<p>Lately, I've been seeing W&M mentioned quite a bit as a great IR school. I know that I've read of Madeline Albright singing its praises. Does anyone have any experience with the IR program? What is it actually like at W&M? How are Middle Eastern studies? Thanks!</p>
<p>when I graduated in 08, there were not very many “area studies” people getting degrees.</p>
<p>IR at W&M is a cross discipline major, with a lot of requirements. You take Economics, History, and Government… and having the options of counting classes toward your major from Anthropology, Sociology, Business, Psychology, and Religion.</p>
<p>There are 7 core courses, 1 methods course, 1 cultural course, 2 electives, and a capstone requirement. This is 12 required classes. In addition, the required econ classes are 400 level, so they have 4 pre requisites. So you are up to 16 classes. Also, you need to have 3 semesters beyond 202 of a language (or 2 languages to 202 level, and 1 more class in one of them). So, you are essentially looking at 20 classes, or 60 credits.</p>
<p>see page 147 of the course catalog for full requirements: <a href=“http://www.wm.edu/offices/registrar/documents/catalog/UGCatalog.pdf[/url]”>http://www.wm.edu/offices/registrar/documents/catalog/UGCatalog.pdf</a></p>
<p>you can check out the middle eastern studies on page 128. I might suggest that you major in IR and target your electives toward the Middle East (arabic language, culture and history classes for that part of the world). This would provide you the broader perspective, and at the same time allow you to build a more significant background in that geographic area than a normal IR major. Then, if you still want the strong ME focus, you can look for a graduate program in that area. This is sort of what I did, but I targeted my electives toward Latin America.</p>
<p>W&M has a Washington Office that is very helpful: [William</a> & Mary -<em>The Washington Office](<a href=“http://www.wm.edu/offices/dcoffice/?svr=web]William”>http://www.wm.edu/offices/dcoffice/?svr=web)
Summer Security Institute: [William</a> & Mary -</em>Summer Security Institute](<a href=“http://www.wm.edu/sites/dcsummerinstitutes/prospective/institutes/security/index.php]William”>http://www.wm.edu/sites/dcsummerinstitutes/prospective/institutes/security/index.php)
PIPS, an undergraduate think tank (very competitive): [Institute</a> for the Theory and Practice of International Relations | PIPS (Project on International Peace and Security)](<a href=“http://irtheoryandpractice.wm.edu/projects/PIPS/]Institute”>The Project on International Peace and Security | William & Mary)</p>
<p>hope some of that helps, I’m a few years out now, but there might be a current IR student on here.</p>
<p>The IR Program is amazing! It is a great place to do research as an undergrad (check out [Institute</a> for the Theory and Practice of International Relations | Home](<a href=“http://irtheoryandpractice.wm.edu/]Institute”>http://irtheoryandpractice.wm.edu/)). Cookouts in the Crim Dell Meadow, the James River beach, or at a Prof’s house are common occurrences. A survey of the field found W&M to be one of the top undergraduate IR schools. Just tons of cool things. W&M has one the top study abroad rate for any public school (over 50%), so there are lots of well established options to choose from, as well as using independent companies.</p>
<p>W&M and St. Andrews just established a joint degree program ([William</a> & Mary - William & Mary and St Andrews to offer joint degree program](<a href=“http://www.wm.edu/news/stories/2010/st-andrews-123.php]William”>William & Mary and St Andrews to offer joint degree program | William & Mary)), so if you like Scotland you may want to look into that as St. Andrews may be the best undergraduate IR school in Europe.</p>
<p>For Middle Eastern Studies, I believe last year’s Rhodes Scholar was in that program, so it can’t be bad =)</p>
<p>If you like Model United Nations, the International Relations Club has consistently been the top American team (if not best overall) at WorldMUN for the past decade and a half.</p>
<p>Wow! Thanks a lot! It all sounds phenomenal.</p>
<p>question:
for employers from say the state department, CIA, and DoD, who’s the more desirable: the candidate with a IR degree with a concentration in East Asia or the candidate with a East Asia global studies major?</p>
<p>Just to add some clarity, there is an IR major and there is a Global Studies Major. The IR major focuses on how countries interact with each other whereas in Global Studies, you select one of several regions (say Middle Eastern Studies or East Asian Studies, etc) and focus on the language, government, economy and culture of that particular region. Both are fantastic majors with lots of opportunities for research, study abroad, and connecting with dignataries in the field.</p>
<p>As with any major at W&M, there are no specialities or focuses. For example, if you’re a history major, you’re a history major; not an American history major or modern history major. So if you’re an IR major, you’re just an IR major. You can use your elective time to focus on particular regions but your degree is simply IR. </p>
