MSSP Resources

MSSP Core Courses

Students in the MSSP Program must take the following core coursework with an additional two elective courses for a total of 10 credit units (CUs). Students should follow the recommended course outline to ensure an on-time graduation. Any deviation requires approval of an academic advisor. All coursework is required. 

• MSSP 6280: Policy: Analysis of Issues, Strategy and Process (1 CU)
• MSSP 6290: Research & Evaluation Design (1 CU)
• MSSP 6300: Quantitative Reasoning (1 CU)
• MSSP 6680: Economics for Social Policy (1 CU)
• MSSP 6310: Law and Social Policy or MSSP 7805: Law and Social Policy: Foundations (1 CU)
• MSSP 8970: Applied Linear Modeling (1 CU)
• MSSP xxxx: Theory Elective (1 CU)
• MSSP 6360: MSSP Capstone Seminar: Policy Communications (1 CU)
• MSSP 6370: MSSP Policy Internship Seminar (0CU)

MSSP+DA Core Courses

Students in the MSSP+DA Program must take the following core coursework with an additional two elective courses for a total of 12 credit units (CUs). Students should follow the recommended course outline to ensure an on-time graduation. Any deviation requires approval of an academic advisor. All coursework is required.

• MSSP 6280: Policy: Analysis of Issues, Strategy & Process (1 CU)
• MSSP 6290: Research & Evaluation Design (1 CU)
• MSSP 6680: Economics for Social Policy (1 CU)
• MSSP 6310: Law and Social Policy or MSSP 7805: Law and Social Policy: Foundations (1 CU)
• MSSP 8970: Applied Linear Modeling and Lab (1 CU)
• MSSP 7100: Democratizing Data? Critical Data Studies in Algorithmic Governance (1 CU)
• MSSP 6070: Practical Data Science (1 CU)
• MSSP 6080: Practical Machine Learning (1 CU)
• MSSP/SWRK 7300: Community Mapping (1 CU)
• MSSP 6380: MSSP+DA Capstone Seminar: Telling Stories with Data (1CU)
• MSSP 6390: MSSP+DA Policy Internship in Data Analytics Seminar (0CU)

Electives

Elective courses offer students the opportunity to maximize breadth in multiple substantive policy areas or to choose a specialized area of social policy analysis and conduct further research. Students in both the MSSP and MSSP+DA programs take two electives.

Elective courses taken outside of SP2 require an academic advisor’s approval. Students should submit the course name, course number, course description, and justification for taking the course to their academic advisor for review. Elective courses may be identified in any of the 12 graduate schools at Penn for possible approval and must be graduate-level courses (5000 or above) in order to count towards degree requirements. 

Use the MSSP Elective Course Guide to begin the process of choosing your elective coursework.

Theory Electives

The MSSP Theory Electives are intended to provide students with an understanding of how global forces such as capitalism, anti-Blackness, and settler colonialism influence policy formation and development. These courses also push students to wrestle with how to work through, with, and against policy to challenge global processes of oppression and build equitable, emancipatory, and justice-oriented worlds. MSSP Theory Electives examine these issues through the various frameworks of critical theory and through different assemblages of policy, governance, politics, and technology.

MSSP students are required to take one approved Theory Elective course. Students choose from a menu of options offered by the MSSP program and may take the Theory Elective in the fall or spring semester. Courses that are considered approved Theory Electives are indicated in the course descriptions below.