 Our student panel is here. They're gonna give their candid response, their candid responses to your questions. So Nate Guyer is gonna be our moderator and he's gonna introduce his panel. And we're gonna excuse ourselves for a little while so you guys can have a student to student interaction. But we'll just be upstairs if anybody needs anything and you guys have an hour and a half so have a good conversation. Nate. Thank you. First of all, hello everybody. So as I was so wonderfully introduced, my name is Nate Guyer. I am a first year MPP here at the Ford School of Public Policy. And I'm from Southwest Michigan and I attended U of M as my undergrad institution. So yeah, I guess I'll be moderating this thing. It's kind of impromptu. Let's have everybody else introduce yourselves. Just name your program right now something interesting about yourself, I guess. I didn't do that, but I'll make you do it. Because I'm the moderator and I have that kind of power. Oh my turn, okay. Hi, I'm ProbDeep. I am a first year MPP. I am a dual with a higher ad here degree as well. My name tag is wrong. I'm technically 15, not 16, but whatever. Let's just cross that out. That's all whatever. I'm from California. So I'll try to minimize the amount of time I compare Michigan to California because I've been told I do that too much. Anything else? Interesting. I'm from California. Hi, my name is Michonne and I am from Alaska. I lived in Alaska until I was 22 and I lived in DC for two years and I worked as a government contractor and then I started school here in the fall. So I'm a first year MPP MSW. So I'm a dual, masters of public policy and masters of social work student. And I guess something interesting about me is I'm from Alaska. Hi, everyone. I'm Luis Contreras, second year MPP. I'm about to graduate and go back to the real world, I guess, and find a job. I spent half of my life growing up in Mexico and the other half in California. An interesting thing about me is I'm going to, I'm part of the China trip. So I'll be in China this May as part of the Ford School. Thank you. Okay. So we have a couple of just questions, kind of things to get us going here a little bit. So if you guys have any questions or anything, we'll, I don't know, we'll just go with it. Okay. Should be pretty informal. Yeah, raise your hand. Is that, yeah, is that the, yeah, let's go with that. Raise your hand. We'll get you, we'll get your question in front of the panel. So I guess let's start off with, you know, let's start off with your course that is most interested you so far here at the Ford School. I'll give you, I'll give you a moment to mull that over. I am currently enrolled in a course that is with a visiting professor. He's a Towsley Foundation visiting scholar or visiting practitioner, I should say. And so a lot of people will come into the Ford School from different places and they're kind of once in a lifetime opportunities to study with people that are doing some really cool policy work in their fields right now. So that particular professional is a former ambassador to the State Department as well as a deputy chief at the OECD. And so he brings a lot of real world experience and real world policy, real world policy work to the classroom. Okay, you guys ready? Cool. I have an answer. Okay, cool. Yes. So my most interesting course is one that I've been enrolled in right now. It'll touch on a few things that you maybe have heard about. So it's not here at the Ford School, it's over down the street at the Ross School of Business and it's a seven week class. It's a doctoral course that I'm taking. So you've probably heard of cognates that you have to take as part of the coursework here. It's really interesting just because it should, I mean for me, the reason I came to Michigan was because they kept on telling me we're all about interdisciplinary. We care about doing things the new innovative way. And one of the awesome ways that they encourage that is that they allow us to take classes in other schools and other departments. It doesn't hurt to send the professor an email beforehand to make sure it's okay that a master's student enters maybe like a doctoral class or something like that. But it's been most interesting because it's really forced me to think outside of my policy and education mindset and approach things from a new way and that's definitely something to keep in mind as you're picking classes to challenge yourself. So I didn't take a whole lot of electives so far since I'm a dual degree student. I've been trying to focus on getting as many core classes as I can completed in my first year. So I've taken one elective and that was here at the Ford School and that is civil rights. That was a good class. It was very law based. We looked at a lot of case studies, civil rights lawsuits and just kind of dissected them and talked about them. And it was very informative and I learned a lot. As far as the most useful, I took two classes at the School of Social Work. There were also core classes. I would say that most useful class so far would be my statistics and I haven't taken program eval. So I know that program eval, calculus and econ, all kind of, so econ, calculus and statistics, all kind of meld with, go with the program evaluation like the program evaluation puts it all together basically. So I haven't taken that yet and I can see that word that would be most useful but so far for me it's been statistics. I can see doing that in the future because I would like to do a lot of research on large populations. So that's been the most useful for me and another thing too I wanted to add is when you're in a dual degree program, a lot of the times you will end up doing your first year in one school and then your second year in the other school. And if depending on how quickly you get your coursework done, your third year will be kind of a mixture of both. And you do have options to go into other schools which is a law school, business school, school of education, et cetera. For me so far, my favorite courses have been with Professor Catherine Dominguez, Microeconomics and International Financial Policy. I like the courses because unfortunately you have, you can use macro policy and models to come up with policy recommendations. If you're interested in open market operations, fiscal policy, monetary policy, it's fun, it's a fun course. You actually get to do a final project on a country and you get to present it to the class but also to the Ford school. So last year we worked on poll and monetary and fiscal policy how they can use that to their advantage and keep their budget under control. Another useful class, it's also data analysis using Excel. A lot of people tend to use data or SPSS for that kind of work but most organizations out there usually have Excel and they use this as their main database. And it's pretty cool to start doing big data analysis using this particular tool and how to