Impression: The K School

This is sketchy because it was typed after-the-fact from handwritten notes. All quotes are approximate.

MPP Presentation
"[The Kennedy School has] a nasty habit of radically changing people's directions..."
"You meet people who have been practicing pediatric dentistry in camps... and then you realize they're not superhuman and begin to think, 'I could do that too...'"
"We want to give you the ability to invade other peoples' institutions and analyze them with confidence."

Fall - 4/5 courses are core (micro, ethics, stats, management) - use #5 to "test your hunch" re: policy concentration
Spring 3.5/5 are core (politics, econ2, stats2, spring exercise)
2nd year is for PAC; no more core
18 credits total required, max 6 per term, max 4 total outside K school - no preferential bidding on that 6th class, so it had better not be anything very popular.

Advisers are assigned, though with regard to academic interests and background

K school is going on the common calendar, January session will be available.
No language courses at the K school - get them from the Yard.

How involved do students get to be with faculty research/interests? As involved as you want - go get research assistantships, course assistantships - get in touch, volunteer yourself. There are 120 course assistants needed any given semester, and while many more go to 2nd years (because nearly all CAs have to have taken and done well in the course first), there are still plenty, plenty of options.

Class sizes? Ethics has five sections, so about 40 each. Quant has four sections of about 50 each. Management has 5, but they vary from 20-60 apiece because of the relative popularity of their "flavors." There is one course with 90 students, but 60 is an informal cap.

Work? Sure, but 10, maybe 15 hours/week max.

Ethics debate
Developing criteria for decision-making
Joke about drinking and throwing darts to choose school - "complex algorithm" for selection
Look at where your school options will put you in two years.

Student Panel
PAE - 40 pages, "no spacing rules"
sometimes what the school wants and what the client wants aren't the same, and one guy is writing two versions of the exercise to address this. The client focus keeps it practical, but then again it's still an academic exercise, and this can be a fine/difficult balance.
TA, CA, RA - lots of options, CA pays $15.75/hr, good way to build relationships with profs. The handful who work at the Yard make more money ($7000/semester) but have more stress.
"We're all trying to save the world in our own little way." Much more a collaborative environment than a competitive one.
"We get away with a lot of things because of the Harvard name. It's a personal choice whether you want to have that branding on you."
"The best and the brightest" was used unironically, though only once.

Political Advocacy and Leadership
"PAL 110 isn't designed so that if I hold you up in a dark alleyway and demand to know the differnce between a one-member district and a multi-member district, you know the answer. It's so if you get parachuted into some other country and asked to draft a constitution, you can be like, 'This is nothing!'"

News Update

Nothing from Zimbabwe yet, but Andrew Sullivan is tracking the decline and preservation of the semicolon. Save our punctuation!

Free and fair, not so much

Okay, so I know just enough history to have already been skeptical about genuine elections in Zimbabwe, but the Sokwanele blog is posting an interactive map to illustrate just how many obstacles stand between today's vote and true democracy. Oh, and Foreign Policy points out that there are 3 million extra ballots just waiting for abuse.

Election-watching

Okay, so Pennsylvania doesn't vote until April 22 and we're all sick of replayed Wright sermons and Bosnia footage. In Zimbabwe, on the other hand, the big vote is tomorrow and the result could range from violent to jubilant. I find myself skeptical that Mugabe will ever leave willingly, but I'll take whatever glimmer of hope I can cling to.

Here's to watching results come in from Harare.

while we're still on the subject...

Camel!

Beautiful Camels

If you need insight to classical Bedouin poetry, or just an escape from all things ordinary, enjoy today's NYT feature on the camel markets of Saudi Arabia. Because, well, it's more fun to read about than to ride...

Chasing the Flame

Today would have been Sergio Vieira de Mello's 60th birthday. I just finished reading Samantha Power's biography, Chasing the Flame, last week. It makes me feel hopeful about the future - despite his tragic death, Mr. Vieira de Mello managed to leave the world a better place for his contributions. Now all I want to know is how I can go do the same, I suppose.

As a side note, it was an interesting book to carry around at work: I met a man who had been one of SVDM's bodyguards in East Timor, a doctor who once sat next to him on a UN flight, and found at least one familiar name in the list of those interviewed. I have a much better sense of institutional memory for having read it...not to imply that everyone else shouldn't read it also. For all its inside-the-UN stories, the book isn't limited by them. Power addresses the challenges and triumphs of the international community in humanitarian and political crises - good reading for anyone interested in helping to address all the problems left in the world.