Importance Of The MPA Program

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In the MPA Program I witnessed and explored leadership traits in my peers, professionals, and professors in my applied learning experience. Leadership is the resounding theme of what my portfolio represents as each opportunity to engage in problem solving and research involved learning how to be an effective leader. These include a research methods project, literature review and case study. Through these course objectives, I learned that leadership is integrated via theory, practice and ideas. It is collaborative and cooperative. Leading a group project or completing projects in a non-profit setting require power sharing and sharing that is an inclusive process where everyone is working towards the same goal. In my first course in my graduate career, State & Local Government, I quickly learned that going into Public Administration research methods and graduate writing that I was being prepared for a career and not just aiming for academic success. Each theory, practice and process I learned in individual courses carried over into learning more in the remainder of my academic curriculum.
The MPA program showed me how much public service and public administration requires collaboration, effective board members, and well managed staff and volunteers. Public Administration requires analysis of a program’s success, availability of resources, and budgets within an agency. Additionally, an agency’s values must be accessed to ensure that staff members share the same values and recognize public value for their mission’s to succeed.
The MPA program outline has students can develop their professional future using the tools our professors and professional advisors equipped us with, i.e. course knowledge and tangible practice in designing th...

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..., including politics, the economy, and agency culture. However, I also learned that it is possible to work smart and not just hard. Using the work gathered in my portfolio, and drawing on the rich academic knowledge the program has afforded me, and building on previous work experience through my applied learning internship, I can work smart in my future career by simply drawing on the knowledge I gained in the program.
This portfolio represents several aspects of public administration, from quantitative analysis to research and case study the consistent idea is change, change in policies and programs in our society that affect each of us. My paper on the School to Prison Pipeline is an example of such policy. By studying policy, we can determine if changes are needed for a policies success. Program evaluation is an effective tool in that used for such determination

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