<p>Yes. To work at the CIA you generally need a TS-SCI security clearence, which you cannot get if you are a dual citizen. If you renounced your Canadian citizenship you would have a chance, but it would still be hard with such a large number of close foreign connections.</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, how much is tuition for the average grad school?</p>
<p>I'd say... count as much as $75,000-$100,000 for your two-year MA. But tuition alone is $25,000 for a good private school I think.</p>
<p>
[quote]
With a masters in IR, besides government type jobs, what other jobs are available, mainly on the west coast?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The West Coast is not a great place to pursue IR-related work with a master's. DC, New York, and overseas tend to be the best. Top programs like SAIS (which has an economics/finance focus area required by all students) do go into I-Banking, some consulting, etc., but the much better path to those jobs is to get a joint IR/MBA degree (SAIS has one with Wharton) or joint IR/Law degree (SAIS has or had one with Stanford and maybe others), etc.</p>
<p>Outside of the echelon of SAIS, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, UCSD IR/PS, a couple of others, the IR degree is not sufficiently a professional degee to help one much outside the cities where there are "IR-type" jobs.</p>
<p>I am a junior in high school and I am currently planning to major in IR. I have looked at many schools offering IR, but I think Georgetown and George Washington are my top choices. However, I also saw that UCSD has a good IR program and I would love the atmosphere of UCSD. Would it be better off to study IR in the Washington, D.C. area or will UCSD be just as effective in giving me a good IR education.</p>
<p>Also, is there any significant pros/cons between Georgetown and George Washington because they both seem to similar.</p>
<p>Any help or replies would be appreciated. Thanks</p>
<p>For undergrad, the quality of the department shouldn't be your main concern. To answer your questons though, yes, all thingsequal being in DC is a significant advantage. </p>
<p>There is a very significant difference between Georgetown and GW. Georgetown has what is generally regarded as the best undergrad IR program in the country. GW is also good, but in overall prestige it isn't in the same league as Georgetown.</p>
<p>Pat,
Im not even sure if UCSD has undergrad IR. I know for grad school, its one of the best though, for Asia.</p>
<p>"The West Coast is not a great place to pursue IR-related work with a master's. DC, New York, and overseas tend to be the best."</p>
<p>Yeah right. California is more than likely to have the best opportunities if you plan on working international jobs related to East Asia.</p>
<p>Yes east coast is better for europe, but europe isnt the be all end all</p>
<p>I'm a high school senior planning to major in IR.
I'm applying to such colleges:</p>
<p>Early
U Chicago
Georgetown</p>
<p>Regular
Stanford
Brown or UPenn
Tufts
Northwestern
Johns Hopkins
U Michigan
GW
U Illinois-Urbana Champaign</p>
<p>I know GW is one of top IR schools, but couldn't GW considered safety in comparison to other universities in the list especially considering that it's a undergraduate program?</p>
<p>I'm not sure whether I should apply to Brown or UPenn. I know both schools arent prestigious for IR, but I want to apply in one of the Ivy schools (obsession)..only between both of them.</p>
<p>I'm considering U Illinois as my safety, but could you recommend another safety school with good IR program?</p>
<p>You dont really have to major in IR. Poli sci works...considering if you want to do alot in IR, ur gonna have to get a masters.</p>
<p>G-town id def better than GW</p>
<p>so right now im in the honors program at a large state school and i want to transfer out. my major is in international relations and english. i was wondering which schools that are good in IR also have pretty decent transfer acceptance rates. thanks!</p>
<p>does anyone know how good the IR program at Franklin College Switzerland is?</p>
<p>
[quote]
The West Coast is not a great place to pursue IR-related work with a master's. DC, New York, and overseas tend to be the best.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Gonna weigh in on this one as well.</p>
<p>The West Coast is fine... to an extent. While there are some challenges with jobs in DC and NY coming from a program like IR/PS, they are not insurmountable. Everyone I know in my program last year who wanted a job in DC got one. If they didn't do a PMF, they did something else and just worked their way into a DC job. Even the SAIS people I know said that DC jobs are hard.</p>
<p>The one nice thing about IR/PS, SAIS, SIPA, and a few others is the heavy emphasis on quantitative skills. I've been able to hunt in both the private and public sectors, which means that I can settle on a nice combination of location, salary, and interest.</p>
