Earning a master’s mid-career

“You’re sitting there, and you do feel a little self-conscious when you’re 33 and everyone else is younger,” she explained.

Paradiso, along with 20 other students earning a Master’s in Public Policy degree (M.P.P.) at the Wilson School, does not fit the typical graduate student profile. Most students pursuing their M.P.P. are mid-career professionals with at least seven years of work experience, who take a year of courses at the Wilson School before heading to public service jobs.

Students in the program said that they enrolled to advance their careers — in large part by connecting to the Wilson School’s network and embarking on a year of focused training. And though they have been on campus no longer than freshmen, M.P.P. students said that they have a clear sense of the knowledge and skills they hope to develop and the career benefits that will likely come with their degrees.

Drawn by the Wilson School

“My plan was always to work in the Foreign Service for a few years and then go back to grad school, but the next thing I knew, 10 years had passed,” she said.

Melissa Lyles, the Wilson School’s director of graduate programs, said that the M.P.P. program generally attracts experienced students with more specific career goals than those entering the two-year Master’s in Public Affairs (M.P.A.) program.

M.P.P. students can “tailor their one year at Princeton to their specific needs, whereas in the M.P.A., the students have just a few years’ experience or come straight from undergrad, and they’re usually just trying to figure out what their career is going to be,” Lyles explained.

Like Paradiso, Ken Edwards GS had originally intended to return to school sooner than he did. He planned to pursue an advanced degree after graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, but instead — not wanting to pass up the opportunity — accepted a judicial clerkship at a federal district court.

Edwards, 36, held a series of jobs at law firms after the clerkship and said that though they were “great places to get experience,” he was not as interested in pursuing the “partnership track.” He added that he thought a degree from the Wilson School would ease his transition to the policy and public service side of law.

“I wouldn’t say it was necessary to have an advanced degree, but the connections and contacts you can make at the Wilson School are invaluable,” he said.

Andy Wong GS, a second-year M.P.A. student, also headed to the Wilson School as he transitioned between careers. After graduating from Swarthmore College in 2002, he moved to San Francisco and began organizing and fundraising for gay-rights issues. Though he enjoyed the experience, Wong said he wanted to find a position where he could be a more effective agent for social change.

“I knew that I needed to complement my experience advocating for change on the outside with understanding what that process is like on the inside,” said Wong, who is 29 years old.

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“I don’t know how successfully I would have been able to segue from being a gay-rights organizer to working in Congress,” he added, explaining that his degree will serve as a signal to employers of his commitment to “make that switch.”

Wong noted that gaining experience in the workforce has allowed for a better focus in his current coursework.

“When you’re 22 and just graduated from college, you don’t really have a sense of what you want to do with your life,” he explained. “Being in the working world really allowed me to find my path.”

Though he originally intended to go to law school, Wong said that he changed his mind upon realizing that law wasn’t the best instrument for pursuing his real passion of advancing social change.

But, he added, “I wouldn’t have known that had I not worked and been part of the movement.”

Back in school

When it comes to the classroom, students said that real-world experience can be beneficial. Edwards said his work experience trained him to look at the practical implications of topics that come up in class.

“Working [for] these law firms, it’s all about efficiency — it’s very bottom-line oriented,” Edwards explained. “When I approach things, it’s always with that in mind, it’s just part of being a litigator ... When you’re talking about the real-world implications of a policy or issue being discussed, you can really see how this stuff would play out in the real world.”

Paradiso also said that the gap between her undergraduate- and graduate-level education was an advantage.

“Having worked for a while, I’ve discovered things I wished I’d learned more about or found gaps in my knowledge, so I think I’m taking much better advantage of the resources and the academics this time around,” Paradiso said.

“It’s more effective [now], because I know what I’m looking for more clearly than I did when I was an undergraduate,” she added.

John Templeton, the Wilson School’s assistant dean for graduate admissions, noted that past work experience also gives graduates an advantage in the job market.

“If you want to leverage this degree professionally, employers will be far more interested in you if you already have some work experience sandwiched between your undergraduate and graduate experience,” Templeton said. “They know you already know how to collaborate with people and that you’ve been tested beyond the academic environment.”

Though M.P.P. students very rarely pursue the academic track, a couple of M.P.A. candidates will eventually go into academia, Wong said. But, he noted, one thing is the same: Candidates for both degrees share a fundamental commitment to public service.

“Even the people planning to go into academia are very committed to public service, and anything they pursue in academics will be related in some way,” Wong explained. “If there’s any division, it’s in terms of different interests in the public service arena, not academia versus the public service sector.”

A change of pace

Regardless of their future plans, students said that returning to school was a nice change of pace.

Though Wong found some aspects of the transition challenging, he said he enjoyed interacting with other students, including undergraduates.

Wong noted that the only negative aspect was that Princeton’s campus culture is more conservative than what he observed at other colleges and universities.

Paradiso said that though there were some differences between her graduate and undergraduate experiences — such as the increased use of electronic resources as a graduate student — many aspects were very similar.

“It’s fun to be back in an academic environment,” she said. “I’ve really enjoyed stretching my brain in a different way.”

This is the third in a five-part series on the lives of graduate students.