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Prospective MUSA students want to know what our alumni do after they leave Penn. We recently completed our first MUSA Alumni Survey that we will update every couple of years. In the survey, we asked our alums what kind of work they do and where, what job-market skills did MUSA prepare them for and what upcoming skills do they think future students need to know.
This dialogue is ongoing and our goal is to use this feedback to ensure that the MUSA program is as relevant as possible.
Without further ado...here are the results.:
We had 35 students respond to the survey. The below figure shows what year they graduated.
We then asked what sector they work in and the result was surprising. The figure below shows that nearly half of MUSA alumni respondents are working in the private sector. Despite the program's focus on civic technology and the public sector, it is clear that businesses value these spatial analytics as well.
Next we asked about the specific domain they work in. Domain experience is such an important component of data science. You can see that many of our students converted the urban policy domain knowledge they received at Penn into their current careers.
Next, we were curious about how well MUSA prepared students for the skills they needed in the labor market. The information visualized in the plot below is being used to sharpen our curriculum as we speak!
We also wanted to know where our alumni currently reside. The map below shows that our students have fanned out to cities across the country including the major technology hubs.
Finally, some other interesting facts worth noting. 12 of our 35 alumni respondents work in a managerial role and it took them an average of 3.6 years to move into positions of power. However, 18 of 35 have hiring responsibilities.
Thanks for reading! Are you a MUSA Alum? To get on the MUSA listserve and Slack channel, please email MUSA Director Ken Steif at steifclass(at)gmail.com
