<p>Can anyone shed some light on what this major is? does it involve, IR/ political science? thanks</p>
<p>From what I understand, you can only major in Policy Studies if you're majoring in something else, like Economics or Political Science. With Policy Studies (and Rice students, correct me if I'm wrong) you take a mixture of language, IR, environmental studies, and economics classes to satisfy the major. It is a pretty broad subject area, but when I was down at Rice, I was told that their IR department was one of the best in the country?</p>
<p>I know the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice is fairly well-known.</p>
<p>thanks, i'll look more into it...sounds lke something i'd like to pursue</p>
<p>bummpppppppp anyone else?</p>
<p>I am a Policy Studies Double-major... well I am kinda a prospective double major in anything in the humanities. Policy Studies is like Political Science but better. You take three core classes, which are Poli 337 Public Policy and Bureaucracy (always spell that wrong), Poli 338 Policy Studies, and Econ 211 (Don't know the actual name) It is just like intro to Econ. AP Econ takes care of Econ 211 (I am pretty sure that it counts towards the major as well). After that you go into your Area curriculum in one of these fields 1) Environmental Policy, 2) Government Policy and Management, 3) Health Care Management, 4) International Affairs, 5) Law and Justice, 6) Managerial and Business Policy, and 7) Political Management. Env Policy obviously includes courses in Biosciences and Environmental sciences and also Econ and Poli. In Gov't Policy and Managem't has courses in Econ, Poli, Social Studies, and Sociology. Health Care is interesting there aren't any more poli classes, instead it has Reli, Sociology, Health Sciences, and Anthropology. International Affairs has Econ, Poli, Anth, and History. Law and Justice is pretty limited compared to the other ones (I do like this idea the most though) it is comprised of Anth, Econ, Envi, Hist, Philosophy, and Poli courses. Managerial and Business is obviously full of Econ classes along with Poli, Computational and Applied Mathematics, Hist, Poli, Accounting. Lastly, Urban and Social Change has classes in Anthropology, Architecture, Econ, Hist, Hist of Art, Phil, and Sociology. </p>
<p>Note: Some of these majors only have one class from the listed above departments. Also, you don't have to take a class in each of the interdisciplinary departments associated with the major. You have to take six classes after the three core classes to complete your major. Also, you can appeal to get credit for a class that you take that isn't listed in your major if you think that it should apply. </p>
<p>Note #2: Don Ostdiek teaches Poli 337 and 338. He is a really good teacher. His classes are very interesting because he doesn't lecture very much and he is heavy on the group work. I took 338 this last semester and I was surprised by how much I learned in the class. </p>
<p>Note #3: I think this is better than regular Political Science because you don't deal with lower level classes.... Which could also not be a good thing. I don't know if I want to take the International Relations track through the Political Science major. I don't think that there is anything necessarily wrong with the lower classes and I bet that I don't know a lot of the information that is taught in that class, but I feel like the higher level classes are more interesting. If you look at the list of classes they are mostly high level classes (300-400). That can seem a little daunting. I was a freshman this past semester in Poli 338 and there were not very many of us at all, but I handled the work and got an A. Truthfully, I am more afraid of higher level Econ classes, because I don't want to go back through Intro Econ, but I am also afraid of not knowing enough to jump into 300 level Econ.</p>
<p>Note #4: I wrote this reply really quickly and I am aware of all the typos, but I am not going to fix them. :) </p>
<p>** Be sure to check out the website to look at the specifics. The major link is <a href="http://www.ruf.rice.edu/%7Epolstud/%5B/url%5D">http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~polstud/</a> (You can just tell how cool it is- it has stud in its name)</p>
<p>wow, thanks a lot torrestowers!</p>