Description

In Chapter 7 of 16, environmental management expert Andrew Hutson shares his non-conventional approach to tailor his Public Policy PhD at the University of North Carolina. Hutson identifies a problem - the damage done by non-sustainable supply chain business practices - and fuses multi-disciplinary coursework across business strategy, economic development, sociology, political science, and economics to better understand the problem and fashion a solution.

Transcript

How to Customize a PhD Program to Your Interests Erik Michielsen: What was your approach to tailoring a PhD program that you and UNC at Chapel Hill that focused on what you want get out of a career environmental management? Andrew Hutson: There was this guy that spoke at my master’s degree graduation and we loved him. He was kind of this green energy guru guy. He was really great as he was speaking of the graduating class and a there were a lot of doctoral students graduating. He said, “You’re your committee or your adviser ever ask you why you are taking a class that means you're probably doing the right thing. Because there is going to be a things outside of field that really inform what you are trying learn in ways that will never learn if just kind of stay within the boundaries of a discipline.” I found that to be case. I took a relatively unparochial approach and some people will call that a stupid approach. When you go into a doctoral program, particularly you want a interdisciplinary like public policy really isn’t a traditional discipline. You know it’s kind of a hybrid between economics and political science. So a lot people that go into one these programs will decide that I'm going to go and take course with the economics department or I'm going to take the core course work with the political science department. And then if decided to get a 10-year track academic job, I will have an easier time in one of those places. I speak the same language. I decided to take this really half hazard approach which was I'm going to go and I have sort of a question in mind and I want to figure out all the things, all the classes I can take in order to sort of answer that question and be the biggest expert in this little area that I can. So instead of you going taking everything in political science or economics, I did that the course work that I had to in those places but then I went down to the business school and took classes and strategy. You know I went to the planning school and took something in economic development. I went over to sociology over Duke and I did some stuff in economic sociology and to sort of tried to piece together all of these different things that were going to help better understand that the problem as I saw it. Erik Michielsen: Yes. Andrew Hutson: And that’s kind of hazard because if you want to go and be a 10- year track professor, people say what are you? You know I mean there like question. Its academic departments are still very structured where you’re an economist, you’re political scientist, you’re sociologist you know and you could be a sociologist that you know thinks about the world in terms of in a sort of rational choice economics. You can be an economist that sort of understands some of that you know planning theory or business strategy. I was trying not to be strategic about where I ended up. I was just really trying to enjoy what I was doing.