The "Public Administration Careers" Master's program provides students with a solid legal foundation as well as management and project management tools and prepares them for public administration entrance exams. At a time of important changes in organizations, missions, and professions, this Master's program introduces students to different administrative cultures, enables them to innovate, to learn how to evaluate, and to prepare for professional mobility.
The Public Administration Careers Masters course aims primarily to prepare candidates for civil service examinations and their various tests.
Beyond preparing students and helping them acquire the knowledge necessary for the competitive examinations, this course also aims to facilitate their integration into the labor force, by enhancing their awareness of the contemporary issues facing the public sector, whether legal, economic, financial, digital or managerial.
Their knowledge of the issues and their ability to analyze and synthesize them enables students who do not wish to enter the civil service to opt for other professions, such as those of aides to elected officials or consultants.
In view of the issues and developments that the public sector has faced in recent years, it seems necessary for students to develop skills characterized by the following:
transversality, i.e. the ability to articulate different types of knowledge by contextualizing them;
the strategic dimension, i.e. the ability to develop projects taking into account all their dimensions;
the operational dimension, i.e. the capacity to convene diverse actors internally and externally around shared concepts.
Both competition juries and public employers that recruit contract staff look for the ability to integrate different types of knowledge, to understand complex human and organizational systems, and to configure the determinants of collective action within an ordered and coherent framework.
This course will enable students to develop their knowledge, their understanding of legal and institutional mechanisms ; it will equip students with tools, but also, and perhaps more importantly, seeks to develop in students the skills and openness that will enable them to adapt to an ever-changing public sector.
The "Public administration careers" Masters program is a course that both develops generalist knowledge and skills and opens pathways to many sectors of activity, in a very practical manner thanks to the emphasis it places on law and to understanding public actors.
The fifth year can be completed by alternating work and study.
In addition to the cross-disciplinary classes taught at Sciences Po Bordeaux (General knowledge, economics and languages), the fourth-year course teaches students the fundamentals of public law (administrative law, public economic law, public finance, public service law, administrative litigation, European Union law, administrative institutions) and introduces them to the principles of management, as well as project management through a collective project conducted independently by the students.
In fifth year, students reinforce their theoretical knowledge through several "core courses". The first core course consists of cross-disciplinary classes (general knowledge, economics and languages) thanks to which students will develop their ability to contextualize and analyze contemporary society. The second core course aims to develop students’ ability to express themselves and synthesize information, through oral, synthesis and situational exercises. The third core course offers a choice between three professional "areas": security and justice, health and social, or general administration. Students will acquire the essential legal knowledge and learn about key financial and managerial questions relative to each professional area.
This information is for guidance purposes.
Sciences Po Bordeaux Diploma : First year
Find out more about the requirements for admission to fourth year
Many of the participants in this Masters program will be able to apply for the various civil service entrance examinations. But they will also be equipped to apply for positions as aides to elected officials, for jobs in consulting firms, and all contract positions in the public service.
Email : a.gaudin @ sciencespobordeaux.fr
Email : k.caron @ sciencespobordeaux.fr
Type of education
Internship Obligatory (2 months minimum)
Access to ENT
