Stupidity with a Capitol ‘S’: Sequestration & D.C. Networking

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Happy March 1st, everyone! -_-

Before I say anything else, I want to congratulate Brent and Misha on a fantastically orchestrated trip. Zack has already talked a little bit about what the trip was like, and I’ve included a link to his post.

One of the almuni who spoke to us in D.C. talked about his time at the Maxwell School talked about how, in his time, there was a pervasive expectation that you would enter public service through an explicitly public track, and about how even thinking aloud about private sector work would earn you sideways glances. Professor Rubenstein’s remarks on the first day of Colloquium and the diversity of course offerings we’ve had access to have made it clear that that expectation is long gone, and that the skills from a Maxwell MPA will serve you well in whatever sector you end up in. Given today’s news, that is especially encouraging.

Many of my site visits in D.C. were to federal government agencies (CBO, OMB, GAO, Treasury). We got to talk to graduates of the MPA program, and in a couple of cases, hiring managers who expressed their interest in hiring people like us, provided that sequestration did not take hold.

Like  I said, happy March 1.

Still, it’s really good to know that the skills I’m coming away with are skills that don’t just have appeal in the public sector.  (And I get to sit out the job market for another year!)

“More is required of you.” -John Yinger

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The second semester is off to an interesting start. I’ve found that each of the classes I’m taking this semester is forcing me to think about things in a way that I wouldn’t have conceptualized them before.

The title quote is from John Yinger, the professor teaching the class on State & Local Government Finance. Professor Yinger likes to call attention to the distinction between positive and normative statements, which is a distinction that warms my philosopher’s heart. (For the unfamiliar: positive statements talk about the way things are [think “posit” rather than charge], and normative statements talk about the way things should be.) I challenged him on one element of this distinction in class: my feeling was (is?) that, particularly at the federal level, there’s a great deal of agreement on our policy goals (e.g. everyone thinks low unemployment is a good thing), in which case the positive question of how to realize those objectives should be fairly straightforward to resolve (stimulus? anyone?).

To summarize Professor Yinger’s response: “If it was that easy, you wouldn’t need to be here.”

It reinforces a lesson that some other professors have tried to teach us through some of the writing exercises they’ve had us complete: even when a right answer exists, having the capacity to explain it is what differentiates us. It’s a thought that I’ll be reflecting on throughout the semester, and something worth considering as you’re deciding whether coming to graduate school is right for you.

P.S. There’s been a slight change in the schedule linked to above: Forecasting with Professor Bretschneider is not being offered this semester, so I elected to take a class in the business school that covers some of the same material: Time Series Modeling and Analysis. Some of my classmates and I have taken to calling it “time travel.” The professor is interesting, and the content challenging, but what I’m enjoying most about the class is observing some of the other contexts in which generally applicable material is used. I think it will help me be more mentally flexible.

P.P.S. A big thank you to Nat for the tip on inter-library loans, which has helped me to largely bypass the textbook racket this semester.

F.I.N.A.L.S. : Relaxation and Unrepeatable Acronyms

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As a music and dance legend of the mid-eighties to early nineties once said: Here comes the hammer.

There’s nothing like the feeling of looking at your agenda and realizing that all the things you’ve been talking about having to do at the end of the next semester are due in the next five days. Sometimes you need to dance the terrors away.

And sometimes, you need to hit something. So today we did that.

No innocents were harmed in the production of these photographs. I can’t say anything about the not-innocents.

Regarding  the unrepeatable acronym: it is fortunately the case that I do feel like I learned all of this… stuff. It’s the remembering that’s the hard part.