The Master of Public Policy/Master of Urban Planning dual degree program gives students the opportunity to develop a depth of analytic and design skills with which to effectively address the problems of urban communities. The dual degree program normally requires six semesters in residence.
Requirements
Completion of the dual degree requires 72 units.
Prerequisites
All entering students must have a bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution and are required to demonstrate proficiency in foundational statistical methods. The statistics prerequisite can be satisfied in one of two ways:
Statistics or Econometrics Course Taken Prior to Enrollment in the MPP
Completion of a college-level statistics or econometrics course with a grade of “B” or better within three years of matriculation. At minimum, prior course work must have included essential topics in descriptive and inferential statistics such as measures of central tendency and dispersion, confidence intervals, and hypothesis testing. If relevant statistical coursework was completed more than three years prior, a waiver may be granted based on the level of statistical training completed and the degree to which currency with this material was maintained through subsequent professional use.
If a student has not completed a college-level statistics course with a grade of “B” or better within three years of matriculation, they will need to complete a summer course prior to starting the MPP program. USC offers PPD 504 Essential Statistics for Public Management each summer; a grade of “C” or better in PPD 504 is sufficient to satisfy the statistics prerequisite. Students may instead choose to satisfy the requirement by completing a qualifying statistics course at another institution prior to enrolling at USC. If the course is completed outside of USC, it must be taken for a grade and the student must earn a grade of “B” or better. Regardless of which course is used to meet the prerequisite requirement, the units associated with the course will not be used toward the 72 required degree units.
Pre-semester MPP Labs
The Professional Fundamentals and Statistics/STATA Labs provide an introduction to the program, acclimate students to skills that will be further developed in their first-semester courses and help to create a genuine camaraderie within the first-year student cohort. Entering MPP students are required to participate in the Statistics/STATA Lab as well as the Professional Fundamentals Lab. The labs meet the week prior to the start of the fall semester. The Professional Fundamentals Lab will lead directly into PPD 554 Foundations of Policy Analysis , while the Statistics/STATA Lab will provide initial exposure to the statistical software that will be utilized extensively in PPD 558 Multivariate Statistical Analysis .
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