Hey guys! I’m a transfer student admitted to Michigan LSA Fall 2017 and my intended major is Political Science.
As we know, Michigan’s graduate political science program is top 4 in the country according to us news. However, is its UNDERGRADUATE political science program that good?
Since it’s a big public university, I’m afraid that professors will only focus on their research and care little about undergraduates.
And I’m wondering that is it easy to interact and build connections with my professors?
Another aspect is about essays’ feedback. Are all the assignments graded by graduate students? Or some by professors and some by PhDs? In my current university, most assignments are graded by PhDs and the feedback is almost useless in helping me to improve in the future since they always just write very general comments, such as ‘Fairly-well written essay, a good try, well done, etc.’
Can some current Michigan political science students give some insights?
Really thanks for your help!!
the real issue with the political science program is most professors are biased and unfortunately in a misguided way.
bearcats was not a Political Science major…neither was I. From what I hear, Michigan’s Political Science department is one of the top 3 or 4 in the country, and that means its faculty is one of the best. The classes I took were with professors that I found well balanced. That includes Raymond Tanter and Kenneth Lieberthal, (both are still there, but have since become professors emeritus), and both had balanced takes on international and national issues (Tanter on the Middle East and Lieberthal on China). Admittedly, I took those classes over two decades ago, so I have no way of ascertaining how things are today. But back in my day, Political Science classes were large, and GSIs were involved in intro-level, and sometimes even intermediate level classes, but always in the capacity of assistants. Faculty still did all of the teaching, and were always accessible via office hours. That being said, GSI’s at Michigan are highly qualified. Most of them were in their third or fourth year of graduate studies, and to even get into the Michigan PhD program, they had to be at the top of their undergraduate class.
I am not sure how bearcats came to the conclusion that professors at a top 3 or 4 program can be biased and misguided. If memory serves, he majored in Engineering, which means he could not possibly have taken more than a handful of Political Science. With 60 professors in the Political Science, I do not think it is possible to make such a sweeping comment. One does not become a professor at Michigan without being very highly qualified in her/his field of study. In fact, most professors are world authorities in their respective specialization.
Perhaps a current Political Science major can offer some insight.
@bearcats Could you please more specific about your comment?
I minored in polisci and found the quality of instruction to be overall very strong. Much more so than many of my econ classes. There are some great profs in the department that teach undergrad (Kollman, Lupia, Adside). You will get good feedback on your essays if you seek it out and go speak with the prof/ GSI in office hours. Your GSIs will do most of the grading. Michigan is widely viewed as a strong polisci school and many of the same profs teach undergrad and grad.