<p>im interested in international affairs and environmental studies/science (thinking of getting into environmental policy), and i was wondering if anyone knew what grad schools have outstanding programs in those areas. does geography/prestige have a major impact during the graduate years? ie. yale has the name but the location isnt as desirable as georgetown in DC.</p>
<p>ReadingFlutist, </p>
<p>I'm not sure exactly what the numbers are but I think GW has decent options for transfer students into IA. I know I made it anyway :)</p>
<p>I have an unquenchable passion for IR, but I'm thinking about majoring specifically in Islamic Studies for undergrad. Am I placed at a considerable disadvantage if I major in something that's more focused on history than policy? Regionally, I'm attracted to South Asia and the Middle East, with a critical emphasis on Pakistan, Iran, and India. My logic is that there's no harm in buttressing a future career with the histories of these [recently carved out] nations?</p>
<p>By the time I graduate from undergrad, I will have taken my conversational Urdu-Hindi and Punjabi to the formal level. I will DEFINITELY be taking Arabic in college as well, though I plan to dabble in self-taught Farsi just for kicks (uh, I'm really interested in all of these languages, if you can't tell).</p>
<p>How do I prove my fluency in the above languages to the gov't? Is an exam administered? Do I require certification? Do I just rattle it off on my resume?</p>
<p>Undergrad-Major Anxieties:
I suppose my GREATEST FEAR is that my career will be harmed irrevocably if I specialize in a region and then try to land an internship at a think tank or place that isn't interested in the Middle East or South Asia (obviously not my preferred internships, but I will probably apply to multiple internships, and in the event that the ones concerned with this region are unavailable to me..)</p>
<p>Additionally:
Any thoughts about undergrad work in International Studies with a concentration in South Asia or Peace Studies as an alternative?</p>
<p>(Ha, I issue an apology to grad students who are probably thinking: UH, SHUT UP, NAIVE, PERENNIALLY FUTURE-ORIENTED UNDERGRAD. You have to get to grad school before you can DO anything in this field anyway!)</p>
<p>decarvalho~ you should definitely have American University on your list. this thread is so long, there's a lot of info going back to earlier pages.</p>
<p>Zetetic,</p>
<p>You SHOULD focus on a region, and your regional focus is quite good. I wouldn't worry.</p>
<p>Zetitic, </p>
<p>Having a regional focus is fine and is actually a big advantage, especially when you have language skills. One word of caution though. Don't overextend yourself when it comes to languages. I don't know your background so I don't know how much experience you have with non-European languages, but they are, on average, much tougher than French or Spanish. If you try to study more than one exotic language, you will most likely end up without proficiency in ANY of them and will have wasted your time. </p>
<p>Even if it is possible for you to become proficient in more than one, you would probably be better served by limiting yourself and picking up some economics or political science on the side. </p>
<p>Your demonstrate your proficiency, first, by mentioning it on your resume. There is an established scale known as the "FS" scale (google it) and you can either put your FS level on your resume or just say 'fluent,' 'proficient,' or 'conversational.' I'd imagine that most federal jobs where language skills are essential, however, also administer some sort of in-house test (although I don't know this for certain).</p>
<p>Samonite,
I have prior experience with all of the languages except Farsi. I learned Arabic phonetics when I was a child, and I grew up hearing Punjabi and Urdu, so I'm loath to pin them as "exotic" (to my ears). I would say that obtaining language proficiency in all of these languages will not be a Sisyphean task. I almost feel that I should go learn a language like Russian or Chinese instead, but it's outside of the "specialty," so I feel like it would qualify as language overkill.. Maybe I should use all that time learning Russian as time interning at think tanks..</p>
<p>I agree that economics and poli sci are beneficial, and for the past couple of weeks, I've been ruminating the option of a dual major in econ or business administration. I would need to consult my college about this. Thanks for your post!</p>
<p>would it be beneficial to double major in ir and econ but not really have all that much in the way of languages? I already satisfied my language requirement through work done in high school and I really want to take a lot of econ and I don't think I can manage to continue with a language and also double major. I am not interested in using my language skills that much, but I am wondering if it will hurt me when people see that I haven't taken much of anything for years.</p>