<p>Can anyone anyone give me their comments on either of the majors at UCSD? I have been admitted into Revelle and I am a bit dubious about coming to UCSD because I know that the 5 required science courses are going to be a nightmare for me and could potentially wreck my GPA. I was admitted as an Econ major but I have realized my interests are really in international relations, politics, and law....plus I love Model UN so I think Political Science might be a better fit for me. My other option is UCI....how big is the disparity in rankings/quality for each programs? Oh yeah, I went to both presentations for the Economics and Political Science majors....by the way, Professor Jacobson from the Poli Sci department seems amazing!</p>
<p>Differences in rank don’t matter at the undergraduate level between UCI and UCSD.</p>
<p>And I would figure out what you really want since IR, politics, and law are very different in terms of the type of preparation you need to do well in each field (most international jobs for IR require an MA in IR; politics requires heavy interning at the local and broader levels; and law requires high numbers in GPA and LSAT with everything else really NOT mattering at all).</p>
<p>I’ve talked to people who’ve done political science at both schools and Irvine is very heavy and culture, norms, other “soft” stuff while UCSD is heavier on institutions, game theory, and other “hard” ideas. The latter could easily be combined with an economics degree to give you a good base for any number of areas. UCSD’s econ dept. is also quite good, but in both you’ll have to deal with some pretty massive class sizes. </p>
<p>And yes, at UCSD your intro classes can be with the professors who literally wrote the major textbooks in American Politics (i.e. like Gary J) and also International Relations.</p>