manipulate data and come up with results without spending too much money in these big statistical packages like Stata that organizations don't have. So that's definitely an excellent course to take and actually just apply for a job where they send me a big file with data in Excel and I was able to quickly clean it up, come up with answers for what we're looking for and so I was able to move on to the next round of interviews. So it's an awesome course to take. How about you guys? Do you guys have any questions? Burning questions right now, some direction for us. What's your least favorite thing about the Ford School? So the question is, what's your least favorite thing about the Ford School? I can't say anything. You can say your answer. No, I can't. So we'll talk about California. So somebody else start while Prob is thinking about not California related answers. Do you guys have anything? That's fair, yes. It's really fair. I guess for me it's kind of like the cold weather is also kind of like bad. I spent like 10 years in California, so coming here it was kind of rough. The other one thing is the policy simulation that we do every year, there's a requirement and I don't like that because they cut my winter vacation short, so I have to come back a little early and when you go back to California you don't want to cut it short. So that's the only one thing. Other than that, I guess you kind of like you make of this opportunity what you want to of it. So I tried to take advantage of every resource out there. It's not given to you in a solar play, you have to go get it. And you really, you can either have an awesome experience and do make the best out of it or just have a miserable time, but that's really up to the students. So I think being here at Michigan and being here at Ford, you already have like a leg up and like a very big opportunity that other students across the nation will wish they could have, so thank you. So the thing that I cared least about, I don't care about football, which is like sacrilegious here. So for me that was like really frustrating because I also don't drink. So for me to get involved with social culture here at first was really jarring. Michigan's one of seven universities in the nation that has their game day before their first day of classes. So if that kind of tells you the institutional commitment towards that being part of the culture, I'm sure a lot of you have some sport or something you're interested in. But that for me was like I recognized that early on that I had to make that active effort to care, which on top of everything else transitioning was just like, okay, I have to go make friends now. And that was a little frustrating, but you got over it, people seem to like me, okay, so it worked out. So for me, so when I grew up in Alaska, we drove everywhere and also in DC, I pretty much, I was able to drive to work every day. So I'm used to that, I'm not used to commuting by bus. And so I guess that would probably be the hardest thing I had to deal with so far here, having to bus it every day. Because I live, I don't live on campus, I live about two miles off campus. And I did that because I wanted to save some money because on campus it's quite a bit more expensive. So I live right on the border of Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor, I don't know if you guys heard about Ypsilanti yet, but I found a really nice place that's about half the price for my own apartment versus having to, right, right, Shanara? I know, I mean, we're living the same building. But yeah, so it's a great place and so I decided to live there. And so I bus it every day. And it's a good 20, 30 minute commute, no more like 30 to 40 minute commute depending on where I'm going on campus. But even though it's a pain, it's at least I get to catch up on reading, which is good. But when I was driving, I didn't get to do that. So this one just positive everything. Yeah, just one quick coming in. I think you had a question. So in terms of football, go to the football games. Please go to the tailgating. Yeah, tailgating at least go once in your life to the big house. It's one of the biggest stadiums in the world. So go check it out, you know? It's a particular experience that you probably won't get anywhere else. The other team that I didn't like about Ann Arbor is like, you know, I'm Mexican, I love Mexican food and tacos and you won't get any of that here, so sorry guys. You got to travel a little far to get that good food out there. You can continue with the question. Yeah, I just had a question about. Okay, so the question is what activities and, I was gonna try to add another word there, but I just can't, synonyms, and organizations, thank you. What other activities and organizations are we involved with, is it relative to the school or just outside of the school, doesn't matter? Okay, what else are we doing? What else are you guys doing? So there is a lot to do here in Ann Arbor. It's actually really overwhelming. And for a really introverted person like me, it's really, it was actually kind of hard because there's a lot to do. There's so many, you're gonna get a ton of invites. People are really communal here. There's lots of fun parties on the weekends, lots of get-togethers. There's a lot of student organizations on campus here at the Ford School and off, out in other schools that are very involved, do all kinds of fundraising activities, like we just had Ford, Fed, something. And Ford Idol. Yes, Prop Deep Sing at the, it was Karaoke event. She was not singing. Yes, and I wasn't there, unfortunately. I had to do statistics homework, but I heard it was really fun and I was really bummed I didn't get to go. But yeah, there's so much to do, like seriously. And unfortunately I didn't get to participate a whole lot in that. Other than that, there's, like I'm involved in the Native American Student Association. That's a new native org here on campus. And we're throwing a pow wow this weekend. And so if you're bored this weekend, if you have anything to do, it'll be all the way running from like 10 until about nine o'clock, eight o'clock on Saturday. And then on Sunday it ends around like six ish. But it's great, lots of dancing, singing. I don't know if you're familiar with the pow wow, but it's just a lot of Native American tribes get together, non-Native people come and it's just dancing, singing, celebration. It's a great time to get together and be a big community. Yeah, so there's a lot to do. That should not be a worry. This place is a really fun place, so. Do you feel like this program has resources to prepare you for a job post getting your degree? Do you feel a lot prepared? So it's about support for getting internships and jobs through the school, whether it's classes or through the resources here. What do you guys think? I guess I can answer that since I'm also looking for a job. I think the courier service is of great help. They