This is fantastic, thanks for writing this up! I’ve been hearing a lot about federal consulting (it seems to be one of the most common careers people pursue after an MPP) so it’s helpful to see an analysis from an EA perspective. :)
Happy to help! I have not earned an MPP [yet], so I cannot speak from first hand experience, but I have worked with, under, and over people with them. The frameworks you learn in graduate school will definitely make you more analytical and let you earn a higher salary. I am somewhat skeptical of whether MPP courses themselves teach you to be a “better” federal contractor. I suspect it would be helpful in the way that I found undergrad helpful: My coursework on international relations theory doesn’t have offer me any helpful topic knowledge at all, but learning to think broadly and conceptually about different points of view is immensely valuable.
Maybe MPP coursework’s do shine in harder technical skills, like financial modeling, which might help on some niche federal contracts. The federal reserve and DFC love CFAs, for example. I can’t say for sure.
This is fantastic, thanks for writing this up! I’ve been hearing a lot about federal consulting (it seems to be one of the most common careers people pursue after an MPP) so it’s helpful to see an analysis from an EA perspective. :)
Happy to help! I have not earned an MPP [yet], so I cannot speak from first hand experience, but I have worked with, under, and over people with them. The frameworks you learn in graduate school will definitely make you more analytical and let you earn a higher salary. I am somewhat skeptical of whether MPP courses themselves teach you to be a “better” federal contractor. I suspect it would be helpful in the way that I found undergrad helpful: My coursework on international relations theory doesn’t have offer me any helpful topic knowledge at all, but learning to think broadly and conceptually about different points of view is immensely valuable.
Maybe MPP coursework’s do shine in harder technical skills, like financial modeling, which might help on some niche federal contracts. The federal reserve and DFC love CFAs, for example. I can’t say for sure.