<p>Hope this adds a little bit of clarify.</p>
<p>The CIA Analyst & Recruiter who was just here said all the CIA wants is excellence in your field. Do whatever you like and do it well. The State Dept moves people around the world on each deployment, so a regional focus may not always be useful. On the other hand, for more intensive and field positions with government agencies, cultural knowledge may be useful. </p>
<p>It is my view that Area/Global Studies is more culturally based in general, whereas IR looks at the economics, institutional incentives, power dynamics, and cultural influences (basically, the “more concrete” social sciences) as they play out and interact across the globe - and then it is applied to understand individual cases. As an IR Major, I may consider a regional studies paper to be unorganized and unaware of the global forces at play in any given instance, whereas a they may consider my papers too lax on the cultural details (and I counter with: they are unnecessary to understand what is going on). IR seems to have more developed theories of how the world works, yet cultural studies may have more descriptive power. </p>
<p>I think it all comes down to your interests. Global systems versus individual cultures. You can kind of mix them too (i.e. by aiming all of your IR papers and elective history classes at South America [the other way around may be harder as it involves lots of econ and intensive security & theory courses to understand].</p>
<p>both the IR and area studies programs are strong so it really does depend on your interests. if it’s politics, i’d do IR and try to concentrate in an area (or double major). personally, i started out in IR but was not a fan of the intense political theory so i switched to global studies/econ. political theory is still relevant but to me culture is important and more interesting, and i still have government requirements for that major.</p>
<p>the one thing you will get more of in area studies as opposed to IR is a broader selection of classes (provided you can get them which is often very difficult since it’s interdisciplinary so you’re trying to snag classes from all over). for example, most of my GS electives are language-oriented, but you could also choose classes more oriented towards anthropology or politics or women or religion or history whereas not all of these are options if you are solely in IR.</p>
<p>it really is what you make of it.</p>
<p>
Starting to sound a bit like Wendt there… =P
=)</p>
<p>Sorry. Constructivist IR Theory. Carry on. Hahahaha</p>
<p>
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<p>those agencies hire people with all backgrounds… they generally want you to excel at what you do. The best thing you can do if you want to get into the IC is to learn one of the languages that are in significant need.</p>
<p>I would say that if you have a broader degree, you can specialize once you get in. If you target your coursework at a specific region of the world, you will probably have a better chance to get into that field, but a lower chance at all the others, if that makes sense.</p>
<p>Thank you to those who understood my question as one about job opportunities for IR majors versus global studies majors and not one which indicates that I don’t know the difference between both majors (I do, actually). What I’m curious about is whether the broader IR degree is generally more attractive to the aforementioned agencies than the global studies one. Would the State department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs prefer a IR major with a East Asian concentration or a East Asia global studies major? soccerguy touches on the dilemma I’m facing as a student who has to declare soon: to specialize now or to remain relatively broad as a undergrad.</p>
<p>I just want to throw out that I applied to the State Department’s “entry level program” this summer, and for the foreign affairs type stuff the only people who made the cutoff were disabled veterans, aka you could be the smartest person in the world, know everything, score perfect on the application, and it wouldn’t be enough.</p>
<p>I think with the IR degree you could be hired to any region with the expectation that you will do further work and study on that region, but an East Asian degree says “don’t hire me for Latin America, Africa, Europe, or the Middle East.” I think the general IR degree would give you more options outside of government agencies as well.</p>
<p>All this is just IMO, as someone who has been trying for awhile to obtain a government job with an IR degree. I just applied to a job a few weeks ago that I found out had ~1500 applications for 10 spots… lol. So my other advice is to try to get a government internship while you are in undergrad. If you happen to be learning Chinese, that could well bump your resume to the front of the pile.</p>
<p>I appreciate your response, soccerguy. I wish you all the best with your job hunt.</p>
<p>thanks ueber - I am doing the grad school thing and hoping that helps (and giving me more time to try to find internships), haha. could be worse.</p>