I am currently a high school junior interested in Econ/political science. Would the ILR school at Cornell potentially fit my interests? What would be the career benefits of the ILR school over a Econ/political science degree? Thanks in advance.
ILR focuses on aspects of economics, policy and business, very specialized in human resource and labor issues for your core courses. There are 3 buckets of courses, required, which are all labor related, semi-elective courses where you pick from a list but there are many econ/political/business options and then free electives that can allow you a minor in econ or poly sci, in the CAS if you choose.
If you find people and how groups interact very interesting, care about fairness of policies in how workers are treated, this would be an excellent program. If you are a New York State resident there is also some financial benefit to ILR over CAS. Academically though the main difference is that ILR is NOT a liberal arts college, and while you must take a handful of traditional liberal arts electives, you take less than if you were in Arts & Sciences. Main difference, no foreign language requirement in ILR but there would be if you were a poly sci or econ major in CAS. You can take mostly business/econ/policy and math related courses, and less (not none) of the usual liberal arts distributions requirements. From this standpoint it is more of a practical degree (more career oriented courses, less gen ed).
Forgot to mention that yes I am a New York state resident.
@blevine so ILR is better for job prospects?
I think ILR or CALS/Dyson are both better for employment and would save you money, as compared to Arts & Sciences Poly Sci/Econ.