<p>What does a young adult do with a Poly Sci BA, other than go to law or grad school? Do any of you know of happily employed graduates? How did they find work?</p>
<p>Our DD interned in the White House after graduating in Dec 10, and then got a position working in the Senate.</p>
<p>I have quite a few friends who are recent/not-so-recent graduates with a Poli Sci BA, here are some of them:</p>
<ol>
<li>teaching at a high school (started with TFA, she’s continuing on after having received her teaching credential and her masters in education) </li>
<li>works as a writer for one of the newspapers in SF, mainly in their politics section (he interned there as an undergraduate and took a few classes in journalism)</li>
<li>working for the government (connections + career fair) </li>
<li>campaign manager/analyst for one of our local congressmen (career fair, school newsletters)</li>
<li>working for a non-profit organization: lobbies, manages, etc. (interned/volunteered as undergraduate)</li>
</ol>
<p>Basically, your best bet would be to go into government, although a lot of my friends who are super recent graduates are doing TFA/Peace Corps/etc. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>This fall? I’d get involved on the campaign staff of someone I respect who has a serious chance of winning the election. Best bet: probably not federal but state level.</p>
<p>Son of a friend first worked as policy advisor for a environmental interest group in DC, then went to work as an aide in a Congressional representative’s office.</p>
<p>My D (double Poli Sci/Public Policy major, graduating in May) just landed a job in DC as a research analyst for a consulting company. They do consulting in an area where she has some policy and practical experience. It isn’t exactly the job she expected to have (a job at the State Dept, where she interned, would have been a dream job). But it is a real job with a decent salary and benefits in DC. She figures she will try it for a year, and if she likes it that is great. If not, she will be in DC and can look for something else more directly in the political realm.</p>
<p>A Poli Sci degree is the type where you need a bit of creativity when choosing a career, like an English major or some-such. Otherwise, the typical job paths are crunching numbers for a campaign or pollster firm, government work (think political aid, state dept., etc.), or international field.</p>
<p>If you have military experience you can add CIA to the list… So there’s that…</p>
<p>Family member with BA in PoliSci worked for a few years for a fundraising arm of a medical institute (planning charity balls, etc), went to top school for MA in Public Policy ? I can’t remember exact title. Currently at fantastic internship type job at NIH in DC.<br>
No, no extra interest or classes in science. Just in public health as a social/policy thing.</p>
<p>Other family member with BA in PoliSci is currently a network engineer. Took a lot of hard training/certification on his own later, but worked out.</p>
<p>Both thought they were headed for law school when they picked major.</p>
<p>I missed the part of your question about how they found work. My D got her job by networking with a student from her college who was a friend of hers, one year older. The friend is a research analyst at this company, and told D they were hiring.</p>
<p>S is a program associate at a think tank in DC. He interned there for 2 years before he graduated, so they already knew he was a good researcher. The pay is OK (DC is expensive) and the benefits are very good.</p>
<p>I have a poli sci BA, and there are a couple of factors that were relevant in my job search that you should consider. There are solely from my point of view and may differ from others.</p>
<p>1.) In terms of location, where are you willing to work? If you want to work for the government, there are a finite number of options-- there are a lot of options, but you may still find this too limiting depending on your circumstances. If those options aren’t agreeable to you, you won’t be working for the government and need to consider that. Working for the government is often the best option in terms of salary/benefits.</p>
<p>2.) If you DON’T want to work for the government, but still want to use your degree, what are you going to do? This is the category I fell into at graduation and found that most of the jobs I could find-- entry level campaign work and lobbying (the latter of which I was very interested in), which I had over a year of experience with already but still qualified as “entry-level” for these positions-- were either unpaid or paid VERY, VERY little, many were temp jobs, and many did not have benefits. The area you search in may be different. In my case, working at McDonald’s would have led to better financial stability. YMMV.</p>
<ol>
<li> If you don’t want to do either of the above, THEN what? In this case, you are primarily going to be looking at jobs that are willing to hire someone with any college degree, similar to someone who majored in English, etc. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you develop some marketing skills before you graduate so that you’ll be able to sell yourself for these positions-- you’ll have to be able to draw connections between your coursework and your experience and the job you’re applying for. This isn’t too bad, a good poli sci program SHOULD teach you extensive analytic, reading, writing, and communication skills which are applicable to a wide array of industries. This is where I ended up, and I landed in commercial property insurance. I like my job and intend to do it for a long time, but I suspect someday I will want to gravitate more toward something related to my degree. Right now, it’s just very difficult to make that happen with current circumstances being what they are.</li>
</ol>
<p>There’s also obviously the question of grad school, which may change things, but I didn’t consider that path and don’t know anything about it.</p>