International Relations @ UMD- College Park?

College Majors
1

HI everyone, I am a recent A.A. graduate looking to transfer. I am interested in a career in international relations which I understand eventually involves graduate school.

Here is my situation. Because of the field I am interested in I wanted to study in or near Washington D.C. I have been accepted into American University (#9 undergraduate I.R. program) but I can’t afford to attend and I expect the same thing will happen when I hear back from GWU. This means I will likely attend FSU (my home state) in the coming fall.

I don’t want to give up on studying in D.C. because of the networking opportunities and I noticed that the University of Maryland- College Park is still accepting transfer applications. The only problem is that they don’t offer any undergraduate degrees in International Relations/International Affairs/Foreign Affairs. I would likely have to settle for their Government & Politics degree.

Essentially the question at hand is: does UMD-College Park’s proximity to DC and killer internship possibilities (State Department, IGO’s, NGO’s, etc) outweigh the fact that I cannot specifically study International Relations there?

Should I even bother applying to UMD- College Park or will FSU’s International Affairs program be better for me?

2

Three points:

  1. You can still study IR at FSU and pursue summer and/or semester-long internships in DC.
  2. Politics and Government at UMD = IR major
  3. You don’t need to be an IR major to study IR. You can study anything and then decide to pursue an MA in IR/IS in graduate school. And you’ll have the same internship and networking opportunities if you do grad school in DC.

Hope this helps :slight_smile: