Meet some of our Alumni

"I began my career as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker after earning my MSW in 2005. After seven years providing direct service as a family therapist, I transitioned into management roles with responsibilities for program performance and improvement. It was through these roles that I discovered and developed a passion for defining and measuring program success. For years, I taught myself the language and tools of performance management and evaluation and applied them to build the capacity and effectiveness of my own programs and organizations. In time, I came to be capacity builder and consultant supporting other nonprofit human service organizations to do the same. However, I wanted to deepen and strengthen my knowledge base and expand my toolkit for this work. This graduate certificate in program evaluation provided me with deep and focused instruction, expert guidance, and valuable opportunities to practice and apply my learning. I never could have imagined an online program could be so engaging, thorough, and effective. My instructors and advisors have been tremendous resources to me professionally as I seek to apply my learning to my consulting work. This program was a successful investment in my professional development and in my business."

"MSU’s M.A. in PE was a wonderful learning experience for me. As an undergrad of MSU with a major in Psychology, I had no idea what direction I wanted to take my career until I did my research on the PE program. Each course was beautifully designed and challenging. Although I was new to the evaluation world, this program was rich in resources and I quickly was able to adapt. My favorite part of the program was the practicum. Having the opportunity to work in the field and apply the skills and knowledge I gained was very rewarding. Because of this program I was able to find my new career path in public health."

"I enrolled in the program evaluation certificate at Michigan State University to learn foundational and practical skills that will help me to meet my future career goals of evaluating early childhood programs in Africa and globally. The program evaluation certificate provided me with the skills I need to achieve this professional goal in the future. For example, I recently used the skills I learned from the program evaluation course to apply to the World Bank's Early Years Fellowship. I eventually was awarded the Fellowship, but, unfortunately, I could not take the opportunity due to the current demands I have as a Ph.D. candidate in my department. Nevertheless, I am optimistic that my training in child development, combined with my program evaluation training from Michigan State University, will help me get such career opportunities in the future."

"Learning from dedicated evaluation professionals throughout the program gave me the knowledge and comprehensive skill set, as well as the network, necessary to succeed in the field of evaluation. Now at Planned Parenthood, I put my degree to use daily as an internal evaluator and continue to reference course content."

"My goal for enrolling in the Program Evaluation M.A. program was to add technical, theoretical, and foundational knowledge of Program Evaluation to the practical knowledge and skills I had already built. The program exposed me to several evaluation frameworks and the importance of mixed-methods research that I was able to apply and deploy at College Bound. My foundational knowledge and comfort of the full lifecycle of an evaluation project skyrocketed through my progression in the program which allowed my team at College Bound to experiment, learn, and grow a data-driven culture with speed and quality."

"MSU knows how to do online courses! I had taken several online courses prior to beginning my graduate certificate, but MSU was by far the most organized and effective at teaching virtually. One of the things I most appreciated was that teachers were not just in academia, but they had and continue to have real world evaluation experience. This meant we didn't just learn the theory in class, but got to hear and practice evaluations. My current role is focused on qualitative evaluation and I still refer to my classwork years after finishing. I'm continuously grateful for the knowledge I learned and the connections I gained through the Program Evaluation program."