<p>Hey,</p>
<p>I was accepted to both Brown and to Georgetown SFS. Any recommendations on what I should choose? I'm planning on a liberal arts major, probably in the field of IR.</p>
<p>I'm from RI, so the choice is rendered more difficult because I have the urge to leave the state.</p>
<p>If you're interested in IR and you want to leave RI, this should be a no-brainer....G'town :)</p>
<p>People turn down Harvard for Gtown SFS, I would go to SFS in a heartbeat. My friend goes to SFS and as a sophmore has an internship at Brookings Institute and just went on a trip to through the middle east where she met with the prime minister of pakistan.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.watsoninstitute.org%5B/url%5D">www.watsoninstitute.org</a></p>
<p>professors include 3 former presidents, nikita kruschev's son, the founder of China's Democratic party, and several others. all teach undergrads</p>
<p>SFS. The curriculum is so well rounded. People complain about Economics but it truly is an excellent fundamental background. Not to mention the opportunities afforded to us simply as a result of living in DC. Not even getting the big speakers, who tend to really just come and talk about policy, but the truly interesting specialists who talk about random things like soil erosion in Lesotho and what impact it has for economic development. Not to mention the internship opportunities with all sorts of NGOs as well as government agencies.</p>
<p>In response to dcircle, I would contest that what the professors have done is not necessarily translatable to being an excellent professor. That being said, Georgetown also has a wide selection of leading scholars, former heads of state, and the former heads of top organizations (USAID, the CIA...) </p>
<p>Just glancing quickly at that Watson Institute website, I saw that they have four core classes, and a language requirement (there might be more, it was just a quick glance).</p>
<p>The SFS Core has A LOT more.
- 4 Econ Classes (Macro, Micro, Int'l Trade, Int'l Finance)
- Language Proficiency (people usually end up taking languages for many semesters)
- First year seminar
- Map (Geography Class)
- 3 History Classes (European, plus two regional history classes from early and contemporary eras)
- 2 Philosophy (including one class developed specifically for SFS)
- 2 Theology (which can include things like Ethics & Int'l Relations)
- 2 Government Classes (Comparative Political Systems & IR)
and I think that's it...</p>
<p>So in comparison, you can see how truly exhaustive the program is. Now, that's personal preference with regards to how much freedom you want to have to explore other, non IR, non global related courses. Some people really dislike not being able to take courses like linguistics and psychology, etc. I recommend looking at the classes and comparing the program that way.</p>