📝 Assignments

PST 315: Methods of Policy Analysis and Presentation

Author

Prof. Jack Reilly

Published

Fall 2026

Hello and welcome to the assignments page for our course. All assignments are posted here, and each one is due Friday of the week listed.

Note that, while you can find assignments here, submission itself goes through the course Blackboard — with one exception, the Project Application, which is submitted through a Qualtrics link.

For how assignments are weighted, how group projects are handled, and the late policy, see Logistics.

Each assignment page carries its instructions, any templates you need to download, and the Guidelines that apply to it. Guidelines appear under the assignment where they are first needed; later assignments link back to them.

Getting Started

Assignment Due Points
Project Application Week 1 (Aug 28) 2
Client Email Week 2 (Sep 4) *
First Client Meeting Week 3 (Sep 11) *
Finalized Contract & Timeline Week 4 (Sep 18) 3
Second Client Meeting Week 4 (Sep 18) *

Project Development & Organization

Assignment Due Points
Organizational Assessment Week 5 (Sep 25) 10
Weekly Task Plan Week 5 (Sep 25) 2
Draft Executive Summary Week 6 (Oct 2) 3
Excel Coding Workshop Week 6 (Oct 2) 2
Excel Graphing Workshop Week 7 (Oct 9) 2

Practice Report

Assignment Due Points
Practice Report Week 8 (Oct 16) 10

Report & Presentation

Assignment Due Points
Formatted Report Shell Week 9 (Oct 23) 3
Rough Draft Week 11 (Nov 6) 3
Final Report Week 13 (Nov 20) 45
Final Presentation Week 14 (Nov 30) 5

Wrap-Up

Assignment Due Points
Professional Materials Week 15 (Dec 11) 5
Final Reflection Week 15 (Dec 11) 5

*Items marked with an asterisk are not separately graded; they count toward your professionalism points.