Exploring Policy Where Policy Happens

Students at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy spend the academic year building the analytical skills that underpin effective policymaking through coursework, research, and applied learning.

Assistant Professor Erin Kelley wanted to add another dimension: a course that gives students an insider's view of how professionals navigate the institutions, relationships, and day-to-day decisions that shape policy.

Working closely with colleagues across the Harris faculty and administration, she helped bring that vision to life through a new three-week summer evening course in Washington, D.C., where students meet policymakers and tackle real-world projects. The new course joins a range of hands-on learning opportunities that connect Harris students with the policymaking process across government, nonprofits, and industry.

"Students were eager to understand the many ways a Harris education translates into careers in D.C. They know how to analyze evidence. I wanted them to meet the people doing this work every day and see the many different paths into policy,” said Kelley, who joined Harris after working at the World Bank and continues to work with the organization. "I wanted the students to hear directly from practitioners what their jobs look like, how they influence policy, and how they use their technical toolkit, because that’s what we teach at Harris."

The 16 students in the first cohort met with 18 leaders from 15 organizations, including the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, the Urban Institute, Resources for the Future, the International Rescue Committee, and other government agencies, think tanks, and NGOs. The students, who were in class three nights a week, studied the speakers' research and policy papers, then engaged them in candid discussions.

For Wendy Wang, MSCAPP Class of 2027, those discussions broadened her thinking about careers she might pursue.

“We had two speakers from the energy non-profit Resources for the Future,” she said. “One was a Ph.D. economist and the other worked on the communications and strategy side. Having them in the same room and talking about their day-to-day work in climate and energy reinforced how open I am to the more qualitative side of policy, even though I've spent a year steeped in a quantitative and technical world.”

Wang’s classmate Apollinaire Abi, MSCAPP Class of 2027, entered Harris's MSCAPP program after working as a predoctoral research fellow. Already interning this summer in data science at the World Bank's Development Impact Group, Abi said the Washington course gave him an opportunity to meet policymakers whose careers mirrored his aspirations.

"Everything aligned perfectly," Abi said. "I wanted to learn from Professor Kelley, I was already in Washington, and I wanted to meet people working in organizations where I hope to work in the future."

The course complemented the analytical training students receive at Harris by emphasizing the professional skills that often develop only through sustained interaction with practitioners. Kelley urged students to find their voices by asking speakers thoughtful questions. And the pace she set for the two policy projects demonstrated what it is like to juggle demands and create a final output under time constraints.

Rather than working on hypothetical assignments, students joined active research projects. One team analyzed innovative approaches to “benevolent” patent extensions for low- and middle-income countries. Another worked with Kelley on an Argentine labor market study, developing a policy report.

Students learned to navigate ambiguity, collaborate, tackle complex ideas, and come up with pointed questions, all skills Kelley believes are increasingly valuable as artificial intelligence becomes more integrated into policy work.

For students who don’t yet have a long career history, the course elements are as close as possible to real life, she said, “because the course provides repeated opportunities to engage experienced policy leaders as colleagues rather than simply observe them, even more so than many internships do."

That emphasis on workplace skills transformed Abi’s confidence.

During the Washington course, he asked at least one question of every guest speaker—and sometimes many more. “I told Professor Kelley that she gave me the opportunity to discover that part of me, which I always wanted to find,” he added. “Now I'm someone who finds it easy to network in D.C.”

Wang, a summer 2026 Bartlett Fellow, found similar value in the policy projects.

“Project management was not something I got a lot of in my first year of MSCAPP,” she said. “So, for me, working as part of a team was really rewarding.”

The projects also required students from different academic backgrounds to rely on one another, they said.

The summer course was a great opportunity, said Tianjie Sun, MPP Class of 2027.

“You hear real stories from the speakers, about their jobs and their life, and it lets you know what your future can look like,” she said. Plus, she said she learned a lot working on the patents policy project, which is aiming to be presented to the United States Congress next year.

Before arriving in the United States, Sun was a lawyer for seven years in China, working largely for technology companies. She came to Harris after earning a law degree at the University of Virginia, aiming to develop skills to pursue a career in international development.

Listening to the policy professionals from organizations throughout Washington reinforced that career decision.

"I gave up a job, my life in China, and came to Harris because I wanted to help people," she said. "This course helped convince me that I did the right thing."

For Kelley, such outcomes resonate with what she envisioned as she built the summer course: “I really wanted to help people understand all the variety of ways they can influence policy and I wanted to give them an experience that's much closer to what the real world actually looks like."

“Harris gives students the tools to approach complex policy challenges with rigor and prepares them for successful careers by providing opportunities to apply those tools in professional settings,” said Senior Lecturer Rebecca Wolfe, the executive director of International Policy & Development and Academic Lead for the Master of Public Policy Program. “Through programs like this course, Harris Policy Labs and others, our students work alongside policymakers and practitioners, navigate the realities of client-based work, and translate evidence into recommendations that organizations can use.”

As the course concluded, Wang was preparing to leave the Washington area, which is where she grew up, to head back to Chicago to work as a Graduate Research Fellow at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC).

Abi was spending the summer at the World Bank developing automation tools that improve research and economic analysis while pursuing his long-term goal of building technical tools that help governments and organizations across Africa.

Sun was continuing her Washington-based internship with the Inter-American Development Bank.

“This course left me very excited,” Sun said. “After my first year I knew how much I liked policy. This summer made me certain this is the life and career I want.”