Public policies are laws, regulations, decisions, and actions taken by governmental officials—on behalf of the citizens, businesses, and interest groups they represent—to address public problems. As an academic discipline, public policy researchers use a variety of methods to understand public problems, explain the political processes influencing the policy process, design solutions to these problems, and evaluate policies put into practice.

Public policy problems of interest to UNC Public Policy faculty vary widely from global policy issues to domestic policy issues. They include abortion, criminal justice, economic development, education, entrepreneurship, environment, health, gender, human rights, housing, immigration, inequality, labor, national security, political economy, poverty, taxation, welfare, and workplace diversity.

Students interested in public policy follow many career paths in the public, private, or nonprofit sectors. Some combine their interests in public policy with interests in business, economics, journalism, law, management, politics, public health, or social work. Public policy students may seek careers working on research within universities or think tanks such as the Rand Corporation, the Urban Institute, or the Brookings Institution. Others may pursue careers in politics and may work as lobbyists for for- profit businesses or as policy advocates for non-profit organizations. Additionally, students may pursue careers as legislative analysts for state legislators or policy analysts for federal government organizations such as the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Research Service. In general, a variety of both governmental and non- governmental organizations need help interpreting policies and advocating for innovation and change. Students of public policy with strong analytic and writing skills are always in high demand.

One of the best ways to learn more about careers in public policy is to speak with a faculty member in Public Policy. Draw on the extensive network of UNC alumni working in public policy, whether in public, private, or nonprofit organizations. In addition, the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) provides information about careers in public policy on its website.

Requirements for the public policy major differ slightly depending on what year you entered the university. If the requirements for the major changed during your tenure at UNC, you must follow the guidelines in place for the year that you matriculated into UNC-Chapel Hill. Please refer to the appropriate Undergraduate Catalog for additional information on course requirements. Additional information on requirements to complete an Honors Thesis in Public Policy can be found in the Honors Advising Handbook available on the public policy website.

Two. Students who complete a third elective will graduate with a public policy major and may declare a policy field concentration. However, a third course is not required for graduation with a BA in public policy. Students seeking to graduate with honors must complete a third elective course. The first semester of the honors thesis research sequence (PLCY 691H) will count as a third elective. Please see the Honors Advising Handbook for more details.

The undergraduate minor in public policy consists of five courses. Students must complete at least four of the following core courses: Policy Innovation and Analysis (PLCY 210/210H Policy Innovation and Analysis; Politics of Public Policy (PLCY 220/220H); Justice in Public Policy (PLCY 340/340H); Microeconomic Foundations of Public Policy (PLCY 310 or ECON 410); Quantitative Analysis for Public Policy (PLCY 460); and Research Design (PLCY 581).

 

Students must also complete one additional PLCY course at the 100 level or above, or a course from the list of approved policy electives. First-year and sophomore students considering a minor in public policy are encouraged to complete PLCY 101 or 110.

Students in public policy may choose an elective from a list of over 300 courses at UNC-Chapel Hill. Please see the list of approved Public Policy Elective Courses in the Undergraduate Catalog. If a student would like to take a course not currently on this list, the student should reach out to the departments Student Services Specialist or the Director of Undergraduate Studies. Students should submit requests for approval of new elective courses prior to enrolling in the course.

Sophomores, juniors, and seniors who are public policy majors and minors should enroll in PLCY 460. We strongly recommend that all majors complete PLCY 460 by the end of their junior year. Juniors who expect to complete an honors thesis must complete PLCY 460 and PLCY 581 by the end of their junior year, prior to enrollment in PLCY 691H.

In general, no. All public policy majors are required to complete PLCY 460. PLCY 460 focuses on applications of statistics to problems in public policy analysis. Statistics courses in other majors focus on applications for those majors. Students who are double-majoring in public policy and economics, however, may substitute the combination of either ECON 400 & 470 or ECON 400 and 570.

No. UNC Public Policy strongly recommends students complete an introductory statistics course (STOR 155, ECON 400, PSYC 210, SOCI 252) prior to enrolling in PLCY 460, but it is not required.

UNC Public Policy offers an accelerated dual bachelor’s-graduate degree. Students take graduate

MPP courses in the spring semester of their senior year as they complete their undergraduate degree. Up to 12 credits may double count toward the undergraduate and graduate degrees, and students receive an MPP in one additional academic year. The MPP requires an internship and a thesis or final capstone policy project.