definitely have like a database of jobs that they update almost every day. You'll get newsletters and what not. You can meet with people at the courier center. They can help you out with your writing samples, resmates, just about everything. They won't certainly hand you a job right away and tell you like, hey, don't worry about it. Here's a job for you. You don't have to do anything. That's the business school at the MBA. You gotta do a little bit of work, but what they do is they have a lot of connections and the Ford School network is wide. And every year they have the DC trip where you go to Washington DC with Ford School alumni. It's working in different organizations and they're actually very helpful. Either giving you contacts or sharing information on jobs, how to get there and basically moving up your application of the pile. So that's kind of like the best resource you have here is the network you have. And once you go to like DC, you tell them you go to Ford School, that name carries a little weight out there, so. No, go. Oh no. I will add one comment, I guess. As a first year, so I'm not looking for jobs right now, but we all are required to do an internship over the summer. So I would say that over the course of the year, there are plenty of opportunities and they post a lot of things. Everyone to my knowledge finds one because you have to find one. So don't worry about finding one. It may not be like the number one choice you had, but there's definitely plenty of resources to help you get there. One thing to keep in mind, I guess, was the first thing that I did when I got here was I started talking to people that I knew about, like, these are my interests. Do you know anyone in the existing Ford School that is interested in this? And they said yes and they would connect me to people and that was actually something like the second years are more than happy to talk to the first years about their past experiences and I remember some of the people that I talked to now were second years. I met them because of an email, not because I ran into them down the hallway or in class or something like that. So building off the network, not only the alumni network, but the existing network here in the school. Did any of you guys attend any of the workshops that Graduate Career Services put on throughout the year? Yeah, so. Okay, yeah. Yeah, you can talk a little bit about the course. Core quantitative work. What did you guys experience? So I particularly didn't have a strong quantitative background when I came here. I did international studies for my undergrad. I took a one year stats course, which didn't really help that much. And so when I came to the Ford School, part of the reason why I came to the Ford School was because of those quantitative courses and I knew employers really value those skills. So I took my Econ A and Calculus class that first semester and that was probably one of the toughest semesters, but also one of the most rewarding semesters that I had. Faculty really cares about their students and they will do everything to make sure you learn the material. And in my micro class, I was struggling the first few weeks. So I talked to the professors. I talked to the professor and I went to office hours and he was willing to help me outside class. I went to the GSIs office hours and they were willing to help me also. And so the professor also made arrangements with the administration so I could go to tutor. So I could succeed in the class. And so that was like a great resource that the Ford School makes available to students that probably don't have that background. They really tried to help me out. Make sure you get what you pay for and get a good education. So. Yeah, and I could add to that too. So I have my undergrad degree in social work so I had minimal quantum experience and I was extremely nervous, like really nervous to do any calculus. I was like, this is crazy why I'm not gonna do that. But yeah, well I have to, but I was really nervous about it and it really wasn't that bad. And the reasons why is not that the coursework isn't difficult, but because that we have, every Friday we have a section class where we have GSIs teach us, their graduate student assistants, they help with teaching and helping us with our coursework through the quantum classes. And so they taught us, they gave us extra help on Fridays. There's office hours for all the GSIs and the teachers. There's tutors available. And I took advantage of all of those and I made it. And it wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be. So I don't think the quant stuff should make you too nervous. Not as nervous as I was at least. Don't be afraid to take the waiver exams. I came in with an applied math and rhetoric background straight from undergrad. So I tested out of the calc and the econ requirements and I took stats for fun. So if you're a math person, I would definitely recommend taking the waiver exams because that frees up your time to take elective courses, which is what I did my fall semester and I would take two extra classes. I wouldn't have been able to take otherwise. I agree. I waved out of calculus, but I did very poorly. I'd barely passed all of those classes when I was an undergrad, bad memories, but I did really well here. I did a little bit of studying before for calculus. I didn't for econ or stats, but I still got through these courses here with flying colors mostly because of the teaching capability of the professors and the GSIs as well as just the way that we can collaborate between students here. A lot of the coursework that we do involves a lot of reasoning and a lot of talking through the logic of a lot of the problems that we have in front of us. It's not all just crunching numbers. A lot of it's also like looking at the reasoning behind why these things are there and the practical applications that they have. Yeah. Yeah, just if you guys can get back to your first semester, what's one thing that you would recommend for any of us starting our first semester is something that you would say is absolutely, it must do. Okay, so then we must do when we start out to really feel like we're being successful in our first semester. That's a good question. Thank you. You get that? For me, it was really like connecting with the second years that had done things that I was interested in. So I, like I said, I was a dual with the higher ed. So I met with every single existing dual in higher ed and MPP to figure out how I could like mold my classes to the way that I wanted to do them and like figure out the tricks to take the classes I wanted to take and not take the ones I didn't want to take. But even from like a large like perspective of like careers and internships, like talking to them gave me the idea of like the realm of possibility of what I could do and where I should begin focusing my energies for the kinds of things I was interested in. And yeah, I had a lot