Courses

Couples with CAP-GP.3227.

The word "design" has traditionally been used to describe the visual aesthetics of objects such as books, websites, products, interiors, architecture, and fashion. But increasingly, the definition of design has expanded to include not just artifacts but strategic services and systems. As the challenges and opportunities facing businesses, organizations, and society grow more complex, and as stakeholders grow more diverse, an approach known as "design thinking" is playing a greater role in finding meaningful paths forward.

The primary purpose of the microeconomics core course is to enable you to use microeconomic thinking, concepts and tools in your professional public service work. Accomplishing this also requires refreshing and strengthening your quantitative skills.

This course examines pressing public service challenges through a rotating focus that responds to current developments and instructor expertise.

This course is appropriate for students interested in the role that leadership plays in advancing social innovation and social change in the context of democratic governance.

This four week, non-credit workshop equips NYU Wagner students to strategically navigate the complex world of public service careers. Through research, reflection, discussion, and written assignments, students develop core career planning skills and articulate their professional goals. The course centers on the “F.O.R.” framework: identifying Fields of interest, exploring relevant Organizations, and understanding potential Roles within them. Students will apply this lens to analyze past experiences, evaluate current opportunities, and plan for future impact.

The word "design" has traditionally been used to describe the visual aesthetics of objects such as books, websites, products, interiors, architecture, and fashion. But increasingly, the definition of design has expanded to include not just artifacts but strategic services and systems. As the challenges and opportunities facing businesses, organizations, and society grow more complex, and as stakeholders grow more diverse, an approach known as "design thinking" is playing a greater role in finding meaningful paths forward.

In this course, students will explore and examine financial citizenship in the United States and how it intersects with existing inequalities by race and immigration status. How financial products and services reproduce inequality carry deep consequences for it means to belong, how people are treated within the U.S. economic system, and what policy recommendations can be adopted. Students will examine these broader questions across various weekly topics, including banking and dignity, homeownership, entrepreneurship, and emerging financial technology.

This is an introductory course for students who want to better understand theories, principles, and methods of community-based participatory action research (CBPAR), which is research done with communities and community partners. CBPAR is a means for community planning and organizing to address local issues and social needs that center individuals and communities directly impacted.

This course is about the process of scoping and planning public sector investment projects and the basic knowledge and skills required for their financial and economic appraisal (‘ex-ante’ evaluation).

The focus is on urban infrastructure projects identified, prioritized, and appraised through local/municipal planning processes. Case studies include water supply and sewerage, urban transport, solid waste management and green infrastructure.

The field of urban economics addresses a wide variety of questions and topics. At the most general level, the field introduces space into economic models and studies the location of economic activity. Urban economics typically addresses four sets of questions, and this course is organized around these four areas. The first set of questions focuses on the development of urban areas. Why do cities exist and why do some grow more rapidly? How can local governments encourage such growth? The second set of questions addresses patterns of development within metropolitan areas.

Whether as an action agency or a source of analysis or raw material, the intelligence community is a key but little understood participant in the policymaking cycle. This course introduces students to the contemporary intelligence community and its role in shaping US national security policy, providing students with a hands-on appreciation of the role of intelligence through participation in class simulations of case studies of national security policymaking. 

This course examines the social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainable urban development. Some of the major themes explored include indicators of sustainability, urban demographic trends, environmental justice, green building, urban sprawl, sustainable energy and transportation, and global climate change. In addition, the role of information technology (IT) and social networks is discussed in the context of promoting ideas globally about sustainable development.

Emergency events are disruptive. Whether acutely impactful and short-term, negligible and protracted, or any mix thereof, these incidents alter healthcare organizations’ abilities to consistently deliver safe and effective care. While potentially devastating, emergencies are also unique opportunities for exemplary leadership and unprecedented innovation. COVID-19, ransomware, and active shooters are, respectively, a few of the myriad natural, technological, and intentional emergency events that healthcare organizations, and their leaders, face.

In the context of a growing number of intersecting local, national, and global crises, each warranting political strategy, operational responses, and humanitarian planning across a range of states, agencies, movements, technical and political actors, this course focuses on exploring: the relationships between and among decision-makers and affected populations; the political economy of resource mobilization and distribution; the practical tools, frameworks, and blueprints used for response; questions of power in the context of emergency, and; historical determinants of humanitarian need, res

The course takes an interpretative look at the spatial conditions of our rapidly urbanizing world. It focuses on comparisons and contrasts between urban development patterns of cities around the globe, such as New York City, Tokyo, Chengdu, Singapore, Accra, Istanbul, and Mumbai. By introducing multiple scales (neighborhood, city, and regional) of urban growth, the course seeks to foster an understanding of the socio-economic processes, physical planning and design practices, cultural influences, and policy interventions that influence urban design and planning.

The application of digital tools in healthcare has grown exponentially over the last several years. They are now firmly entrenched in the healthcare delivery model. However, after experiencing this explosive growth, the application and potential of healthtech tools remain uncertain and potentially unfulfilled.

Management consultants work in all corners of the public and nonprofit sectors on every imaginable topic—from organizational strategy to technology implementation, education to migration. But what is management consulting? Why do so many public service organizations rely on it? What skills and experience do you need to be a management consultant?  And how much good can management consulting really do for the public and nonprofit sectors?

This four-day course aims to develop your ability to build, lead, and participate in high-performing teams. We will draw from research in psychology, management, strategy, behavioral economics, and sociology to discuss best practices for designing, launching, participating, and coaching in-person and online teams.

This four-day course aims to develop your ability to build, lead, and participate in high-performing teams. We will draw from research in psychology, management, strategy, behavioral economics, and sociology to discuss best practices for designing, launching, participating, and coaching in-person and online teams.

Data plays an increasingly important role in powering today’s enterprises, governments and society as a whole. With the rapid pace of innovation, data science, advanced analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are becoming increasingly central and critical to business today. Over time, social impact organizations will deem these tools as core to achieving their mission.

This is the first course in a two-course sequence in housing policy, with an emphasis on major federal policies and the connection between housing, place and opportunity. This first course explores the historic, economic and social context of current housing policy and debates in the U.S., including how housing and community conditions and policies are intertwined. It provides an overview of housing policies, and how they play out on the ground.

Open only to students in the MSPP program. The title of this course is meant to evoke a double meaning. First, the “practice” of work refers to the idea that it is important to practice something, to rehearse, to try things out. Being an intern* in an organization is a required element of this course. And while interns can accomplish a great deal and deliver a lot of value to their organization, they are also understood to be learning, to be practicing. But a “practice” can also mean a craft or a skill, something one works hard at in order to become expert and polished.

Management consultants work in all corners of the public and nonprofit sectors on every imaginable topic—from organizational strategy to technology implementation, education to migration. But what is management consulting? Why do so many public service organizations rely on it? What skills and experience do you need to be a management consultant?  And how much good can management consulting really do for the public and nonprofit sectors?