 

Prerequisites for the MPP:

· ECON 101 Introduction to Economics (4 credits)

· PLCY 210/210H Policy Innovation and Analysis (3 credits)

· PLCY 460 Quantitative Analysis for Public Policy (4 credits)

· PLCY 581 Research Design for Public Policy (3 credits)

 

Applications open each summer with a final application deadline in early October. More information about the MPP dual degree program is available here: https://publicpolicy.unc.edu/academics/mpp/ 

 

Students are encouraged to secure an internship as part of the Making Connections and IDEAs in Action General Education Requirements. Public policy majors or minors who wish to complete a public policy internship can enroll in PLCY 293. With the completion of assignments in parallel with an external internship, public policy students receive a total of 3 hours of academic credit (pass/fail), although PLCY 293 does not count as elective credit toward the public policy major or minor. The internship must provide an academically relevant policy research-related experience Approval is required for enrollment in PLCY 293. You can find the PLCY 293 application here.

No. PLCY 293, 393, and 394 count as experiential learning courses. However, students are expected to complete additional course work for their public policy electives.

Requirements vary. The most competitive masters programs strongly prefer students with college-level economics, statistics, and calculus. In addition, masters programs prefer students with at least 2-3 years full-time professional experience.

Many doctoral programs in public policy require students to have completed at least one year of calculus (including differential calculus and multivariate calculus), one semester of microeconomic theory with calculus, and a semester of statistics. Students considering public policy should complete ECON 410 to satisfy the microeconomic theory requirement.

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Policy Field Concentration

What is a policy field concentration?

A policy field concentration is a group of courses that are thematically linked. UNC Public Policy provides descriptions of several common field concentrations that are recognized by researchers and employers in the field. However, students may also design their own, unique field concentration that blends those the Department provides.

The field or concentration is optional. For a field concentration, you are required to complete a minimum of 3 electives. Three credits may be for a PLCY course at the 100- or 200- level. The remaining two elective courses must be at the 300-level or above and must be on our list of currently approved courses. A list of currently approved courses is available in the undergraduate catalog. If a course that you would like to complete as an elective is not on this list, please reach out to the Student Services Specialist or the Director of Undergraduate Studies.

New classes are continually being offered at UNC. If a course that you are interested in as an elective is not currently on our approved list, please contact the Student Services Specialist or the Director of Undergraduate Studies. Most courses with relevance to public policy and taught at the 300-level and above can be approved as electives.

UNC Public Policy. The field concentration is not recorded on transcripts or diplomas but is identified in departmental records and can be stated by students on their resumes.

An honors thesis is a substantial research project culminating in a written report. Students engaging in honors thesis research evaluate current public policy problems through a combination of qualitative and quantitative data collection activities and/or secondary data analysis of publicly available data. The honors thesis provides a total of six credit hours toward the major. Students completing an honors thesis enroll in PLCY 692H instead of PLCY 698 during the Fall or Spring semester of their senior year. See the Honors Thesis Handbook for more.

The requirements for honors are stated in the undergraduate bulletin and summarized in additional detail in the Honors Handbook. Please see the Honors Handbook for these details.

No. Students writing an honors thesis complete PLCY 692H as an alternative to PLCY 698.

Students who enroll in PLCY 692H but who do not receive honors for their thesis research still receive credit for the course and can graduate with their peers. Students who enroll in PLCY 692H but who fail to complete their thesis or receive an incomplete in 692H will not be eligible to graduate. They must either complete the thesis or complete PLCY 698 in a subsequent semester. Therefore, we strongly discourage students from taking an incomplete in 692H. Grades of incomplete are treated as a 0.0 (i.e. an F) in the calculation of the GPA until they are completed. If not completed in the subsequent semester, incompletes become permanent Fs on the student’s record. If students are unsure of their capacity to complete an honors thesis in the required time frame, they should enroll in PLCY 698.

 

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Study Abroad and Transfer Credits

I plan to study abroad. Will the course I take count towards my public policy major?

Perhaps. A study abroad course offered at the equivalent of the 300-level and above which has sufficient public policy content may count as an elective for the public policy major. However, because students must earn a minimum of a C for any transfer course, final approval of study abroad courses cannot be provided until the transcript is received.

If a student would like to receive credit for an elective in public policy completed at another university or as part of their study abroad program, they need to provide a syllabus for the course for review by the Director of Undergraduate Studies and must have received a C or better in the course. To receive approval of a transfer class, the student must complete the transfer credit request form through ConnectCarolina. To receive approval for a study abroad course, students must also fill out the Study Abroad Course Approval Form for the Study Abroad Office.

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Research and Independent Studies

I would like to participate in research. What kinds of opportunities are there for undergraduate research?

All faculty in the Department of Public Policy engage in a substantial amount of research as part of their jobs. Several faculty provide opportunities for students to collaborate on research projects for credit as well as for pay. Depending on their skill level, students may be invited to assist with the management of data collection activities, conduct statistical and qualitative analysis of data, and draft reports or papers. To engage in research for credit students should work with faculty to design an independent study through PLCY 395 (see section on independent studies). To engage in research for pay, students should ask individual faculty if they have any positions available. In addition, the Duncan MacRae Jr. Mentored Research Assistant Grant provides funding for faculty members to hire Public Policy students to engage in mentored research.

 

Additionally, students seeking experience are encouraged to develop unpaid internship experiences with faculty. The University also offers several other programs for students interested in gaining research experience. These include the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program, the Carolina Research Scholar Program (CRSP), the Moore Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program (MURAP), and the Carolina Population Center Summer Internship Program. For the most up-to-date information on undergraduate research opportunities at UNC-Chapel Hill, please see the Office of Undergraduate Research. In addition, several leading think tanks offer summer undergraduate research programs for outstanding students in public policy. Please see the Student Services Officer for more details.

Yes. Students may receive up to 3 credits for an elective in public policy from an independent study. Independent studies are intended for advanced material not available through regularly offered classes at the university. Students who have completed existing courses in a topic area and would like to pursue more intensive research and study in collaboration with a faculty member in the department should consider an independent study.

Students wishing to complete an independent study should carefully think through the purposes and substance of their independent studies, and work with their supervising instructor in developing a formal syllabus (a “learning contract”) for the course. It is up to the supervising instructor in consultation with the student to decide exactly how much reading and possibly outside work is to be done by the student, how often the two will meet to discuss what is being accomplished in the course, and what papers or examinations will be a part of the course. Some reading and written work involving policy analysis must be done to receive credit for this course.

PLCY 396, 496, 596 titled “Independent Study/Reading in Public Policy,” may be taken for 1-3 hours of credit, depending on the amount of academic work to be done by the student. (Alternatively, a student may take PLCY 395, “Research in Public Policy,” for 1-3 credit hours, wherein students generally collaborate with public policy faculty in an on-going research project in public policy.) To receive elective credit for an independent study, the faculty member and student must complete the independent study proposal form and return it to the Student Services Officer. Independent studies must be approved by the Director of Undergraduate Studies prior to enrollment.

The Department recognizes outstanding students in public policy through various different honors or awards:

• One to two students are chosen from the graduating class each year to serve as the student speaker for the class.
•  One student who has received Highest Honors on their thesis research is selected to receive the Best Thesis Award. To be considered for best thesis, the Student Services Officer must receive a pdf copy of your thesis and a nomination for highest honors on or before April 1.
• The Michael A. Stegman Award for Policy Research and Advocacy is given to honor one or more graduating seniors who best exemplify the values and legacy of Professor Michael Stegman, the first chair of UNC Public Policy.
• The Kathy A. Taft Award is given to a rising or graduating senior majoring in public policy with an interest in and dedication to education policy.

• The Hodding Carter III Public Service Fellowship was established in 2015 in honor of Hodding Carter III, the (Emeritus) University Professor of Leadership and Public Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill. The Fellowship supports opportunities for UNC undergraduate public policy majors to engage in public service opportunities in our communities, the American south, the nation and around the globe.
• The Richard (Pete) N. L. Andrews Fund was established in 2015 in honor of Professor (Emeritus) Pete Andrews. The Andrews Fellowship is awarded to a rising junior majoring in public policy, environmental studies, environmental sciences or environmental health sciences with a demonstrated interest in and dedication to policy- related research and/or service related to solutions for local, state, national and/or global environmental challenges.

 

To be considered for any of these honors and awards, students must either nominate themselves or be nominated by a Public Policy student or faculty member. Because we do not always know about all the activities our students engage in, we very much welcome self-nominations. If you would like to be considered for an award, please do write a brief letter to the Director of Undergraduate Studies (DUS). In the letter, describe the work that you have done and tell us why we should consider you for one of our awards.

To be eligible for the Dean’s List, students must meet one of the following requirements: (1) a 3.200 semester grade-point average with no grade lower than a C if enrolled in fifteen or more hours of letter-grade credit, exclusive of physical education activities courses; (2) a 3.500 grade- point average with no grade lower than a C if enrolled in at least twelve but fewer than fifteen hours of letter-grade credit, exclusive of physical education activities courses.

Perhaps. Some of the courses offered in Public Policy and Economics at Duke may be suitable replacements for UNC PLCY core classes or be acceptable as electives. To see if a particular Duke course is suitable as either a replacement for a core class or as an elective, please fill out this form. Please note that the Director of Undergraduate Studies will not approve a substitute for a core class unless it is nearly identical to the core class taught at UNC.