Looking for any scoop on the NYU “politics” (political science) major. I’ve seen a lot of postings about it from past users, but I don’t know if any of that is still up to date. NYU is super interesting to me, but from what I’ve heard the department has like an over-the-top focus with game theory and math. How problematic is that? Is academically it worth it?
From our research into it and the course listings (which you can see on the department website) there is much, much more than just that on offer. Of course, if you are considering grad school, you’d probably want to take those kind of courses.
Hey!!! So I’m IR and not Politics but it’s in the department of Politics and 90% of my friends are politics majors.
You’re right in that the department is super game theory focused, and if you write an honors thesis they’re going to want you to make it quantitative. There’s a lot of numbers and theory and statistics involved, to help with quantitative research. It’s an amazing program academically though! We have amazing politics professors who have done incredibly and important research. I wouldn’t call it over-the-top, either–we also have plenty of non-quantitative classes on things such as international human rights and a lot of classes are history based. It’s just a different approach to politics. If you’re interested in research and game theory (which is more the IR track honestly, I’d say IR is more heavily numbers than general politics is) then you’ll thrive, and it’ll be great for grad school. If you’re looking for a qualitative approach to politics, more towards philosophy, then…maybe not. Although in that case I’d suggest checking out our Public Policy program.