This is part of a collection of reflection essays by graduating 2024 student leaders. View the rest here.
By Ben Hitchcock
As I’ve worked through my Master’s in Public Administration at NYU Wagner, I have had to explain to countless baffled friends, cousins, coworkers, barbers, dental hygienists, and airplane seat-mates what one actually studies at a school of public service. Public policy, public service—these are big, vague concepts, tough to define even for practitioners.
“It’s mostly studying the government,” I sometimes say. “And you know the American government—there’s always something that needs fixing!”
This line gets rueful chuckles out of literally any constituency.
But the quip doesn’t reveal much about what’s actually happening here. Us Wagner students arrive in Washington Square from near and far, united only by a do-gooder spirit. What happens next? What do we learn in public service school?
This spring, we at the Wagner Review invited a few student leaders from the Wagner class of 2024 to reflect on their experiences in grad school and try to answer those questions. Their answers are collected in this series.
Personally, policy school taught me about New York. Two years ago, I hauled a duffel bag out of a rented truck, craning my neck up at Manhattan glittering above me. I had moved to the city essentially sight unseen. I didn’t know FiDi from Flatbush. But in class I learned about why the city looks the way it does, and why New Yorkers live the way we do, and why the rent is so damn high. I learned that the city is completely broken in about 40,000 different ways, but I also learned to see its potential. Improving our tangled metropolis will take tremendous, perhaps even delusional dedication, but Wagner at least showed me where we might start.
At Wagner I also made friends. These friends, too, taught me about the city. We sprawled on picnic blankets on the gentle slopes of Central Park. We danced ‘til late in Brooklyn basements. Mostly, we huddled together in dim Village bars with sticky tables, talking and laughing ourselves tired. What an education!
We are all champing at the bit now, ready to sprint out of this academic enclosure, restless after two years of seminars. I leave policy school with a clear understanding of the huge obstacles facing those of us who cling to hope. But over the last two years, I have been struck by my classmates’ optimism, and smarts, and vigor, characteristics that are reflected in the essays collected here.
Surrounded by these people, it does not feel foolish to say that our goal is to build a better world. It won’t be easy, but I like our chances.
Ben Hitchcock is graduating with a Master’s in Public Administration and a concentration in Policy Analysis. Ben was the Editor in Chief of the Wagner Review for the 2023-24 school year.
