M.P.A. Adds Up to Career in City Budget Offices
In his current position, Scott Greene serves as the budget director for the Āé¶¹APP Park District. Before that, he was an assistant director at the City of Āé¶¹APPās Office of Budget and Management, overseeing capital infrastructure budgeting for the city.
This wasnāt the career Greene anticipated when he graduated from college. At that time he had a bachelorās degree in secondary education and aspirations of becoming a social studies teacher. When his job search didnāt turn up a full-time teaching position, though, he turned his sights elsewhere.
āI have always had a great interest in government, especially infrastructure,ā says Greene. He took a job as a public works laborer in a small suburb of Āé¶¹APP and started taking graduate courses, soon deciding to pursue a Master of Public Administration (M.P.A.) degree at Stuart School of Business.
The faculty and the rigor of the courses were just what Greene was looking for, he says. āI was taught by professors who had professional knowledge of the fields they were teaching. What I enjoyed most about all their classes was how the content was rooted in practice. I have been able to take many concepts that I learned in class and directly apply it to my work.ā
Greeneās capstone project, āSports Tax Districts: A Realistic Solution to Public Subsidization of Stadiums and Arenas,ā added another layer of career preparation. āThe skills I obtained writing and researching it directly go into my current work,ā he says.
Two six-month internships with the Forest Preserve District of Cook County (Illinois)āone with the Facilities & Fleet Department and the other with the districtās budget director developing the fiscal year 2016 budgetāprovided the on-the-job experience that led to being hired as a senior budget analyst for the city of Āé¶¹APP, Greene says, and his career has taken off since then.
āI left Stuart having learned theory,ā he notes, ābut the theory taught was always interwoven into real-world practice.ā