DEGREE REQUIREMENTS

The MPP degree normally requires two years of full-time study at the School, although reasonable accommodations can be made for students with disabilities. Degree candidates must complete 72 units of academic credit (three 4-unit classes per quarter). Eight of the 11 required courses in the core curriculum are completed in the first year. A required two-quarter seminar in Applied Policy Analysis guides students in researching and writing a major policy research paper. Students select the remaining courses (28 units) from a wide range of two- and four-course concentrations devoted to specific policy issues and from relevant courses offered by other UCLA graduate programs.

The program also requires candidates to participate in a 400-hour field internship with an approved government agency, nonprofit group or other approved organization. Most students complete the internship during the summer between their first and second years. This enables them to apply their academic training to real policy problems and to lay the groundwork for the policy research paper. Students with substantial experience in the policy-making field may petition for a waiver of the field internship.

Much of the coursework in the core curriculum assumes that students have a certain level of mathematical knowledge and are already conversant with such concepts as functional notation, algebraic manipulation, and graphic representation. Although there is no formal requirement, students are urged to take elementary college-level courses in statistics and economics and to be comfortable with quantitative methods and analysis before entering the program. The Department mails all entering students a mathematical self-assessment exercise to complete during the summer, and offers a voluntary two-week math refresher course before the fall quarter begins.

Students can be dropped from the program for a variety of reasons. The most fundamental is failure to maintain the minimum cumulative grade point average (3.0) required by the UCLA Academic Senate to remain in good standing. Other reasons include failure of examinations, lack of timely progress toward the degree, and poor performance in core courses. A faculty counseling board is established for every probationary student with a cumulative GPA below 3.0. The board seeks to help the student meet minimum standards, and can recommend termination if those standards are not met. Even if academic work is satisfactory, students can be terminated if they fail to demonstrate the standards essential to the responsible practice of public policy analysis.