<p>Pertaining the academic programs of the schools, what does Georgetown SFS have over JHU?</p>
<p>I've heard about all about the differences in the campus, surrounding city, parties, student happiness, etc., so those are not really of my concern. I am also aware of the fact that SFS is its own school entirely, making it more pre-professional, whereas JHU IS is within the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.</p>
<p>But when it comes to the international studies courses and the faculty by whom they are taught, what are the primary differences between these schools? What would be different about my education at JHU in comparison to an education at Georgetown?</p>
<p>It’s hard to say because it will be tough to find someone who studied IS undergrad at both schools, lol. However, I can only speak on behalf of JHU when I say that all of the students I know who are majoring in IS are very happy with the program. Some students get into the BA/MA program with SAIS (I know of two people who are currently enrolled in this program) which is an exceptional opportunity. </p>
<p>I honestly don’t see there being much different in terms of the quality of education you will get - both are excellent schools with very great IS programs. You would probably want to base your decision based on the differences in campus, city, social life, student happiness, etc. In my opinion, no one is going to value an IS degree from Gtown over one from Hopkins or vice versa.</p>
<p>Well I was going to apply to SFS and interviewed for it and everything but I chose Hopkins be/c as a whole JHU is strong in both science and many field of the humanities/SS.
If I ever do decide that I want to explore something else outside of International Studies, then I am confident that Hopkins will be strong in the subject area.
This is def something to consider. College should be a time for exploration (in my opinion) and Hopkins has more diversity academic strengths than Georgetown. </p>
<p>Georgetown SFS is considered the cream of the crop for IS btw. but still, do you want to be in such a pre-professional/focused environment? It’s def a personal decision.</p>
<p>I’m pretty much set on IS and have been for a few years now; it’s HIGHLY unlikely that my interest would change. I’ve found my passion and exploring my interests is not what I’m attending college for (academically, anyway). Being in such a focused environment would be fine with me, because I want to be focused on the field I’ve chosen. I’m fine with studying other things as distribution requirements / core curricula would require, because I love other subjects as well - but if not, it’s okay, because I’m just very set on studying IS.</p>
<p>And yes, I know Georgetown SFS is considered the cream of the crop - but WHY? What is it about their program that would give me any reason to regret choosing JHU over Georgetown?</p>
<p>Georgetown SFS - a lot of “star” professors who are famous policy makers and have done cool things that you’d have heard of, but teaching ability may vary because they’re not academics. Also very busy with, you know, being important.
JHU- more academic focus, although with several star academic professors
Georgetown - bigger department, more opportunities to specialize
JHU - smaller department, wider major, can tailor it to your interests.</p>
<p>There is a philosophical difference in the way schools approach international studies. Most schools that maintain professional schools of international studies–including Hopkins’ SAIS, Tufts’ Fletcher, Columbia’s SIPA, Harvard’s Kennedy School, etc. --restrict the “professional” program to graduate students because they believe that undergraduates need a solid “liberal arts” education before engaging in professional education. Nonetheless, they each provide a undergraduate major in international studies (or some comparable name) as an interdisciplinary program focusing on international relations (a subfield of political science), international economics (a subfield of economics) and area studies (including languages). This approach, however, is simply a major concentration within the context of a broad, liberal arts education.</p>
<p>A few schools, however, take a different approach and admit freshmen undergraduates to a professional type program right out of high school. These include Georgtown’s SFS, American’s SIS and GW’s Elliot School.</p>
<p>There is a third approach–somewhere in between-- where advanced undergraduates are permitted to begin “professional” education before completing undergraduate work but after getting the foundation of a liberal arts education. This is the approach available at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School and in the BA/MA program at Hopkins–each of which one applies for at the end of your sophomore year.</p>
<p>Which approach is better? I don’t know. I’m a pretty big believer in getting a good liberal arts education because, for most people, its the only time in your life when you can study things that may not directly affect your job or profession but will enrich you as a person. For example, I think it is beneficial for a diplomat or international businessperson to be familar with English literature—or Art History–or philosophy. As a graduate of Hopkins’ BA/MA program, I may be biased but I think that you lose too much by starting a professional program as a freshman.</p>
<p>I might add that schools like Hopkins, Harvard, etc. take a similar approach to business education. They both have professional graduate schools of business but offer no undergraduate business major because they believe the best businesspeople are those who have a strong liberal arts education and then obtain a professional education. Hopkins has an undergraduate minor in entrepreneurship but no major. </p>
<p>But Penn disagrees and admits students as undergraduates to the Wharton School. I have a nephew who recently did his undergraduate work at Wharton. He now works on Wall Street. He is very conversant with financing and banking–but knows nothing about art, music, literature, etc.</p>
<p>I really like the IS program at Hopkins because not only does it have a major liberal arts focus to it, it also is incredibly interdisciplinary in nature which I think appeals to a lot of students. </p>
<p>One of the other major things that makes Hopkins IS one of, if not, the best programs in the country is the quant requirements. There is a big quanititative/econ background in the Hopkins program which I think really makes it desirable for employers. Largely the students in IS are very good at theoretical thinking and quantitative skills. Hopkins is known for students graduating with great quantitative skills which is INCREDIBLY important in the real world when considering this area of work.</p>
<p>There are also some slam dunk professors at JHU who actively teach undergrads (David, Tsai) who are WORLD leaders in their disciplines. I’ll also echo the fact that JHU is a liberal arts college and students in IS will commonly double major in things like Econ, Applied Math, Math, Political Science, History etc. </p>
<p>I personally couldn’t get by the Jesuit institution thing at Georgetown but that’s just me.</p>
<p>Thank you for all of your replies! The academic program at JHU is starting to sound much more appealing, and I’ve always been interested in the 5 year BA/MA, if that’s a sort of happy medium.</p>
<p>Is the Jesuit institution thing at Georgetown really that big of a deal? I’m a Muslim (not a particularly religious one though) and one of my teachers told me Georgetown is unparalleled in religious tolerance, despite the Jesuit tradition. I know they have a 9/11 interfaith prayer vigil there, which I thought was cute, but do you think the Jesuit thing could really get bothersome?</p>