4th year Bachelor of Public Administration (BPA) Spec. Honours (Policy Analysis) and Certificate in Refugee and Migration Studies

My name is Safia Hirsi and this year is my 3rd year in the BPA program, but my 4th year of university overall. I transferred into the BPA program at the end of my first year, after previously attending the Ted Rogers School of Business at Ryerson University. I took courses over the summer when I transferred to catch up on the core 1st year PPAS courses. In my 2nd year I took a mix of 2nd and 3rd year courses, since I noticed that the bulk of PPAS courses were in the upper year credits. I wanted to do these courses earlier in my studies in order to have the chance to take all the available experiential education courses at the 4000-level in both my 3rd and 4th years.

This meant that by my 3rd year I was able to take a 4000-level experiential education courses, specifically AP/PPAS 4310 and 4320 3.0 Program Evaluation I and II. In these courses, I designed and completed a program evaluation with a team of BPA students examining the effectiveness of the City of Vaughan’s Emergency Management Public Education Program. The experience gained in these courses enabled me to get a summer job in the Ontario Public Service in the Ministry of Municipal Affairs with the Municipal Programs and Analytics Branch on the municipal disasters program’s file. There I was able to do a variety of work, including assisting in program level work for disaster assistance applications and policy level decision making processes like helping to provide advice on activating disaster assistance programs across flooded areas in Ontario during the summer.

During the course of the summer I had decided that I wanted to do a co-op year. I was looking for an opportunity to gain personal insight into the workforce and to figure out what I was interested in doing in practice rather than theory. Luckily, I was offered a co-op contract from my Ministry branch in order to continue on doing the work I had been doing over the summer. I even had the opportunity to do public workshops in Ottawa, which was very cool.

Admittedly, the YU Experience Hub does not have as many public administration co-op postings as they do business postings, so for anyone looking to do a co-op year, being able to network or look elsewhere to find a co-op position is very important! Hopefully over time that will improve, but overall the YU Hub is very supportive in assisting you throughout the process of finding a co-op position. My first co-op didn’t come from the internship program, but my second did. This semester I’m working in the Ministry of Community and Social Services with the Human Services Integration Office. Here I am currently working on a multi-Ministry project on improving municipal service delivery for programs such as child-care, social assistance and housing supports. By the time I’m  finished with my current co-op term, I will have been in the OPS for a year. This experience has provided me with a strong understanding of what types of work I enjoy doing, and it opened up my eyes to exactly what is out there in the workforce. It also gave me the chance to go through this experience as a student, with strong supports and mentoring in the workplace and the chance to learn how to tread water, rather than being thrown in the deep-end after graduation. Anyone who can do a co-op and/or take an experiential education course, I personally recommend that you do! Not only that, but get involved in experiences on and off campus that provide you with the chance to gain new skills, learn new things, and meet and get to know new people! If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my undergrad so far is that one opportunity leads to more opportunities. One personal example of that is that all the experiences I had through York provided me with the skillset to have the opportunity to also be doing a fellowship this semester at Toronto City Hall. Take advantage of the opportunities presented to you, and you might be surprised where they could lead you. - Safia Hirsi