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I applied to six graduate schools, all for programs leading to a Master's degree in MIS. None of the five other schools even begin to approach the bizarre nature and structure of the Carnegie Mellon Heinz College - a structure that I believe needs to fundamentally change.
For those of you who aren't Carnegie Mellon students (and even some who are but are unfamiliar with the college), Heinz was historically a policy school - offering a traditional MPA-type degree - named the School of Urban and Public Affairs (SUPA) from its inception in 1968. In 1992 Theresa Heinz-Kerry donated a substantial sum of money to the college on behalf of her late husband, moderate Republican Pennsylvania Senator John Heinz III, and the school became the Heinz School - all while remaining a purely policy school, the type of place that produced scores upon scores of policy analysts, think-tank wonks, and Federal bureaucrats. A list of typical employers for Heinz School grads circa 1992 would have included various government agencies such as the Government Accountability Office, state/local/municipal governments, non-profit organizations, and some consulting firms that did extensive work with Federal Government. But something interesting began to happen with Heinz graduates. Many of them were choosing to take an offered and highly popular policy specialization in information systems (known then as the MISPPM degree), and a very substantial percentage of these people ended up working in private sector firms, almost in a manner similar to MBAs. Leaders at Heinz recognized this trend and the growing importance of IT as that field boomed during the 1990's, and decided to pursue this rather lucrative market segment. Consequently, in 1997 the Master of Information Systems Management (MISM) program was born - this is, of course, my graduate program. Subsequently a variety of other programs were created in this realm at Heinz, including the popular MSIT part-time program.
And thus began a rather awkward and strained coexistence of two fundamentally different groups of people: public policy analysts and bureaucrats on the one hand, and private sector business technologists on the other. On the one hand, you had the types who went into the Peace Corps; on the other, the types who interned with Goldman Sachs. One group was majority American, largely female, and interested in such warm and fuzzy concepts as "saving the world" and "social parity"; the other group was majority foreign - primarily Indian and Chinese - overwhelmingly male, and generally concerned with code, career, and compensation packages.
Many people find it hard to believe that these two groups cohabit in the same college - a self-proclaimed "policy school." Talk about an odd couple!
Recognizing the obvious problems with this arrangement - and the potentially deleterious effects this might have on Heinz's brand image - the Heinz School was reorganized last year into the "Heinz College", with two schools underneath: the School of Public Policy and Management (PPM), and the School of Information Systems and Management (ISM). I can't believe that it took them more than ten years to accomplish that task - essentially a nominal change - but I won't digress. If anything, the reorganization was merely a recognition of the highly segregated nature of life at the college as recently as this Spring semester. By and large, ISM kids stuck on the third floor, policy kids in the basement, and the two sides rarely intermingled inside Hamburg. Both sides took different classes, even different core classes such as Accounting that covered near-identical content. In social interactions such as parties outside of school, the two groups rarely mixed - you still hear terms like "PPM party" being used. When they graduated, the two sides tended to work for different sets of companies in different sets of cities. Even outside of social contexts, problems exist; many of my MISM colleagues, for example, tell me that recruiters often scratch their heads when told that they will be receiving a degree in MIS from a...policy school, which significantly impairs the name recognition and value of the program (though I've never had to explain this to a recruiter, most of my technologist friends outside of Heinz are shocked by this revelation that I'm at a (historically) policy school.) In short, the college was - and still is - anything but a cohesive whole. Comprehensive efforts this semester by the administration have greatly ameliorated the situation, but a considerable rift remains between students in the two colleges. Though a small number of students - myself included - have an integrated social circle that includes a nice mix of people from both areas, this is not the Heinz norm.
Given these facts, it has become clear to me that Heinz should divest the ISM programs - which belong in the Tepper Business School - and return to its policy roots. There is simply no logical, rational reason why the same college should host programs in public policy and business technology - not a single one.
To be as clear as I can, this should not be interpreted as an attack on PPM students. Not in the least. In fact, I have made it exceptionally clear since coming to Heinz that I identify culturally far, far more strongly with PPM kids than with most of the people in my own program (even if I categorically reject the PPM idealistic naïveté about "saving the world" and their misplaced disdain for the private sector and the notion of acquiring wealth as a life goal.) PPM kids are generally social, fun to hang out and party with, down-to-earth (though some are arrogant , elitist pricks), and overall personable people. Many people in ISM, on the other hand, are overly reserved, antisocial, incredibly nerdy and awkward, unable or unwilling to interact with students not from their home nations, and generally in lack of the social skills and joie de vivre that differentiate a breathing human being from a brick wall.