of coffee those first few weeks. I will say just in general, like academic wise, make sure you do your homework, your reading on time and don't wait. When they give you a problem set, don't wait until like the day before cause you're going to be crying, especially if it's stats. They tend to be long. But yeah, as soon as you get your problem sets and want to make sure you start doing them right away and collaborate with your classmates, that is the best way to get ahead. Sometimes a lot of boss don't want to like get together because you think that one of like you're too dumb and they're so smart, but literally a lot of people are really good at pretending that they're super smart. A lot of us aren't like the same, like, you know, there's always the like super smart kids, but even them they're willing to help you out a lot. So like we said before, you know, it's a lot about collaboration here at the Forest School, not competition. So get together with your classmates. If you need help, go to the office hours. You know, a lot of people don't take advantage of that. And the professors are literally just waiting there so you can come and ask questions. So to get advantage of all those resources. One thing that I could recommend, something that my wife did actually, my wife is also a student here at the Ford School. She blocked out time at the very beginning of her semester as well as earlier this semester for time in the career center. I would say she blocked out maybe two hours every week for that first semester and then she blocked off a little bit more, I think anywhere between four and six at the beginning of the second semester. So make sure that she really started working on internships and she got an internship at the Government Accountability Office this summer. Last year there were no Ford School students that actually had successfully gained an internship at GAO. But I think, I mean in part it was because of a hiring blitz but also because she was really on top of her stuff and she just decided she would really look into all of these opportunities. And because she put in that time at the beginning it became a lot easier for her and she got a lot more access to the people that were working at Graduate Career Services who are extremely helpful people that really know their stuff. I think that's something that can also just lead to better networking and better professional development stuff in the future. Yeah, if you've been through a grad program before that you probably know what's the deal but if you haven't then like me you kinda get a little bit stressed out. So making sure you have those coping mechanisms to help you cool down at the end of the day or at the end of the week, they're necessary. Absolutely. Mine this week is Captain America and Tabletop Gaming Day over at the comic shop on Main Street. Someone else had a question? Let's go with you. Kind of on similar lines, are there any folks, online resources, things like for people to have a strong background and policy stuff coming in that you might like to manage to give you just a little bit of a leg up so the worker is not supposed to be? In terms of the, at least for calculus, they do send out a website that you can practice and kind of refresh your memory in terms of math. Student services will send that to you at one point and there is also the calculus bootcamp that starts I believe it's a week before the actual classes start so if you could make it to that it's a great resource to get finished. The other one thing and that's one thing that I did before coming to, before I started classes is during spring preview I met with professors, particularly the professor teaching statistics and program eval and I asked them for resources ahead of time and so they were able to send me coursework material so I was doing a lot of that work over the summer so I didn't feel that out of place when I came here and I started my classes so reach out to professors, send them an email and they'll be more than happy to point you out to resources. As far as quant classes, Khan Academy, that's right, that's right, yeah that's a really good resource if you want to get a head start, especially on your algebra because what really is tricky is not the calculus it's the algebra so that really helps you with your algebra skills. As far as the non-quant classes, for me I just made sure I did my readings before I went to class and as long as I did my readings for the most part we were on topic and I was able to follow the conversation so as long as you do that you should be fine but I agree though that Lewis had a really good advice though if you go to your teachers and just kind of ask them ahead of time they might be able to give you some more resources. I stalked the Ford School website and found a bunch of syllabi and then checked out those books from the library and even for courses that I wasn't taking I even did some for undergraduate courses. It is crazy. I read like three books, it's not like. You need to read like zero books beforehand. I know you don't need to read, I know you don't need to read books. Like I would say unread some books over summer. Stop it, God. Oh my God. Don't give me your shit problem. But if you are in the mood to read two books that I think that'll help you become a critical thinker if you haven't already read them are Thinking Fast and Slow by Kahneman and Tversky and, oh what's that other one? It's the one that we have to read first. No, we don't have to read it. Damn, I can't remember. So, I'm a- Thinking Fast and Slow and- Yeah, I can't remember the other one. Yeah, I saw. That's the better one. No, if you think of it, just shed it into the microphone. So, Luis had to leave us. He had to go to class, so we'll miss him. Lots of questions. Okay, let's, we should make a cue or something. He was up first. Were you up first? Go for it. Kind of, kind of broad, but is it worth it, both in terms of time, money, and the time that I would give up even though you're working full-out for three years? Well, we're all first-years, so. I think it's worth it. Oh, I'm really enjoying my experience. It's, I mean, I feel like when you're in college, it's like, it's a time for you to like, you're like exploring, you're learning about yourself. Like, it's a really great time and it's a time for yourself, you know. And that's kind of how I take this experience for me. Yeah, it's, for me, it's three years, my dual-degree program, that's a long time I know, but I'm enjoying it, and it's definitely worth it. I don't know exactly what the outcomes are gonna be when I graduate, but I do think that it's gonna increase my opportunities for jobs, definitely. Especially if, I feel like University of Michigan's very competitive school has a great reputation for the most part. You know, when I talk to people and tell them I'm going to University of Michigan, they're like, oh, well, that's really reputable school. So