<p>What is the difference between Public Policy and Political Science </p>
<p>and are they majors that allow you to always have a job?</p>
<p>Don’t know the answer to the first question, but the answer to the second question is “no”. Particularly if you pursue a career in politics, you will have stretches of unemployment. You’ll work on a campaign and it won’t be successful so you’ll have to start looking for the next campaign or job. Or, you’ll work a campaign, it is successful, you’ll manage to weasel an administration job out of it, and eventually the candidate’s term expires. Maybe you’ll be a candidate for office yourself; sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.</p>
<p>^^^ That makes the assumption that political science majors only work for campaigns…</p>
<p>Political science majors can find jobs with the US Government doing data analysis, foreign policy analysis, Congressional bill analysis, act as aides to any number of politicians, etc.</p>
<p>Can work for the UN doing a whole plethora of things
Can work for the multitude of NGOs and whatnot doing a whole plethora of things.</p>
<p>It mainly depends on what you’re interested in, what you study (as either the grad or undergrad level), etc.</p>
<p>Public policy is the study of why and how certain governmental policies are used. Examples might include environmental policy, urban policy, comparative politics.</p>
<p>Political Science includes courses in american government structure, political thought theory, constitutional government, the presidency, etc.</p>
<p>There is a lot of overlap. Many Poli Sci programs will have an emphasis track in public policy. </p>
<p>Not good on the job front, especially without significant internship experience.</p>
<p>You should consider going right to grad/law school after graduation. Master’s in Public Policy or Public Admin will help for jobs as this is the professional degree standard in the field. MA in Political Science is basically worthless.</p>
<p>[Master</a> of Public Policy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Public_Policy]Master”>Master of Public Policy - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>"^^^ That makes the assumption that political science majors only work for campaigns…"</p>
<p>Thus my caveat, “Particularly if you pursue a career in politics”.</p>
<p>I would consider UN and maybe some NGO work to be political, at least in nature. But, if you strictly mean “politics” to be “pertaining directly the body politic and politicians”, then yes, what you’ve said is true.</p>
<p>Public policy is more interdisciplinary than political science. Public policy typically involves statistics and economics, in addition to political science. It may also get involved with public health policy, energy policy, etc.</p>
<p>No major guarantees anyone a job. There are people coming out of good schools with engineering degrees who are unemployed. I know a person with an accounting degree from a good college who couldn’t find a job for 8 months.</p>
<p>I graduated with a Bachelors of Science Degree in Public Policy and it has been very helpful in starting my career. I got a job two weeks before graduation, like many of my PP classmates. As the previous poster said, it is very economic and statistics based (thus the BS instead of BA) which is makes it highly useful. </p>
<p>Also, Public Policy is one of the most employable majors:
[The</a> 14 Most Employable Majors](<a href=“The 14 Most Employable Majors | HuffPost College”>The 14 Most Employable Majors | HuffPost College)</p>
<p>Check out USC’s Price School of Public Policy it has a great program that you can tailor to your interest:
[USC</a> Price School of Public Policy](<a href=“http://www.usc.edu/schools/price/]USC”>http://www.usc.edu/schools/price/)</p>
<p>I have an MPA and I always explain it as having an MBA for the public sector. We did accounting, budgeting, program development, analysis, etc, just with a focus on the public sector–not just politics. It is not the same thing as political science although we did have a lot of undergraduate political science majors. As for jobs, think about any city, state, or federal agency and non-profit organizations. It’s really a wide field. Like MBA programs, different programs will focus on different areas, international relations vs local government vs education policy. Like most majors, internships will be the key.</p>