<p>Anyone have any personal experience with this major and know what type of employment one gets with a BS in this, prior to continuing on to grad school?</p>
<p>My wife works in government, and a number of young people working in her department have this kind of background. She also used to hire them in the nonprofit sector, too. She especially appreciates it when they have financial modelling and sophisticated statistical analysis abilities.</p>
<p>What does this career field entail exactly?</p>
<p>Thank you, JHS. Anyone else have any experience with this major? Anyone else know what type of employment is available with an undergraduate degree in policy and planning?</p>
<p>Is there a word in front of just “Policy and Planning”?</p>
<p>Or is it under the umbrella of a larger department?</p>
<p>I have a masters degree in landscape architecture, with the sub-name of
“Landscape Policy and Planning” so the work concerned zoning, land use, natural resource policies related to new suburban development, where to put the mall, state laws for transferrable development rights to preserve farmland as open space yet allow the family to collect the real estate value when selling the family farm, with the difference funded by a tiny tax whenever anybody buys or sells a house in that state… In other words the goal is to protect and balance new economic development with natural resource protection, and the vehicle by which it happens is the passage of regulations, laws, public policies at the town, state, and/or federal levels.</p>
<p>My cousin is in Health Policy and Planning, so she worked on analyzing legislation for a Washington department of the federal government, related to whether the feds should leverage the states to require insurance companies to cover breast cancer screening as part of a routine physical , based on available research statistics on that disease. </p>
<p>There could also be Envrionmental Policy and Planning, or Education Policy and Planning… </p>
<p>Anyway, if there’s no other descriptor, then figure it has to do with the coordination between different levels of government agencies (federal, state, local) to coordinate the implementation of regulations to achieve some societal purpose.</p>
<p>Lots of reports and meetings; work for government agencies or Researhc and Development consulting firms. Might need a masters degree to do much more than help on a report, I don’t know. Must love offices and sometimes airplanes.</p>
<p>P3t, I thought that you were a teacher? Well, Thank you for responding. There is not a word in front of policy and planning. I did read somewhere that you could work within the different levels of government, but never thought of the coordination between different levels of government. I was also wondering if this leads to a job outside of government (ie: human resources of a private corporation, just as one example).</p>
<p>I was a land planning consultant for a decade but then got married and retrained for teaching as a second career, which is why I’m neither burned out nor very well-paid from either!!
I retrained for teaching because of my kids and the many moves we made as a family, making a career in planning impossible; had to move with my spouse. But I love teaching more. Planning is more intellectually engaging, day-to-day, but it gets frustrating because lots of good recommendations get shelved. But perhaps some good comes of it. Am sorry it was only a decade of my life so I don’t know the followthrough on a lot of the work I did, except I’m gratified to see primitive understandings about the environment from the l970’s now part of everyday speech and action!</p>
<p>Re: “career outside of government” - there are private consulting firms whose clients are the government agencies. The government farms out a report so it is “objective” and by scientists, etc., then says we have these recommendations from an outside, objective, nonpolitical source.
Also, the landscape planners sometimes went to work for big land development or energy exploration agencies, which were the private sector.
Sorry my info is a bit old. I worked a bit in both. I wrote reports while on staff of a consulting agency and their paying client was the state government. Later I worked in government, for a county-level regional planning commission as a program coordinator for coastal zone management “community block grant” funds to various towns around Cape Cod.
It was really “wonky” working in policy and trying to write communicatively after being handed reports by highly technical scientists (private sector) Or sit at meetings trying to get the scientific people to speak understandably to fishing boat captains about oil exploration on the Georges Banks. (public sector) I was in way over my head much of the time.
I liked it then because I felt very smart, which I was as a college grad with a masters. But I needed life experience to really be on top of that work. Got laid off under Ronald Reagan when he pulled in the reins on federal spending for environmental
programs, and while laid off for that summer, met my spouse and used the teaching and communication skills to build up the concept of a second career. Got my teaching degree when I had 3 kids and was in my early 40’s. Could NOT compete physically with younger teachers but at least I had the family experience to bring to the (tiny) tables.</p>
<p>p3t, Sounds like you have had some interesting jobs. Thanks for sharing all of this info.</p>
<p>You’re welcome. Raising kids was better than all of the jobs, however. Much better!! Good luck on your quest.</p>
<p>p3t, I was wrong about the name of this major. It is public policy and administration.</p>
<p>Aha
CHeck out this website of the American Planning Association which gives a taste of the professions encompassed and clicks on the top bar to “jobs and careers” , “education”</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.planning.org/[/url]”>http://www.planning.org/</a></p>
<p>I also looked up that major by name on WIkipedia (ok it’s not a definitive source but it’s fast).</p>
<p>Wiki quoted from the Rutgers U catalogue which evidently has an offering in Public Policy and Administration. From this, or better yet Rutgers’ own catalogue, perhaps you can learn more about this major as it’s offered today.
Remember, my experience in that field is about 30 years old by now.
Surely it has evolved.</p>
<p>Hi NEMom- It’s been a while
As usual, my main area of expertise is SUNY- but Albany really does have a pretty top notch program. Check out the website for the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at <a href=“http://www.albany.edu/rockefeller[/url]”>www.albany.edu/rockefeller</a></p>
<p>This should give you a pretty good idea as to the types of programs that are available on the grad and undergrad level. Not pushing Albany- but it will give you some ideas which can be used as a basis of comparison to other programs.</p>
<p>I did read about their program. Thanks Marny. My kiddo might be interested in this major, not that I know what one does with it. I also cannot picture him being interested in this, but if this is what he decides he wants then I will keep my mouth shut. He won’t transferr to Albany, or anywhere else. He really likes JMU.</p>