I think it does help your, increase your chances of getting a job, a better job when you're done with school. For sure, and that's one of the reasons why I decided to go to grad schools. I was in a job that, I was in a kind of a support position and I wasn't happy, well, I would say I was happy, but wasn't ecstatic about my job, I'd say. So that's why I decided to go to grad school, because I wanted to become more sellable and maybe get into a management position. So I think it's definitely worth it. I would say so, yes. And what I was looking at on my phone, I was trying to find the book. It's called Nudge, Improving Disabilities About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. I think that's what I was looking for. Nudge, I've heard of that one actually. And yeah, I think it's worth it. I mean, I'll actually look conditional that on figure out what it is you want out of these next two years. If you don't know what you want and you're kind of just wandering through it, then it's by default, you may or may not, it's gonna be completely random whether it's gonna be worth it or not. But if you have a clear idea or at least a clear sense of what it is that you want out of your program out of these two years, then you'll make the right connections, you'll talk to the right people, you'll pay attention to the right topics in class, they'll figure out what you need to do and don't need to do. Yeah, so figure that out first and then answer that question. Tim and I had something to say, but I can't remember. We're having a short hand test. Are we? I thought we had until 330. We do, but there are a lot of people. Oh, we do. Oh, I thought we had until 330. Sorry. So I got plenty of time. No, it's okay. Yes. I have some more questions. Yeah. Can you kind of tell us more about your relationships, like how you got to them as far as prioritizing the top ones that you wanted and then what it entails and how beneficial it is for you? So I had a faculty mentor, but it just, and I prioritized it so that it was within my relative field of expertise and generally something that I'm really interested in, but I don't think that's my most valuable faculty connection. I mostly made one of my best faculty connections through my coursework by taking an elective with Professor Susan Waltz here with her human rights course. I think that taking her course and going to her office hours and talking through current issues of the day as well as just a coursework and different projects that we had in the class, I think that is what really solidified that relationship. And it's not to say that I couldn't have made that first relationship work. It's just that I think the way that I went about it with the faculty mentor that I do have right now was a lot more natural feeling to me. And so it's gonna depend on your personality as well, but I think a lot of people find really good faculty, faculty mentors here just through their coursework. I mean, if after you commit, they'll send out an email about how to, like, the process from articulating, one of that is going to be filling out a form that says these are my top three choices of people who I'd like to be assigned as a faculty mentor. And that's basically how it works. And they'll email you back where you'll find it on the day of orientation or something who you're assigned to. I would just say, like, off of his point, the faculty mentor is just a way for the, like the Ford School to be like, institutionally you have someone, but I would definitely say that that's not your end, that's probably starting point. People typically find don't, they rely on their faculty mentor simply as like a point of contact, not as the one person they rely on. Yeah, I think, oh, go ahead. You sure? Yeah. I was assigned a faculty mentor, because I'm a dual and MSW MPP program, I was assigned a faculty mentor. I didn't really get a top choice or choose or anything. And she's wonderful. She, if you're an MSW MPP program, she's super responsive. She helps you sign up for classes. She'll connect you to opportunities, you know, like research assistant jobs possibly or anything, like, she's just super helpful. And she even, in the beginning of the semester, which I didn't get to go to, she planned a dual happy hour. So all of us dual MSW MPP program students, we all got together and well, I didn't go, but they all went, got together and, yeah. Who is this? Social things. Sandra? Sandra, okay. Her name is Sandra Dansker. And she, yeah, she's been very helpful. And she usually meets with me every semester at least once and helps me make sure that I'm on track with my classes. Go for it. Do it. For all, like, your experience, like, working with faculty, like, how is that, all of them, like, we had the faculty panel this morning and they all seemed very accomplished. Who was it? Can you tell us? Yeah, who was on it? So, list. Anyone want to run? She'll be the, She'll be the pathosarathy. Yeah. Yeah. Now, like, only how your experience has been with them, like your interactions with them in the classroom, outside of the classroom, and also, like, how it's been, you know, like, what your opportunities to do, like, research with them. Yeah. Or, like, paid or unpaid or, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You guys learned any research with any professors here? Yeah. So I think one thing is, like, we have research centers here. From my understanding, typically, they're looking for people who are, because they're paid GSRA positions, they're looking for people who are, like, have the skills. So if you're looking to, like, learn how to do research or something like that, you may, like, be better off, like, finding a doctoral student and working with them, and then using that as a connection to find a faculty person. But don't be afraid to try. Like, the worst you're going to get is, like, sorry I have no openings, which then just means you move on to the next person. