McCourt School of Public Policy
McCourt School of Public Policy

MIDP Curriculum

The MIDP is a 48-credit degree program, divided into core courses, elective courses, a summer professional placement, and a client-capstone project.

Each semester, MIDP students have three core classes and one elective (an elective may also comprise two half-course modules). This highly-structured framework ensures that every MIDP graduate attains the necessary level of professional facility with the technical skills we emphasize. 

Other programs offer more flexible schedules, but the trade-off is that many, if not most, of their graduates do not acquire the functional technical skills that are needed to fully understand the importance of generating and using rigorous evidence of impact in the design of development policies and programs! By contrast, graduating members of the MIDP community possess a known set of skills and experiences that are highly prized by employers, skills that are centered around economics and quantitative research but also include management and leadership. 

MIDP students use their electives to supplement these core skills with coursework in topics of personal interest (e.g., labor policy, health policy, environmental policy) or to add to those core skills with additional research and data science skills. But regardless of their personal preferences, every MIDP graduate attains professional facility in our core analytical and management skills.

Core Courses

The core courses emphasizes analytical skills and core knowledge for designing and managing sound public policy.

Economics & Development Policy (12 credits)

Quantitative Methods (9 credits)

Management and Institutions (9 credits)

Capstone Project

Each student completes a capstone project. This client-based group project gives students the opportunity to apply skills they are learning in the classroom to real world, real-time policy questions posed by clients from leading international development institutions. The capstone is a two-semester project completed during the second year of the program.

Past clients include: ARK, iDE, IFPRI, Mercy Corps, the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative, Twaweza, and the World Bank.

Recent Capstone Projects
More about the Client-Based Capstone

McCourt’s Foundational Skill Set

In 2018, McCourt organized a Curriculum Innovation Committee to review and modernize the core curricula of our Masters degree programs. Over the past three years, the committee worked toward a number of goals, including developing a set of core competencies for all McCourt degree programs.

After reviewing the core curriculum, benchmarking other policy schools, and speaking with employers, and alumni, the committee developed a set of core competencies which were discussed, voted on, and approved by the McCourt School faculty.

All McCourt students graduate with the following foundational skills:

 

More on McCourt’s Foundational Skill Set

McCourt Foundations

In the fall of 2020, the McCourt School launched a new experiential learning program which seeks to lay the foundation for a McCourt degree. 

McCourt Foundations is designed to facilitate the transition to graduate school, introduce incoming students to a set of core leadership and communications skills, and catalyze equity-centered policy work and advocacy. An experiential program led by McCourt faculty, staff, and Leadership Fellows, McCourt Foundations builds the skills and confidence necessary to design, implement, and measure the effectiveness of policy, while introducing them to their new community. 

This course is mandatory for all MPP (including Evening Program), MIDP, and MS-DSPP students. Students working full-time are expected to take off of work in order to attend all 3 days, 9am-5pm with optional evening activities. 

McCourt Foundations is mandatory and a requirement for graduation. Any student not able to participate in all three days of Foundations will need to make up the course next year. 

Electives

MIDP students expand on the analytical skills they attain in their core coursework with 12 credits of elective courses. Students have an array of elective courses from which to choose at the McCourt School and Georgetown University’s other top-ranked graduate schools. Our expert faculty teach a wide range of elective courses in today’s most relevant policy areas and methods.

Many McCourt students choose to align their elective coursework with their interests and career goals. Electives in areas of development policy, international economic policy, and methods are likely to be of particular interest to MIDP students. MIDP students may also elect to take classes that do not focus specifically on policy making in developing countries, but whose substantive areas may be related to their career goals.

Please see below for an illustrative list of electives that have been offered over the past two academic years that may be of interest to development policy students. This list is not exhaustive and additional courses can be found on the Registrar’s Schedule of Classes. McCourt students also have the opportunity to take electives in other Georgetown graduate programs as well as through the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area . Please contact Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs Nirmala Fernandes at nf168@georgetown.edu for more information.

 

SAMPLE RECENT ELECTIVE OFFERINGS

Course Sequence

A typical course sequence for the MIDP program students appears below.

Year One: Fall Semester

Year One: Spring Semester

Year Two: Fall Semester

Year Two: Spring Semester