<p>I'm a peace corps volunteer finishing up two years in south amaerica and doing a third year in central america. I'm fluent in spanish and now learning creole. I majored in government and minored in development at a good college and graduated with high departmental honors. my gpa was a 3.6.</p>
<p>I am considering masters programa in IR that have the option of focusing on development and latin america. My main focuses are fletcher, SIS (American), and LSE, possibly SIPA (Columbia). </p>
<p>I'm worried because though I minored in development I never took a micro or macro econ course. I did take one econ theory class on globalization but it counts for no requirements. Some of these programs require econ. If I take an on-line course will it be sufficient to meet the requirements? And will my application be considered strong though I didn't take econ in college? How much does my practical experience (studying abroad, my honors thesis, and 3 years in the peace corps) count in my application to competitive IR programs?</p>
<p>Your profile sounds competitive, but the lack of economics might be a problem. I am actually in the same boat now, but decided to just take them in a summer session. I do not think it will make a difference whether it is online or not; and if done through a traditional university, many do not even distinguish which classes were offered online on the transcript.</p>
<p>But be sure you take one class each in micro and macro economics for at least 4 credits each. </p>
<p>I think you could benefit from some econ classes before you began an IR program with a focus on development but I don,t think the absence of econ related classes in your undergrad transcript will bar you from admission. That said, it would likely be worth it to take some econ classes before applying just to strengthen your application which, judging on your current stats and work experience, will be competitive.</p>
<p>I have a very similar (although perhaps worse) situation: in a recent turn against flagrant national GPA inflation (which I agree has become a huge problem in the US) my university’s Econ department took a crowbar to those of us passing through macro/micro and I have two black eyes (C and C-) on an otherwise strong (3.5) transcript. Having graduated in 2006, should I consider taking those courses again so I don’t get eliminated in the early round?</p>
<p>(I’ll leave the debate on how inflation has gotten so high that 3.5 is the new “average” for another post…)</p>