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Who is next? Some one of these people. Let's get, let's get one of you. We have to call it. We have to call it. Oh, I don't, I don't know. I'm just trying to, I'm trying to bring some more although I'm going to stop answering every single one. We've all taken, like, seven exams this week and are, like... My brain is a ferrite. So let's go, let's go with you and then we'll head back over to this way and then we'll just kind of figure it out from there. The worst moderator ever, sorry. Oh, okay. I'm going to Santa Barbara, California. I'm working with a, I know, I know. I'm working with a nonprofit called Direct Relief International that specializes in delivering humanitarian aid in the form of medical supplies to crisis zones and other places around the world as well as places within the United States experiencing a natural disaster. I am going to be at the Michigan Department of Education through the Data Fellowship that's done through the Education Policy Initiative. So I'll be here all summer. That's cool. Thank you. You can answer. I don't have an internship. Oh, can either of you? You have a job. No, I do. Yeah, it's your job. Okay, so since I'm a dual student, I'm doing my social work internship first because the social work internship is required to do it in Michigan and I prefer to keep my apartment this summer and having to try to sublet it and all that and then coming back in the fall. So it makes sense for me just to stay here and do my social work internship and I'm hoping to get into the American Indian Health and Family Services in Detroit. It's a really great organization doing a lot of various different things, child welfare stuff and substance abuse, a lot of cultural activities. They do a ton of things for Native people here in the area and so that's what I'm doing and at the School of Social Work, I don't know if any, is there any dual MSW MPP students are interested? Okay. Oh, neat, great. Yeah, so there is, you have to do with the School of Social Work, you're gonna have to do an internship throughout the year as well as the summer. So this summer I'll be doing it two days a week, eight hours a day and then I'll also be doing it in the fall two days a week and then in the spring or winter, we call it two days a week. So it's a little different in the Ford School here, we just get it all knocked out in one summer. At the School of Social Work, we kind of spread it out throughout the year so you kind of get a more longer experience at your internship. So yeah, so it's a little different but it's kind of nice. I kind of like the spreading it out and you get to experience the organization for a lot longer and see it kind of grow throughout a period of time versus being there in a quick 10 weeks. So both ways is really good. It's just kind of got away the pros and cons. I wanted to add to, so I did say that you have to, I spread mine out, I spread my social work program out and most social work students do that but you don't have to. So if you wanna knock it out in one summer, I'm pretty sure you can work it out with your faculty advisor and make it work if that's something that fits your schedule. They're pretty flexible of how you wanna do it but I just said that because most social work students including me is going to spread it out throughout three semesters so it's kind of recommended but not required. So let's go with you up there. Sorry about skipping you, sorry about skipping you up there. I love your guys' experience. Experience has been managing the relationships outside the school. So relationships with your former peers, fellow colleagues, significant others who are either in-state, out-of-state, et cetera and how that's been, you know, why you've been in graduate school. Because I know for myself, all people who have been with my students, the others, so I kinda wanna have an idea a little bit of what to expect because she won't be here. You said she's gonna be here and not gonna be here with you. She will be moving to Michigan. She'll be moving here but she won't be in graduate school so she won't be on my two different schedules. I see, I see. Hmm. I feel like you should, well, I know you're... Well, yeah, she's here in the school. I see her often enough, yeah. They're literally in the same classes. Yeah. Divide and conquer. Yeah. Yeah. Aren't you happy and moderated this? Yeah, I'm so happy. So happy. I don't know, I guess it's more difficult to manage the other relationships outside of the school. I still have a lot of friends that remain in Ann Arbor from my undergraduate days. So I guess I spend a lot of time studying even on some of the weekends but that doesn't mean that these social events don't ever occur and that I never get to see any of these friends but it just seems like it requires a lot of scheduling and that's like the last thing you wanna do when you wanna hang out with your friends is, hey, I'll pencil you in for Saturday at one from one to three, you know? You don't wanna do that. Yeah, I do that too. I do it, you just don't want to. I don't mind. You don't mind? No, look at you, okay. It's a calendar. What else makes you have a calendar? I don't know, I feel like it should be more natural. That's just my opinion though. In any case, I do feel like it's harder to manage like actual just social time even with my wife just based on the, just based on the way that coursework happens and I'm probably do 12-hour days most every day of the week, if not a little bit more just based on classes and based on other things that I have to do because I also work, I work at one of the offices on campus. It's just, it's a little difficult but I don't. Yeah, it's something I've started doing in grad school is having a calendar. I always had a little planner since like high school but I never use it too, not a lot at least but since I started grad school, I've been had to. I had to be really organized and I had to pencil in my social, you know, social time, whatever it is, you know and that's what really helped me because yeah, you do, you have a lot of work in grad school but you can make it work. Yeah. Day organized. No, it works. It's not to say that it doesn't work. It's just, it's more difficult than your vision. It'll be like your first class. And like, and it's not like you're, you won't be the only one going through it as well so it's not like any of the events or any of the social things that Ford throws on. It won't be like you can't bring your significant other. So like think of that as well. It's not like you come in here, you are single. It's no. No, everybody. We don't have that power. No, no. I mean, yeah, there's plenty of social events where it's just, it's open to people that are affiliated with the Ford School in any way whatsoever. We're a pretty open community. We're really accepting. So I have a friend who was serving in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua who came here and I met him here. It makes it sound like I knew him before, but now we met here at the Ford School and his wife was still in the visa application process because she's a Nicaraguan. And so she just came this semester and they've been a happy little couple ever since and she comes to the Ford School and the people that can speak Spanish, they'll, you know, they'll greet her and they'll go over and talk with her and welcome her to the school and keep her involved in everything that's going on. Three or four. Three or four? What? No, it's three or four. Oh, it is. It's three or four. I should shut up and let's move on with the other questions. Let's go through first. I don't want to talk about this all over the floor, but the housing and then making decisions about housing, how soon after making a decision to come here should we start looking for housing? What are some of the housing options? The next day. Right now. Right now, okay. Just like up on Craigslist. Yeah, yeah. I