@envisciguy I am so glad to hear that you are having a great experience at Tufts!
Following your points, I do admit that I was not entirely fair to Tufts in my original post, but I do think that IR Department’s reputation is overblown (after all, Tufts IR is known for its “graduate” school, not “undergraduate.”) I still remember sitting with 100+ other students in my Intro to IR class during my freshman year, constantly doubting whether IR is the right path for me. While I thought the class would encourage students to think “outside of the box,” or discuss the materials in depth during the recitations, students were simply asked to “memorize” what the professor taught in the lectures and regurgitate them on our exams. Given the nature of an intro course, I convinced myself that things will only get better and I will have more intellectually stimulating experience onward. I really hoped that my freshman spring and sophomore fall would turn out differently, but I honestly have not had the experience you mention. I even reached out to my advisor for potential academic research/ internship opportunities, but my professor seemed indifferent toward my requests.
What really struck me the most has been the lack of continuation/ academic development after completing an intro to IR class here at Tufts. Yes, the school focuses on “interdisciplinary” and “liberal arts” learning, but the school does not really offer “enough” IR-related courses, other than through three our four courses a semester through the Political Science Department or two through the ExCollege. On the contrary, I was simply struck by the gradual development in the field at institutions such as American, George Washington, and Georgetown in their respective IR departments. Furthermore, most major IR courses are oversubscribed by the juniors and seniors, and I have been only able to take one IR class in its strictest sense this fall (I was even waitlisted for that class and got in later; high demand, low supply). While I enjoyed the course and learned so much out of it, I wish if I had more opportunities to explore the field more in depth as a sophomore. I am not even sure as to whether I will have in-depth academic opportunities even if I become a junior/senior at Tufts. Especially considering that my family is paying full (around ~72k a year) here at Tufts with their tight budget, I want to make sure that my family is making the best financial investment possible in my education. Maybe changing my advisor/ being more active and engaged in the department might help, but there really seems lack of opportunities, when compared to its peer institutions, within the IR department at least from my observation.
As to your comment about the class size, I did intentionally take some Excollege courses here and there along with some seminar courses to see how they would turn out. While these classes were great, I often felt as though there was lack of depth in class discussions (granted, I went to a boarding school in New England that encouraged Harkness discussion). To really gauge how my educational experience has been, I calculated my “average class size” from my freshman fall: Freshman Fall: 65 students, Freshman Spring: 58 students, Sophomore Fall: 28 Students. These figures would not be considered “big” by any means, but my classes still turned out to be a lot bigger than I anticipated, considering that Tufts prides itself as a “liberal arts college” with the resources of a national research university. To Tufts’ credit, I am extremely grateful for their language courses – all my language classes have been smaller than 15 students, and it really encouraged me to practice French both in and outside of the classroom.
To sum all this up, I feel like Tufts does not really have an advantage of a liberal arts college (small class size, engaging professor student relationship, close knit community) and a national research university (breath and width of academic curriculum in IR & Econ). Even though the school claims to have the both ends met, I do feel that the school does not really have a cutting edge in neither areas. When it comes to my social life at Tufts, I wouldn’t say it’s bad, but it’s not good either. It’s very hard for me to explain on this thread, but I have felt very much alone on this campus, even though I have been involved in many clubs and various identity-based organizations. If this makes any sense, a lot of my social interactions here have been on a surface level, at least for me. Maybe this is my personal issue that I need to address before thinking of transferring out, to your credit.
All in all, I learned a ton here at Tufts, and I am so grateful for the opportunities available here. However, a part of me thinks that I can grow more at a liberal arts college or a national research university in its purest sense. This is how I crafted my preliminary list of colleges that I might consider transferring to, for they are known to be the “best” in their respective areas. I am also considering schools like Carleton, Middlebury, Vassar, Reed, Haverford, and Wesleyan, not restricted to the ivy league schools or schools that are ranked highly by the US News (you can see that I did choose Tufts over Cornell, Northwestern, and Wash U as a first-year applicant). Given my GPA, I thought I might as well try before I regret later.
I am happy that you are enjoying your time at Tufts, and I wish you the best. Reading your post, I concluded to give myself a little bit more time next semester and see how things unfold before I decide too quickly.
Thanks a lot!