The question: “Please describe how you have prepared for your intended major, including your readiness to succeed in your upper-division courses once you enroll at the university.”
I feel like having done no community service or internships that relate to my career will be my reckoning. I literally have no idea how to answer that first part. The only thing I’ve done is read… I love to read and have read many books on political theory, but that’s pretty much it… Any advice? This is the only thing I have to do left before hitting submit and I am really getting nervous at how I’m supposed to dance around this question/go about answering it.
Political science. It’s one of those majors that I definitely could have gotten some outside experience with, but I’d rather save my breath and not bother writing up a bunch of excuses on here as to why I didn’t do it. Any advice?
I think that political science is something that you can’t get a lot of outside experience to, I would advice turning your passion of reading books to political science. For example when you are reading a book you are actively thinking and asking questions on why a certain thing is happening the way that it does, debating with yourself/ daydreaming - make it more specific. I think reading books for enjoyment shows that you will be able to succeed in college.
But it has been an election year…
So, any experience in negotiations and/or compromise? Ever build a project from the ground up, bringing in various viewpoints, getting it rolling? Helps to think about what policy sci entails.
do you follow current events on politics online? do you have an account where you actively respond to matters going on? do you follow politics beyond just an election year?
turn your books into a passion statement. not many students would bother to read and it’s great that you’re genuinely curious about it to read stuff on it. beyond just news articles and stuff, you actually read about the theory which is something that will prepare you for university since many of your assignments will probably involve reading classic theory stuff.
how do you interact with what’s been going on? have you learned anything about politics from this election cycle? share your insights w/ them or at least show that you are actively interacting with these things perhaps not physically but on an intellectual level.
@DenadaPlease well I could have joined student body or something, so there definitely was opportunity for me out there. I really like your suggestion. That definitely will help. I will just focus on what I have read and try to explain how it engages me to actively. Thank you so much for that response!
@lookingforward aside from class debates and debating acquaintances, I really have not done any of that. Just stick to the reading as my strongest asset?
Someone who didn’t get any experience this year makes me wonder why you think you should major in this. If you dislike the rough & tumble of actual politics, maybe you should major in history…
History would have been my third option (behind philosophy). Poli sci is more engaging and more open to discussion, whereas history isn’t. Don’t get me wrong, history is a portal to the past that should be examined for the future, but it isn’t as open to discussion as poli sci, which is why I chose that.
@DenadaPlease do you think I can send you that first prompt through PM and have you take a look at it and what your thoughts are? PMing it is safe from plagiarism, correct?
Tranfer, right? The “fine line” is when a competitive college wants you to “show, not just tell.” And at the same time, wants to see how you engage with others to pursue the interests. That’s usually more than reading and class discussions.
Is this a “guaranteed transfer” situation and you just want as much control over which UC you get into?