A few weekends ago, a group of GSPM students helped to recruit some new students to the program. In return for their help, Professor Chuck Cushman, the Director of The Political Management Program, invited them to dinner at his house. Over pasta a few of them talked about why they like the program, here is what they said.
Beth Breeding, a first year student, had this to say:
I was in San Diego over the weekend, and in a small Mexican resturant not far from the beach, my friends and I came up with the Twitter Challenge.
We all know that Twitter is a great way to advertise, to update friends on what you are doing, to find events, and to make friends. But it is also a great way to find information and the people that have information. This led us to ask, "What if someone set out to write a college research paper, using nothing but Twitter as a research guide?" Are there enough people on Twitter? And is there enough information on Twitter, to fuel a research paper?
This summer in Washington, DC, there is nothing more coveted than an Executive Branch internship.
One GSPM student, Thomas Sanford, was talented enough to get one, specifically, in The Office of Space Commercialization. I asked Tommy to tell us a little bit about his internship:
Steve Billet, Director of Legislative Affairs at The Graduate School of Political Management talks about new campaign finance laws and why they have not seemed to work.
With President Obama’s appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, it’s a good time to review recent history of Court nominations – and how they ultimately fared. Over the past 50 years, 27 people have been appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court and of those 19 (70 percent) were confirmed, 3 were rejected, 4 were withdrawn and no action was taken on one of them.
GSPM Career Services Director Mag Gottlieb talks about how to find a job in politics, her experiences in the field, and her newly released E-Book on careers in politics.
Well, not exactly. The College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 created something called the Loan Forgiveness for Public Service Employees Program. This new program provides for the cancellation of the remaining balance due on eligible federal student loans after the borrower has made 120 monthly payments (read: those payments you've already made don't count toward the 120) on those loans under certain repayment plans while employed full-time in certain public service fields, including government, military service, public education - the list goes on.
After reading the fine print, it seems that the program is only worthwhile if you plan on staying in a very low paying public service job for at least 10 years. Basically, you must have a very high debt-to-income ratio to wind up with anything left over to be forgiven at the end of 10 years.
National Journal Online has a nice video link and a long write-up of yesterday's GSPM-sponsored lobbying forum. You can catch the action on their blog, "under the influence," which covers the DC lobbying industry. Theresa Poulson's entry, "White House's Eisen: K STreet Rules Evolving," tells the story and includes a series of video clips from the event. You can catch the story at http://undertheinfluence.nationaljournal.com/2009/05/white-house-ethics-adviser-lob.php
Students who started the political management degree in fall 2008 or later operate under the revised curriculum. Alumni may not have had the chance to review the new curriculum, so here is a quick overview for you.
If you have not already done so, please fill out course evaluations on the Blackboard site for each of your classes.
We use evaulations to track course performance, modify existing courses, identify new course needs, and to help make all of our teaching better. The dean and each program director review the evaluations at the end of each term and talk to the faculty abut the results. We cannot make the programs better without your help!