found my place on Craigslist as well and I came, did I see it? No, I didn't see it when I was visiting, but when I was here for preview weekend, I went and saw like seven apartments, you know, got information on prices and I found a lot of their information off of Craigslist. I believe it was the main place I found information. I did get a list. Someone's to give me a list. I don't remember who of great places to look. Yeah, there's a university. I know they send it out to people who've already liked and accepted it, but you can look up through the Ford School website. I think you search off-campus housing on the Umish portal. I think that's what you do. I'm in university housing, so not very helpful there. Let's go with you, sir. Yeah, I was just gonna throw it in there. Actually, with fraternity, try house and they have borders in the house, so those are options for people who find you late to game. Yeah. Especially looking for a house. Co-ops too. So that's a great one. So there's a couple different co-ops on campus that are for master's students. Yeah. There's one actually really close by, isn't that on Hill Street? Yeah. There's non-university co-ops too. Yeah. I live in one of them. I know I don't know what period this one is, but those can be really important. Yeah. Cool. Don't be scared off if people say that house isn't available until such and such a day, but you can always call them and say, hey, I'm moving in a little early. Yeah. They might have people that are trying to sublet Yeah. We live on the border of Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor and the apartment building's name is Town and Country. If you ever are interested, it's really, and it's not that expensive. You get a whole one bedroom apartment to yourself. I'll just say it's 670 and you only pay electric and the electric isn't that much for a whole, but the one bedroom apartment is ginormous. I'm not even kidding. It's ginormous and you get a whole balcony to yourself. And like I said, it's like a 20 minute bus ride, 20 or 30 minute bus ride if you include the walk. So it really isn't that bad, but what I would recommend if you do go all the way out to Ypsilanti or off campus is to really double check the bus routes because I know some people who like, they went a couple of miles out and they got stuck on a really horrible bus route because they didn't double check that. Yeah. And they just assumed that it was a good bus route and they ended up, you know, hour commute or, you know, hour walk or whatever. It's just, yeah, it happens. Okay, I think we, I'm sorry. Town and Country, apartments? Yeah. You? They don't have a, I know, right? They don't have a website either, so. I got you. I think they're good routes. I think they're good systems. I haven't, I haven't had any problems with the white buses or the blue buses so far. So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about workload. I know you mentioned you're working 12 hours a day, but that's a pretty other. Yeah, it includes like a 10 hour, 10 hour work week that I also have at my office. Sometimes more, sometimes 20. Depends on the week, hmm? I work at the International Center under the assistant for, the assistant program director. We do workshops for international students. So more about the workload. I think it might be useful to hear in terms of like how many pages a week you're reading, how much you're writing. Oh, shoot. How is like different people working 15 speeches a week? Well, that's what you're supposed to do, right? So every, for every credit hour you have, you're supposed to study for three. I think that's the general rule of, rule for that. Yeah, you call. Do it, yeah. So as part of my program, I have to do a year long internship. So I work, yeah. That's cool. I work about 12 to 15 hours at the union. It's, I work in like a particular office that has to do with like student life and student organization management. So I do that on top of my classes. Now I hear you. I was thinking like if you can't, if you don't want to work, just find a job that pays you to study like up in the library. There's plenty of jobs around campus that essentially are just paying you to study. You just have to really look for them. They're actually not that hard to find. There's like 80% of the jobs that are on campus. I am unfortunate in that I did not get one of those, but there's several jobs here at the Ford School that do do that like up in the library as well as in different offices around campus. You just have to look for them. You'll find them. It's not bad. I would say no. They'll email them out. Yeah. They're kind of competitive though. So network. I don't know. I don't know which one of you two is up first. I'm sorry. Worst moderator ever. So how about you up there? Sure. I got, so I think I locked down the apartment and put my deposit down. So I heard about them in May and then put on the waiting list. And then I was confirmed, I believe in June or July. And then I moved in a week before, before orientation. So I had a good week to kind of settle in, unpack, relax. And then that was enough for me. It was a little hectic though because my parents were with me. So I did like try to show them around and stuff. But as much time as you can, whatever is affordable for you. I mean, if you can get here a month early, it's even better, you know, whatever, whatever you can. I mean, I couldn't afford more than a week though, so. That's nice. Bring preview because, or sorry, orientation when you have orientation, that's like a built in extra few days. Yeah, I agree with you. Yeah, I moved in in a weekend. I think it was two weeks before. Yeah. Okay. I believe you were next. We need to start. Yeah, we're not done. I thought it was my funding or making it by. Like you said, some of you guys were, some of you don't know what you don't have to do with it. What have you guys done as far as paying for this lovely experience? Well, I'm lucky in that I have a Peace Corps fellowship. So that covers a good portion of my tuition as well as I, so I work through work study. So I get some of that and the rest I do loans. So I have fellowships from here and the school of that because I'm an out of state student. I work to pay for like the monthly bills, but because I'm young and I'm straight from under God, my parents still support me. I managed to get some fellowship here and also some scholarships at the school of social work. From my experience, I don't know how I can't say that for everybody, but I know for me, it's been very generous. I feel like the schools that has really good financial aid, especially when I was comparing it to other schools that I applied for, U of M, one of the reasons why I picked U of M is because it was the most generous. So I feel like there's tons of opportunities. I mean, they're competitive opportunities like Prabhupada was saying, like there's work study, there's GSI opportunities, and