<p>I currently have my mind set on majoring or double majoring in Political Science, Economics and International Relations. Obviously Chicago is renown for its Economics department and has a very strong Political Science program. But what about IR? If I get accepted, should I just immediately set my sights on Political Science and Economics? Overall, how would you rate the IR program against Econ and Political Science?</p>
<p>Obviously I am still a naive rising senior and I will definitely try taking classes in all 3 along with other courses to see what interests and inspires me, but currently those are the 3 choices. I am also interested in Sociology and (surprisingly) Physics, but I don't really see myself majoring in those fields, though I will definitely give them a go.</p>
<p>Chicago technically doesn’t have an undergraduate International Relations major; what it has is called “International Studies”. One would have to be more tuned in to the field than I am to understand what the difference is, but you can be assured that there IS a difference and people care about it. Chicago does have a large, successful, interdisciplinary masters program in International Relations. They claim it was the first graduate program in the field.</p>
<p>I think it’s fairly popular to do a joint BA/MA with the MA being International Relations. At least, three of my kids’ friends did that. It made for an insanely difficult but intellectually stimulating fourth year, and they all did pretty cool things afterwards. I believe that the BA part is not always in International Studies but often in something else, like Economics, Public Policy, History, some kind of area studies.</p>