Public Policy Analysis Major

Hi, I am a high school senior and was accepted to Emory RD, and I went down to Spring into Emory last Wednesday. I really enjoyed it, so I have really started to dig into the Emory website, looking at what courses I will register for this summer, which dorms to live in, and things like that. I stumbled upon what appears to be a new program administered by the Institute for Quantitative Theory and Methods and the Department of Political Science. It isn’t yet on Emory’s major list on the admissions website, but it was in the Catalog website.

Does anyone know any more information about the PPA major besides the FAQ on the website? I was thinking about pursuing a double major in Political Science and Economics with a Specialization in Public Policy. Would I still be able to double major in either poli sci or econ? What are potential career outcomes from PPA? What grad school options would be available? I know that I am considering pursuing the pre-law track, but I’m not sure yet. Would the PPA major prepare me for graduate programs like a masters in public policy or a phd in political science or government?

If you have any other information about the program I’d love to hear it! I’m just curious as to what my options would be if I choose to go to Emory in the fall. Thank you in advance!

@bab54251 : That will likely be an excellent program with excellent oppurtunities and yes you can major in it. Just remember that PPA is a major (combines the pols and econ. courses, plus QTM core and electives) so it isn’t "2 majors "(QSS and Political science) which leaves economics possible as a 2nd major.

Check the page with the fellows on it: http://www.quantitative.emory.edu/about/fellows/index.html#undergraduatefellows

Notice how she majors in one of the 4 tracks indicated in QTM but doubles with economics. QSS is the tricky because it includes the substantive areas and stuff whereby one technically has a primary major in another department and adds all the QTM requirements to it (and often electives in the primary area can count towards QSS electives). Also, with college I advise you not get caught up in labels on the degree. For example, you can just be a political science major and take the public policy focused courses in political science AND several QTM housed core courses and electives and this will strengthen your career marketability and graduate school prospects. If you can do this and fit in economics, go for it!

Also, a thing about graduate school…your options are “whatever fits you interests and training”…you need to take some courses and or get settled in research in whatever field and then determine what types of graduate programs and disciplines/subdisciplines you want to target. Simply being at a strong school helps, but the rest is about fitting the research interests of the departments/schools being targeted. Places at least as large as Emory will prepare you for many types of programs but you will likely need to be deliberate in course selection and research opportunities to find some direction. Like if you do Political Science and economics, a range of opps will open up and you just need to figure out what type of research you may interested in. If you add the QTM course training or do Political Science/Math, even more options open up because you would become more competitive for quantitatively focused programs with that training, and even more so if you do quantitative focused research. You are in control of your options post-grad in these arenas. Doing anything affiliated with Political Science and the QTM Institute puts you in great hands, and there is evidence that economics is also trying to improve its undergraduate training even more, especially in the more research based courses (such as economics methods and econometrics which I suspect are going project and computational based as opposed to just “we do focused statistics problems” based).