Austin Pate started his freshman year at Northwestern as an astrophysics major. After three quarters, he decided to take his life in an entirely different direction and transferred into the School of Education and Social Policy.
“I figured out what I wanted to do with my life and that was to give back and go into education,” the SESP sophomore said. “I know Northwestern offers an excellent graduate program for a lot of what I want to do.”
NU’s graduate SESP program jumped from number 12 to number seven in the U.S. News & World Report rankings this year. The smallest of the top 10 schools of education, SESP ranks behind universities including Vanderbilt University (1), Stanford University (2) and Harvard University (6).
“I’m not surprised it moved up in the rankings,” Pate said. “Northwestern has a ton of extremely qualified professors and researchers within SESP.”
The undergraduate program, the smallest of NU’s colleges, has also seen an increase in applications and inter-school transfers, said Prof. Kimberly Scott, director of the Master’s Program in Learning and Organizational Change. SESP offers four concentrations – Learning and Organizational Change, Social Policy, Secondary Teaching and Human Development and Psychological Services.
“We’ve tried to offer our students more flexibility and variety in the ways in which they pursue their degrees,” Scott said. “That may be representative to the number of things we’ve been trying in the last few years in order to increase the diversity and caliber of students coming to the program.”
The changing economy may partially account for the increase in transfers to the program, Scott said. Traditional business or liberal arts degrees are no longer the only backgrounds employers are looking for in applicants, she said.
“Students in our program are equipped with a variety of angles and lenses to use when looking at the world that they might not get in some other programs,” she said. “This school offers a unique blend of experiences that help people pursue a broad range of career opportunities.”
SESP administrators are informally calling the large increase in transfer students to the Learning and Organizational Change and Social Policy programs the “Obama effect,” said Susan Olson, assistant dean of student affairs and coordinator of student programs.
“Students are interested in civic engagement and making a difference in communities and solving problems,” Olson said.
Undergraduates in SESP have the benefit of small class sizes as well as the balance of theory and application the program offers, Olson said. SESP students also have a required practicum experience.
“For three (concentrations), that is an internship during the junior year and for students in secondary education it’s student teaching during the senior year,” Olson said. “For all of the students, it gives them a chance to get out and apply what they’ve learned.”
SESP is also planning to allow undergraduates to have more than one minor for the 2009-2010 school year, Olson said.
While that will not apply to Pate, who is already a double major and a minor, many in the program are looking forward to the change, he said.
“I personally maxed out on the ‘rule of three’ already,” Pate said. “But I have several friends who are planning on actively pursuing the double minor. It’s popular – students are excited and talking about it.”
