Semester 1

At the beginning of the Master of Public Policy (MPP) Program, things unfold at a fast pace: you arive on campus, you meet your new apartment mates, then you attend orientation, the workshop with all the new classmates, and finally, classes begin.

Here are the first photos that I took, when I arived at the extraordinary Malibu Campus of Pepperdine University. I met my apartment mates and my future friends about the same time: Brad from California, Bryan from Texas and Daniel from Mayne.

The first semester kicked off with the so-called “Happy Camp” that took place in beautiful and exclusive Santa Barbara. This was basically an “academic team building” aimed to know your classmates and new professors a little better. The drive from Malibu to Santa Barbara by the Pacific Coast is just so beautiful. Bryan gave Brad and I a ride with his car, as I didn’t have a car right at that time, while Daniel, the “Wahhabi Dude,” joined us there.

The classes started normally and according to my expectations. I was excited to see what it’s like to attend classes and to feel the academic life. I was impressed though by the amount of assigned reading that I had and the number of books that I had to buy. I have to admit that you have to read a lot in the U.S. and the final grade is usually made up of class participation, papers, presentations and classical exams.

  • “Ethical Dimensions of Public Policy: Great Books and Great Ideas,” with Professor Ted McAllister. The readings for this class included: Plato, Republic (Bloom edition); Rousseau, A Discourse on Inequality; Marx, The Communist Manifesto; Aristotle, Politics; Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France; Tocqueville, Democracy in America (Mansfield & Winthrop ed); and Ortega, The Revolt of the Masses. This class is about the principles that undergird the policy and political debate. It is designed to help you put technical issues within the context of the more foundational struggle over competing ideas about the Good. To that end, you examine several of the so-called “great books” in order to understand better the “modern” political discourse in which contemporaries debate policy matters. The course is more of a sampling meant to force each of us to engage meaningfully with the most substantial political and social questions and is more philosophical. Source: the Professor Syllabus.
  • “Applied Economic Analysis of Public Policy I,” with Professor James Prieger. For this course, I bought two books, but pretty expensive ones. It’s about Pindyck and Rubinfeld’s Microeconomics (6th edition) and Friedman’s The Microeconomics of Public Policy Analysis. The course is designed to help you apply important economic principles to domestic and global policy issues. You also develop skills in the application of economic reasoning to policy problems. You learn about principles and concepts like consumer choice, the production decisions of firms, the function of prices in allocating scarce resources, the pricing of public goods, the role and behavior of markets, market failure, and externalities. Source: The Academic Catalogue 2006-2007 of Pepperdine University School of Public Policy.
  • “Applied Research Methods in Public Policy,” with Professor Angela Hawken. This course emphasizes the application of research methodology and statistical techniques to evalate the performance of public policy decisions. It also provides both a theoretical foundation and practical applications of these methods, including variance, regressions, cost-benefit analysis, survey sampling, and other tools of evaluation. The course has a strong practical side and the seminars are held in the lab.  Source: The Academic Catalogue 2006-2007 of Pepperdine University School of Public Policy.
  • “The Roots of American Order: What is Public Policy?” with Professor Gordon Lloyd. There are many objectives for this class: to understand the changing nature of public policy as an academic discipline; to become aware of the world of the policy maker; to focus on racial, moral, religious, and institutional dimensions of contemporary public policy; to evaluate the arguments, opinions, decisions, and policies, of contemporary public figures; to examine the appeal, or lack of appeal, of public policy makers to the principles undergirding the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights; to determine the ability of the institutional framework to produce policies that are consistent with the purposes of the American Order; and to drop in on the discussions of such public leaders as Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, Roosevelt and converse with them about their own public policy decisions, and explore the possibilities and limitations of applying their practical wisdom to the contemporary situation. Source: the Professor Syllabus.

It is a tradition at Pepperdine that the President hosts a reception on campus, where all the first-year students are invited. This is a perfect occasion to meet and know other fellow students from programs different than the Public Policy one. Here are the photos from this event:

But may be nothing is more exciting than the life on campus!!!

Or the getaways with the new friends:

And since we are in Los Angeles County, you’ve got to go to Disneyland, in Anaheim. So here’s what a day at Disneyland looks like, beginning early in the morning, until late at night when you run out of camera batteries. Jacky, or Scoompy as I like to call her, gave us a ride.