Columbia is my first choice, but Barnard is more realistic for me. I want to major in political science. Should I look elsewhere for a better program, or is Barnard’s relatively good?
My daughter was a poli sci major and had a wonderful experience and amazing professors, so a definite yes to poli sci at Barnard. She really enjoyed her colloquia and her thesis project, and became very close to several of her profs.
Agree with Calmom. My daughter was a polysci major at Barhard. She had friendly relationships with profs, several of whom still advise her, now 10 years after her graduation (she now travels all over the world as a child protection policy consultant after an IR master’s degree from Hopkins. Based on her experience we would advise any woman accepted at Barnard and Columbia to choose Barnard.
I was a poli sci major at Barnard, and was very satisfied with the department. You major in one of three areas: American politics, international relations, or political theory, although you take classes in all three. I majored in IR. I took a lot of my classes at Columbia, although my thesis advisor was at Barnard, of course. The thesis is a major part of the Barnard experience, unlike at Columbia, where they have the Core instead. I found the profs at Barnard and Columbia to be very helpful if you have questions for them. So basically, definitely consider Barnard if you are going to major in political science.
Barnard appears to have made some changes to the thesis requirement – it’s hard for me to figure out, but it looks like they now require 3 colloquia and a poster project based on one of the colloquia papers.