Second-year students, equipped with policy and governance fundamentals from our core curriculum, create a personalized academic path tailored to their specific career goals. You can select from more than 50 elective courses that cut across eight, nationally ranked specializations to mix and match the classes you need to prepare you for your career.

Public Policy Analysis & Evaluation

Public Policy Analysis & Evaluation electives deepens students’ skills in analysis and evaluation beyond the foundations of our core closes. These courses are designed to help students develop the skills needed to implement analysis and evaluation in a broad set of institutional contexts and prepare students for careers in which these skills can be applied to a wide variety of policy areas. Students obtain more than just familiarity with the methods of analysis and evaluation, they are trained to implement these advanced methods with expertise.

Environmental Policy & Management

Environmental Policy & Management electives prepare students with the tools, methodologies, interdisciplinary perspectives, and topical knowledge necessary to become analysts, managers, and leaders at organizations addressing an array of environmental and natural resource issues. These electives provide students with a deeper understanding of policy analysis, environmental economics, the role of scientific knowledge in decision-making, and the design and management of governance systems.

International Development

International Development electives prepare students to address issues of global poverty, economic development, environmental policy and management, and human rights and civil society development as analysts and development managers. In these courses, students develop strong analytic skills, an understanding of the importance of local context and culture, and the ability to connect local issues to national and global developments.

Public Leadership, Management, & Decision-making

Public Leadership, Management, and Decision-Making electives prepare students to understand and manage organizations, take initiative, and act with integrity. Students develop tools to manage and lead from many types of positions within organizations. These electives engage students in topics and skills ranging from individual leadership and decision-making to stakeholder engagement, collaborative partnerships, negotiation and mediation, risk assessment, and performance management.

Nonprofit Management & Social Innovation

Nonprofit Management & Social Innovation electives help students develop the management and leadership skills and substantive topic knowledge necessary to be successful managers and leaders in nonprofit, philanthropic, and social sector organizations. Students learn both the specialized skills needed to lead nonprofits, including financial management and fundraising, board governance, grant making, and community collaboration, as well as how to track and analyze policy affecting the sector.

Public Finance & Budgeting

Public Finance & Budgeting electives provide students the opportunity to understand how finance works through management and policy lens. Students develop analytic tools
used by financial management professionals, knowledge of resource allocation and control processes, and how to effectively communicate to a non-financial audience.

Social Policy, Poverty, Education, & Social Welfare

Social Policy electives prepare students for careers in government and nonprofit organizations involved in the design, implementation, management, and evaluation of education and social policies. Coursework in this area develops students’ ability to bring policy analysis and management tools to bear on issues in education and social policy.

Metropolitan & Urban Policy

Metropolitan & Urban Policy electives help students interested in policy, planning, management, and service delivery for urban and suburban regions prepare for careers within regional and city government, as well as nonprofit organizations concerned with urban and regional problems and solutions. With an emphasis on equitable solutions, these electives focus on regional development, housing, education policy, workforce development, community and economic development, immigration, poverty, criminal justice, and urban environmental resource management.

Elective Courses

Not every course will be offered every year.