Public Policy Major

School of Public Policy
1118 Taliaferro Hall
301-405-2370
plcyundergrad@umd.edu
https://spp.umd.edu/your-education/undergraduate/public-policy-major

Program Director: Jennifer Littlefield, Ph.D.

With no shortage of complex challenges, the world needs leaders who are able to understand and communicate the issues, who can design and implement bold solutions and who can ethically and compassionately lead the movements and organizations that create real change. As a PolicyTerp, students will:

• Learn how to analyze the issues to create and critically evaluate responses that promote better outcomes for communities. 
• Cross disciplinary boundaries to better understand the complexities of the challenges the world faces and immerse yourself in multiple perspectives.
• Develop decision-making and leadership skills to translate theory and analysis into on-the-ground action.

The interdisciplinary Public Policy major focuses on using analytical decision-making to study an array of subjects ranging from the processes of making, implementing and evaluating government policies to the ethical evaluation of contemporary social problems, both domestic and international. The major has two distinctive components:

1. core foundational skills critical for the understanding and analysis of problems and proposed solutions; and
2. the application of these skills and competencies to address challenges in the real world by engaging with the policy process at local, state and national levels through real-time projects. 

The major in Public Policy at the University of Maryland equips students with competence in leadership and analytical skills, supported by theory and data, to prepare them for careers in public service, policymaking, and the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

Courses offered by this department may be found under the following acronym: PLCY.

Program Learning Outcomes

Students completing a Public Policy major will:

1. Understand public policy problems, concepts, processes, institutions and actors through a multidisciplinary lens, with perspectives from the local to the global.
2. Analyze public issues from a range of ideological, demographic, and socioeconomic perspectives, including those that are underrepresented in the public policy process.
3. Apply quantitative and qualitative tools to real-world policy issues.
4. Communicate complex ideas and findings in written and oral forms.
5. Demonstrate teamwork, ethical decision-making, management and leadership skills. \

C- or better is required in all major courses and the cumulative average of these courses must be a 2.0.   

Click here for roadmaps for four-year plans in the School of Public Policy.

Additional information on developing a four-year academic plan can be found on the following pages:

• 4yearplans.umd.edu
• the Student Academic Success-Degree Completion Policy section of this catalog