequential. The client should not already have the solution to the problem, nor should the client urge their preferred solution upon the student. We enjoin our students to take a critical stance and, if necessary, to try to persuade the client to a different point of view.
- Relatively narrow though complex, rather than broad but simple. Projects involving little more than collecting survey data, program descriptions, or information about possible funding sources are not suitable unless these activities raise interesting issues of analysis. To put it another way, students are not “interns.” It is better to think of them as “consultants” with a fair degree of professional and analytical autonomy.
Our Students and What They Can Do For You
- Work Experience: Most students have had at least 3 years of work experience before entering our program.
- Core Coursework: One semester each of microeconomics, statistics, political and legal analysis.
At the beginning of May, your student group will deliver a written report outlining final recommendations and implications for your organization. The analytic work and argumentation must be meet academic standards, but we expect the written product to be intelligible to lay readers. Prior to submitting the final report, students also give an oral presentation at GSPP that is professionally critiqued. You will be invited to attend and give comments. In the past, student projects have led to significant changes in policy and management practices in client organizations. Note: All reports are made public. However, subject to faculty approval, the client and the student may negotiate a different arrangement.
The final product is, at a minimum, a written analysis. In some cases, the client invites the group to make an oral presentation in the workplace of the client. Students usually welcome the opportunity to do this. The deadline for the project is usually around the end of the second week of May.
How the Project Design & Selection Process Works
Highly motivated students and clients make for the best IPA relationships. To facilitate a good match between the interests of the client and each student group, we solicit IPA project ideas from a broad range of organizations and policy areas. During the project formulation stage, we will work with you to define an “educationally worthwhile” topic that will also have real utility to your organization.
We then present a “menu” of about 20 potential projects to the students in early January and ask them to rank their five most-preferred. We honor these preferences to the greatest degree possible in assembling groups. You will find out if your project is selected by late January. About 75% of projects on the final menu are actually selected. We encourage our students to select the projects with the highest probable educational payoffs.
How the Project Design & Selection Process Works
Highly motivated students and clients make for the best IPA relationships. To facilitate a good match between the interests of the client and each student group, we solicit IPA project ideas from a broad range of organizations and policy areas. During the project formulation stage, we will work with you to define an “educationally worthwhile” topic that will also have real utility to your organization.
We then present a “menu” of about 20 potential projects to the students in early January and ask them to rank their five most-preferred. We honor these preferences to the greatest degree possible in assembling groups. You will find out if your project is selected by late January. About 75% of projects on the final menu are actually selected. We encourage our students to select the projects with the highest probable educational payoffs.
Client Responsibilites
Successful working relations between students and clients vary greatly. Students benefit most from working with a client who sets high expectations for quality of analysis and presentation. IPA clients have four main obligations:
- Meet with the student early on to define the project scope (developing the project idea into a mutually rewarding and actionable work agenda typically involves iterative client, faculty and student discussion);
- Advise students about sources (i.e. data, information);
- Arrange for student access to others in your organization and other relevant stakeholders; and
- Read the final report.
Timeline
September – |
Clients submit project ideas for faculty review. Clients work with faculty and IPA project assistant to develop a project proposal of interest to the client that has sufficient educational merit. |
Mid-January |
Students are presented with a menu of potential client projects. Students each rank their top five preferred projects. We assemble groups that honor these preferences wherever possible. |
Late January |
Clients are informed of student choices and student groups are formed. Work on the project begins in February. |
February-May |
Groups meet as needed with client and regularly with a faculty advisor who guides the group’s progress. The IPA represents one-fourth of each student's workload in the spring semester. |
Mid-April |
Draft paper or sentence outline is due to the faculty advisor. Client may also provide review and feedback. Oral presentations are held in late April on GSPP campus. |
Early May |
Final paper due to faculty advisor and client. |
Next Steps
If you are interested, please contact me or our IPA project assistant Jessica Rider, , 510-643-0525. Refer to this website for a list of last year’s selected projects and the IPA project proposal form, which you can download and use to send us short (1-2 paragraph) description of your organization and your initial project idea or need.
Sincerely,
John Ellwood
Professor of Public Policy