However, as much as I may like them as people and even though I've made many lifelong friends among them, I know that I do not belong in the same college as PPM students. That is quite clear. The typical explanation given for the PPM-ISM coexistence is the fact that significant relationships and synergies exist between the two schools; that policy influences technology and vice versa, and that many of the Heinz professors produce groundbreaking research at the intersection of policy and technology. While those arguments are true, they can also assuredly be made for just about any academic discipline. Since technology clearly influences the arts, why don't we just locate MISM in the College of Fine Arts? Surely we can recognize the relationship between technology and the social sciences, so perhaps we could group MISM in with the School of Humanities and Social Sciences? (in fact, interestingly enough, the Carnegie Mellon undergraduate version of MISM is housed in this college!) Or, since many MISMers are enamored with programming, perhaps we should be placed with the Computer Science people? (On a related note, isn't Carnegie Mellon known and reputed for inter-college research and problem solving? Why in the hell do professors have to be located in the same college to collaborate on research?)
I'm sure you get my point; you can make an argument, half-assedly and with fifth-grade logic, that MISM should be placed into any college on this campus, and you could train scholars to produce research at the intersection of technology and any of those respective fields. But that fact does not alter the fundamental nature of the MISM curriculum, nor the career aspirations - in the business world - of most MISM students. Recognizing these facts, the most common sense route would be for Heinz to divest ISM to the Tepper School of Business and return to its proper role as a real policy school. MISM would either keep its current name or become something like an MBA-IT, recognizing that it is a business technology program, not a policy one. Professors tenured in ISM could continue to work on research with their colleagues in Heinz as, the last time I checked, the two colleges are on the same campus and this type of inter-college collaboration is encouraged here.
In 1997 with the tech boom roaring ever higher, Heinz administrators made an excellent, visionary decision to create a graduate-level program in this burgeoning and increasingly important area. But the program has never had a true and proper home, and it is well past time that it be given one.
For those of you who aren't Carnegie Mellon students (and even some who are but are unfamiliar with the college), Heinz was historically a policy school - offering a traditional MPA-type degree - named the School of Urban and Public Affairs (SUPA) from its inception in 1968. In 1992 Theresa Heinz-Kerry donated a substantial sum of money to the college on behalf of her late husband, moderate Republican Pennsylvania Senator John Heinz III, and the school became the Heinz School - all while remaining a purely policy school, the type of place that produced scores upon scores of policy analysts, think-tank wonks, and Federal bureaucrats. A list of typical employers for Heinz School grads circa 1992 would have included various government agencies such as the Government Accountability Office, state/local/municipal governments, non-profit organizations, and some consulting firms that did extensive work with Federal Government. But something interesting began to happen with Heinz graduates. Many of them were choosing to take an offered and highly popular policy specialization in information systems (known then as the MISPPM degree), and a very substantial percentage of these people ended up working in private sector firms, almost in a manner similar to MBAs. Leaders at Heinz recognized this trend and the growing importance of IT as that field boomed during the 1990's, and decided to pursue this rather lucrative market segment. Consequently, in 1997 the Master of Information Systems Management (MISM) program was born - this is, of course, my graduate program. Subsequently a variety of other programs were created in this realm at Heinz, including the popular MSIT part-time program.
And thus began a rather awkward and strained coexistence of two fundamentally different groups of people: public policy analysts and bureaucrats on the one hand, and private sector business technologists on the other. On the one hand, you had the types who went into the Peace Corps; on the other, the types who interned with Goldman Sachs. One group was majority American, largely female, and interested in such warm and fuzzy concepts as "saving the world" and "social parity"; the other group was majority foreign - primarily Indian and Chinese - overwhelmingly male, and generally concerned with code, career, and compensation packages.
Many people find it hard to believe that these two groups cohabit in the same college - a self-proclaimed "policy school." Talk about an odd couple!
