I am currently a junior and am beginning to do some research on colleges to visit this spring, and I am thinking that I would like to major in Political science or even international relations and hopefully go on to law school after that. VT is one school that I would really like to visit, but is the poli sci program decent? Are the internships good? I cant find much or reviews from students about majors in the social sciences at VT, since it seems like more of a engineering/hard science school. If anyone could let me know their thoughts on this, that would be great!! Other schools I am considering: GW, American, UGA, Ohio State
The PSCI and International Studies programs at Tech are pretty small and the departments have overlap in their classes, faculty, and requirements and share a graduation ceremony. Since the programs are so similar you have to pick one or the other.
I don’t have direct experience with IS, but I know the PSCI program is not course heavy at all and allows for a double major or dual degree pretty easily. I know of someone who finished PSCI in about 2 years. There are a wide range of courses depending on your interests. The department advertises a lot of internships, but there’s no dedicated career fair for PSCI or Liberal Arts, so if you’re not interested in what’s being offered, you’ll have to do your own work to find opportunities unlike students in Engineering and Business who have recruiters and companies come to campus.
There are several former lawyers and those with law degrees who teach at Tech. I’m honestly not sure how many are in the PSCI department, I know for sure there are a couple in the College of Business. Business also has their own dedicated Pre-Law advisor, and other majors have access to the general Pre-Law staff. Off the top of my head, I know of people who interned at nonprofits in DC/NoVA, worked in state/local government, campaigns, etc. and went to law school at GMU and Richmond. They were not all PSCI majors though.
I work with both undergrads and grad students. The ones I know from law school often didn’t do government or political science in college on its own, so that’s something to keep in mind. I’ve found that in general, grad and professional schools have students from a very diverse range of undergrad majors, and depending on what school or companies are, having a major that isn’t “Pre Law” gives you an advantage.
One downside about Tech that can’t be helped is that it’s location does not offer any additional opportunities that schools in Northern VA or any metro area have. If you’re not completely set on PSCI, I recommend looking at other majors when thinking about college so you can compare which college in general fits you well. I know plenty of students who thought they were going to do law school and lots of people change their mind when they get to college, so it’s good to not be too specific!
Short answer… political science at tech is very strong. You can check the career survey of recent grads to see examples of outcomes including employment and law school attendance.
Political Science at tech was ranked top 20 for return on investment by AC Online, the College of Liberal Arts and Humane Sciences was ranked top 10 for return on investment by PayScale.com.
Longer answer…
Virginia Tech officially the most comprehensive university in Virginia, so it definitely has you covered with these interests. Some people don’t seem to realize that MORE students graduate with degrees OTHER THAN engineering from tech. However, the big push from STEM degrees and careers (media, schools, politicians,etc) it makes sense they get highlighted a lot more. Tech was founded as a land grant school, so practical degrees like engineering and agriculture will always have a large presence.
Also, they do bring employers to campus to interview liberal arts majors. I know people have have interviewed on campus and offered jobs on site.
@undercover007 No one said that there aren’t employers coming to campus for liberal arts majors, but there’s no specific career fair for PSCI or CLAHS. Business Horizons fair and Engineering Expo are a lot different than the Connection fair.
The on campus interview program is definitely a great program as well and all Tech students can benefit from it. The poli sci listserv also wasn’t that great at highlighting good programs/opportunities, they kind of just emailed everything they got, so sometimes a good thing would be in the middle of a bunch of spammy like internships.
Actually, PS and IS are not at all small: with more than 1000 majors, they are one of the largest departments in terms of student interest on the VT campus. In addition to PS and IS, they also have tracks in National Security and a forthcoming one in International Public Policy. Pre-law advising for the university managed by several faculty in PS and the two majors that, over the past 10 years, have sent the most students on to law school are Political Science and English.
If you are in the area, you may also want to check out William & Mary and UVA which traditionally have strong political science and international relations programs
@freetofall VT’s enrollment data shows less than 400 for IS and less than 500 for PSCI. I was mistaken in thinking it was small since I looking at them separately - I was thinking of Pamplin and Engineering where individual departments are close to 1000.
To whoever is interested: VT puts up post graduation data on the career services website, where you can see where people end up for grad school based on their degree.
For 2014-2015
3 Bio
1 Econ
3 English (W&M, WVU)
3 Finance
3 History
1 International Studies (Barry University Law)
1 Management (Georgetown)
2 Philosophy (Duquesne, UVA)
13 Political (American, Campbell, GWU, UMD, UNC, Richmond, South Carolina, UVA, Suffolk)
6 Psych (Richmond)
1 Spanish (Regent)
For 2013-2014
1 Applied Econ
2 Bio (Vermont, UChicago)
1 Communication (SMU)
1 Econ (Elon)
1 Electrical Engineering
2 English (Catholic, Washington & Lee)
1 Finance
1 Geoscience
4 History (Richmond, UVA, W&L)
1 International Studies
1 Management
9 Political Science (Albany, Appalachian, Duquesne, Elon, GMU, Suffolk, UVA)
1 Psychology (South Carolina)
1 Sociology (Liberty)
1 Spanish (American)