GSI opportunities is awesome. If you can get that, you should, but you really got a network with the professors. So that's advice I can give you right now is like really try to build relationships with your professors, let them know what kind of research interests you have, especially with professors that you have the same research interests. That way, most likely you'll hopefully get chosen for a GSI position. And they put the full tuition, healthcare, they pay, they give you a stipend every month, like they're really good, try to check those out too. Like a school of communication, I think, or information, school of psychology, I applied for the psychology GSI, I didn't get it, but it's still worth a try. Yes, you can teach, so I teach in the political science department right now and grad school in a different area going into Ford, and you can teach in any department, you don't need to be able to play it with them, like if they do take forward school, I like applicants very seriously, so yeah, that would be a chance. That's a good point, thank you. Let's go to another question right quick, and you've had your head up for a while. I did ask someone else during lunch, but I'm just wondering if any of you have thought about or are considering the PMF, and if, or if you know anyone who's read about the PMF. I don't know about this year. Well, plenty, I think a few second years we're at least interested, they have information sessions about the PMF, that tends to happen after second in fellowship. Does like the career, tell everyone what you're interested in, that's one key thing, tell everybody what you like, what you wanna do, and people will find ways to get you into those kind of opportunities. Lesson learned there for me. Go ahead. So how great Michigan is in terms of being able to be here. Have you guys had experiences where you've gone after and left as your first policy? Like at Ford or in other departments? So while you're at Ford, but it sounds like you've heard a lot about how you can take classes in a whole variety of schools. Is it pretty feasible to get in? I think so. I mean, it does happen, it's not to say that it doesn't happen, but I think for a lot of courses, they're pretty understanding as well. If you have a lot of interest, I mean, you can appeal directly to professors, they like having personal contact. I've corresponded with a lot of professors in geographic information systems courses, and they are very sensitive to time management issues and travel issues, but I think that's a good point. To time management issues and travel issues because a lot of those classes are up on North Campus or across campus. So I find that there's not much of a problem there. They know where it's 40, 50 hours a week, but then like say they take an elective class or something that counts for a degree, like are they set in the Ford school offer classes? Right. Or like, could they do that? What is the internship requirement? So they just want to make it as easy as possible for you to like figure out where your internship is going to be and for how long and to make it really open-ended for you. Yeah, so we have like eight minutes left. So any more questions, we would greatly appreciate. Five minutes. Five minutes. Okay, we have five minutes coming from the back. Any other questions? Burning questions? Yeah. Let's go. There are. It's true. You can go through either one of those systems. Yeah, and if you don't get there before eight, you won't find parking. Yeah. I have a question. Other questions, open it up. Yeah. Do you have email addresses? Yeah. I wrote mine down on my thing, just because I'm gonna have to run really quick after this, but. We'll do this thing. Yeah. You guys can totally have email addresses. We don't have those things. We don't have a board or anything. Yeah, sorry. It's covered up all nicely. Yeah? I don't know. Maybe you guys can get access to, or what's the... So I mean, as far as like study spaces or as far as recreation spaces? Yeah, things like that. Yeah, so I mean, we have access to a lot of different places. Brackham Graduate School has a lot of great study spaces. We're all free to go there. I mean, you can walk into any of the common places like the Union, Pierpont Commons, or Michigan League. I think Palmer Commons is also available to us at night. There's a million different nooks and crannies. It's a little bit more compartmented. That's why I ask. Right. Well, here you have to make reservations for some of the classrooms. Like if you wanna afford a classroom, but usually it's fine. Sometimes people won't even make reservations. So if you look online and it's like five o'clock and there's no reservation, you can go ahead and take the room. Yeah, there's also two other gyms. There's just a little bit further away. One's on North Campus. One's a little bit closer to the east side of Central Campus, so. Yeah, and that's a great day. Those opportunities. I'd say CRB's good. I prefer the NCRB because that's where I live, so. We had a question here. We did? Okay, let's go. How closely did you work? Pretty closely for me. I wanted to fit in a lot of different courses just to make sure that all my core courses were taken care of really, really. You didn't take the time to really sit down. Yes, Lindsay and I are besties. Yeah, I meet with mine almost every semester, especially right before setting up classes at you. Is Lindsay here? Is she here? She's not here. You can email as well. I answer a lot of my questions that way. Do we have one final really quick question before we close this panel? Oh, come on. No, something. Okay, now we're good, we're done. My favorite color is blue. There we go. Quickly answer it. Oh, one final piece of advice. You guys go. Oh, I have one I always give, so if you've heard me say this before, I apologize. It was the best thing that I heard when I came here at Ford is to be intentional with your learning. I've kind of been throwing that out there. It's cliche, but think about what it means in terms of you being here and taking the classes and the opportunities that you take and get involved in, so just be intentional. Because it's a short but long time, so. Get work done in groups with fellow classmates. That's what I learned this semester. Last semester I didn't do it as much. This semester I am and I'm getting better grades, so it really does make a difference. I think it's always just a good life lesson to just be really open-minded, but especially with your learning environment here at the Ford School, you'll find all these different topics that you didn't even know you were interested in and it'll blow your mind the opportunities that you have to work in these really cool things that you didn't even know were possible. So I would like to personally thank our panelists that were here today, so thank you so much for coming and speaking in front of everybody. Thank you, moderator. Yeah, thank you, moderator.