Recognizing the obvious problems with this arrangement - and the potentially deleterious effects this might have on Heinz's brand image - the Heinz School was reorganized last year into the "Heinz College", with two schools underneath: the School of Public Policy and Management (PPM), and the School of Information Systems and Management (ISM). I can't believe that it took them more than ten years to accomplish that task - essentially a nominal change - but I won't digress. If anything, the reorganization was merely a recognition of the highly segregated nature of life at the college as recently as this Spring semester. By and large, ISM kids stuck on the third floor, policy kids in the basement, and the two sides rarely intermingled inside Hamburg. Both sides took different classes, even different core classes such as Accounting that covered near-identical content. In social interactions such as parties outside of school, the two groups rarely mixed - you still hear terms like "PPM party" being used. When they graduated, the two sides tended to work for different sets of companies in different sets of cities. Even outside of social contexts, problems exist; many of my MISM colleagues, for example, tell me that recruiters often scratch their heads when told that they will be receiving a degree in MIS from a...policy school, which significantly impairs the name recognition and value of the program (though I've never had to explain this to a recruiter, most of my technologist friends outside of Heinz are shocked by this revelation that I'm at a (historically) policy school.) In short, the college was - and still is - anything but a cohesive whole. Comprehensive efforts this semester by the administration have greatly ameliorated the situation, but a considerable rift remains between students in the two colleges. Though a small number of students - myself included - have an integrated social circle that includes a nice mix of people from both areas, this is not the Heinz norm.
Given these facts, it has become clear to me that Heinz should divest the ISM programs - which belong in the Tepper Business School - and return to its policy roots. There is simply no logical, rational reason why the same college should host programs in public policy and business technology - not a single one.
To be as clear as I can, this should not be interpreted as an attack on PPM students. Not in the least. In fact, I have made it exceptionally clear since coming to Heinz that I identify culturally far, far more strongly with PPM kids than with most of the people in my own program (even if I categorically reject the PPM idealistic naïveté about "saving the world" and their misplaced disdain for the private sector and the notion of acquiring wealth as a life goal.) PPM kids are generally social, fun to hang out and party with, down-to-earth (though some are arrogant , elitist pricks), and overall personable people. Many people in ISM, on the other hand, are overly reserved, antisocial, incredibly nerdy and awkward, unable or unwilling to interact with students not from their home nations, and generally in lack of the social skills and joie de vivre that differentiate a breathing human being from a brick wall.
However, as much as I may like them as people and even though I've made many lifelong friends among them, I know that I do not belong in the same college as PPM students. That is quite clear. The typical explanation given for the PPM-ISM coexistence is the fact that significant relationships and synergies exist between the two schools; that policy influences technology and vice versa, and that many of the Heinz professors produce groundbreaking research at the intersection of policy and technology. While those arguments are true, they can also assuredly be made for just about any academic discipline. Since technology clearly influences the arts, why don't we just locate MISM in the College of Fine Arts? Surely we can recognize the relationship between technology and the social sciences, so perhaps we could group MISM in with the School of Humanities and Social Sciences? (in fact, interestingly enough, the Carnegie Mellon undergraduate version of MISM is housed in this college!) Or, since many MISMers are enamored with programming, perhaps we should be placed with the Computer Science people? (On a related note, isn't Carnegie Mellon known and reputed for inter-college research and problem solving? Why in the hell do professors have to be located in the same college to collaborate on research?)
I'm sure you get my point; you can make an argument, half-assedly and with fifth-grade logic, that MISM should be placed into any college on this campus, and you could train scholars to produce research at the intersection of technology and any of those respective fields. But that fact does not alter the fundamental nature of the MISM curriculum, nor the career aspirations - in the business world - of most MISM students. Recognizing these facts, the most common sense route would be for Heinz to divest ISM to the Tepper School of Business and return to its proper role as a real policy school. MISM would either keep its current name or become something like an MBA-IT, recognizing that it is a business technology program, not a policy one. Professors tenured in ISM could continue to work on research with their colleagues in Heinz as, the last time I checked, the two colleges are on the same campus and this type of inter-college collaboration is encouraged here.
In 1997 with the tech boom roaring ever higher, Heinz administrators made an excellent, visionary decision to create a graduate-level program in this burgeoning and increasingly important area. But the program has never had a true and proper home, and it is well past time that it be given one.
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