Kobina Aidoo MPP 2007

Spring Exercise

Spring Exercise is a two-week long simulation offering students an intense challenge of intellectual integration and practical application spanning the disciplines represented in the MPP core. The exercise gives students practice at applying core tools and concepts in a setting and at a pace approximating professional reality. It thus serves as a capstone to the first-year core and a bridge to the Policy Analysis Exercise and subsequent professional work.

Students attend presentations on Spring Exercise’s specific topic for that year, lectures by their core faculty linking the topic to the core courses, and several forums and panels. It also involves assimilating a large amount of written material provided to all participants. In the first week students produce a decision memo on one aspect of the policy challenge Then they are grouped into five-person teams to deliver a detailed, data-backed briefing for a senior decision-maker in a simulated but realistic policy process.

Past Spring Exercise topics have included:

  • Social Security Reform
  • Global Warming
  • AIDS in Africa
  • Rebuilding Afghanistan
  • Covering the Uninsured
  • Bracing for Avian Flu

Read about one student's Spring Exercise experience in the Harvard Kennedy School Bulletin.