<p>really? I was checking out the Occupation Outlook Handbook for 2010 - 2011 and it seems that finding a job might be easier than for a lawyer since many lawyers are being replaced by paralegals since they work cheaper and can handle many of the functions.</p>
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<p>One time I am glad to be wrong! I must have been thinking of something else.</p>
<p>Maybe International Relations</p>
<p>I was thinking majoring in Poli sci and minoring international relations, since the school i am planning to attend only has international relations as a minor. Also thank you to everyone who posted, you’ve given me a lot of input thats greatly appreciated to say the least. If you have anything else to say though, i’d love to hear it.</p>
<p>Economics. It’s not what you think it is, and it’ll teach you more about <em>real</em> politics than a political science degree will.</p>
<p>Elaborate ?</p>
<p>It teaches you about decision making and HOW political decisions are made and HOW they work. Median Voter theory, voter preference, and many other what you would think to be “political science” areas are actually grounded in economics. Politics can’t be separated from economics. One comes with the other. If you don’t understand economics, there is a good chance your real political knowledge will be extremely limited (some uber-left liberals come to mind…). </p>
<p>Economics is sometimes unfairly characterized as a “money” major, when in fact, very little of it actually deals with “making money”.</p>
<p>There are two main definitions of economics which I find appealing, one is that economics is the study of the allocation of scarce resources which have alternative uses. The other is that economics is the study of rational human action.</p>
<p>In short, economics is really all about decision-making–why people make the decisions they do, what happens when they are faced with certain incentives, how individuals acting on their own wind up creating outcomes for the whole of society that nobody intended, etc. For example, nobody plans to feed an entire city, but somehow enough food gets produced, packaged, distributed, stocked on store shelves and restaurants, and sold, all without any one person or agency overseeing it all. It happens as the result of individuals following the incentives that face them. The farmer has the incentive to grow crops because he can sell them, the truck driver faces the incentive to deliver goods because he earns wages, the grocery store people decide what foods to stock based on what sells well, etc. What processes lead to this outcome? What happens when these processes don’t exist or are impeded from working, as in, say, a communist country? You can wind up with massive shortages of one thing and enormous surpluses of another.</p>
<p>This same approach can be taken to the decisions people make in politics as well. Why do people vote the way they do? Why do politicians make the policy decisions they do? Why did Obama and the Democrats suddenly backtrack on health care after the Brown election? Why do laws exist which everybody hates and which don’t do any good? Why aren’t certain problems ever fixed? By applying the economic way of thinking and analyzing, you can see that many things which are seen as irrational, selfish, greedy, stupid, or just not making sense, make perfect sense <em>from the point of view of the people making the decisions</em>, and thus are to be expected.</p>
<p>Political scientists seem to spend a lot of time talking about what the best policy is (often without taking advantage of the insights of economics), or how a proper government would run in a perfect world if people behaved the way the political scientists wanted them to, rather than by analyzing what it is that people actually do and inferring from there, which is what economists do.</p>
<p>As others have said, stick with poly-sci if you love it.</p>
<p>That said, if you could take and do well in a few data analysis-type classes, that would definitely help you find a job. Analytical skills = super-valuable. The only person I know so far who got multiple awesome job offers got them because of good data analysis skills.</p>
<p>I can relate to the desire to be able to get a job right out of undergrad. Have you thought about majoring in statistics, accounting, actuarial science, or labor relations?</p>
<p>Well, technically economists think every person is a hyper rational machine and build their models off that, which is not true. They analyze what perfectly rational people actually do.</p>
<p>I have thought about picking other majors, but as I said before I want to do something i enjoy. Which is upsetting because I just might not find a job with that degree. I’m leaning towards minoring in economics now though.</p>
<p>sorry for bumping this thread but I’m in the same boat as you. Based soley on preference I would pick poli-sci but I’m worried about the job market… Econ was my 2nd choice, until I found out I had to take calc :(</p>
<p>Political Science actually has a wide range of job opportunities after you finish your undergraduate years including government, politics, non-profit, business, broadcasting and education fields.</p>
<p>I’d say the most practical major in college to get a job straight out of college (apart from the highly practical and technical ones such as engineering, maths, one of the sciences et al.) would be economics, poli sci, business, international relations, communications etc.</p>
<p>If you plan on going to grad school though, the majors that are best, are the ones that teach the ability to write and communicate effectively whilst analyzing and thinking critically. Good majors for grad school are often philosophy, psychology, classics, English, History, sociology, liberal arts, etc</p>