4th year Bachelor of Public Administration (BPA) Honours

My name is Pranata Chowdhury (middle row, 3rd from the left, holding flowers) and I am in my final year of the Bachelor of Public Administration (BPA) program. I transferred to the program during my 3^rd year. After taking the Canadian Government course, I recall the professor telling the class that the public administration field is proactive in improving lives and applies theory rather than simply discussing theory. I have always had a vested interest in initiating improvements through government programs and services, so at that moment I experienced a realization that I wanted to work in public service. From weekly newsletters keeping students and faculty informed, to networking events enabling students to build connections and gain knowledge of the public sector, the faculty, staff, and fellow peers within the BPA program provide the opportunities, guidance, and support to succeed in the program.

Having conducted a program evaluation for the Ontario Ministry of Indigenous Affairs in the Program Evaluation course offered within the BPA program, I acted as a liaison with the Executive Assistant to the Deputy Minister to provide program evaluation documents outlining improvements and suggestions for increased productivity for the land claims process. This experience enhanced my analytical skills as I used qualitative and quantitative data collection methods continuously. This experience propelled me to complete three data analysis certificates at York University in Interpreting and Reporting Qualitative Data, an Applied Introduction to SPSS, and an Introduction to R and Tidyverse, which equipped me with the skills of utilizing a data analysis software to organize data, then interpret their meaning and identify significant relationships in the data. I have also completed a practicum placement at the City of Toronto during which I gained experience in navigating a government environment and coordinating multiple on-going projects. I coordinated a project with a team to implement the digitization of client files at the Municipal Licensing and Services division of the City of Toronto. I engaged in weekly meetings where I gained experience in the development of process maps in order to plan the process for implementing digitization, particularly how the client-facing end-user will input data, retrieve files, identify potential risks, and develop contingency plans to mitigate potential risks. Developing process maps provided an in-depth understanding of how the counter staff and the business operates. I took the initiative to conduct data reconciliation on retrieved client files on a database after digitization, which exposed me to different functions of Municipal Licensing and Services. I conducted data analysis on data requirements from short-term rental companies, private transportation companies, and taxicab brokerages by interpreting respective by-laws and then organizing data points on an Excel template. This task enabled me to gain experience in multi-tasking with large volumes of information including researching, assessing, recording and reporting data. As an observer for the Short-Term Rental Prototype testing, I identified overarching issues operators expressed during the registration process, inconsistencies between the data requirements from operators outlined in the Charter and data requirements in the registration process, potential risks of the registration process, and then input the observations on an Excel spreadsheet. The practicum program provided a hands-on learning experience of working in the public sector and how policy changes impact administration. The experience also provided me with insight on developing my skills in data analysis and project management.

My advice to students in the early stages of the program is to immerse yourself in the activities, events, and opportunities that the BPA program has to offer. I recommend taking experiential education courses which allow students to discover their interests and provide hands-on experience to develop their career. – Pranata Chowdhury