So right now im currently a junior in high school and i still figuring out what to major in. i know that i want a job that involves government work but i dont want to do political campaigns and stuff like that. i think majoring in poli science is the way to go if i want to do something gov. related. What are some job offerings for p.science? Can i get far with it? Will it be hard to get a job with the degree? Please help! thanks!
You can think about the career paths when you go to colleges. It’s great that you are thinking of this early but don’t worry. Counselors in colleges can provide such information when you ask them for help
oh okay, so they’ll help me to decide on what I should major in?
You can go into college as an undecided major and take some political science courses to see if its something that does interest you. Often, political science majors go to law school. Others will get jobs in state and local government. Still others will work for politicians at various levels–not campaigns but working in a Congressman’s office, for example. If you’re interested in international issues–a subfield of political science is comparative politics or international relations. There are many options related to government and politics that are open to political science majors. Here is some information from the American Political Science Association:
http://www.apsanet.org/CAREERS/Careers-In-Political-Science
im actually interested in international relations. Would it help me if i knew a second language? i speak chinese but i cant read or write in chinese. If i took courses on learning the language more better would that help me have a better chance in getting a job for international relations? @Bromfield2
Yes–language skills are always valuable for IR majors.
A liberal arts major such as political science is good for ANY career. The thinking and writing skills you will develop will benefit you no matter what you do.
Williams College, for example, is a pure liberal arts college with no “practical” majors whatsoever (no engineering, no education, and no business majors). Its students have no trouble landing top jobs on Wall Street and elsewhere, or going to law or medical school, etc.
You can use college as a time to try a lot of different courses and discover what you love. Your major need not even be related to your future career. A biology major could go to law school. A philosophy major could become an investment banker. A Spanish major could go to medical school (provided they took the required science course as electives.)
Being able to think, reason, research, and write are valued skills anywhere.
The question reflects a misunderstanding of what a poli sci degree is.
Colleges offer 2 types of degrees under one roof. Some are vocational in nature such as accounting, engineering, nursing, etc. and on the other hand there are the liberal-arts majors. None of the liberal-arts majors lead directly to a career path (except perhaps as a professor in that subject) nor are they intended to. It may also be applicable to some career fields but that is not the main goal; if you want a degree that definitely prepares you for a job, pick a vocational major. But the truth is most people in management positions came up from liberal-arts majors.
History, french, poli-sci, archeology, you name it. People with these majors can get good jobs too, but it takes more than just the degree. Good grades and involvement in leadership activities is important, and a real key is internships. They set you apart from the 1000’s of other kids with the same degree, give you experience in the field, and usually lead to offers from the companies where you had internships.
Since the OP is looking to work in gov’t rather than the private sector, looking at colleges that have good coop and intern programs with the gov’t would be a good idea. So would spending some time learning about the different types of careers in gov’t.
While it is true that it is early to think about majors, it isn’t TOO early. For example, if you have an interest in political science, it is good to investigate schools with decent polisci programs.
Rather than focus on job prospects - as others mentioned, a polisci major is a social science major, which means you are directly qualified for absolutely nothing but also not precluded from doing almost anything - I’d like to focus on what a political science degree is. To do that, I will use my college’s definitions, since that’s what I know.
Political science is a broad discipline that encompasses everything from ethics to theory to economics to statistics. At the school I went to, there were four sub-fields of political science:
American Politics - Includes American political institutions, policy-making and behavior, election analysis. Quantitative data analysis can be done here - for example, I performed some analysis on what types of campaign efforts result in higher voter turnout, and, from an objective point of view, how much it costs to turn out one additional voter.
International Relations - Includes relations between states, international organizations (think NATO, the EU, the African Union, etc), transnational actors; from this element of political science has arisen a stand-alone major of IR, but IR is, at its core, a political science subfield. Here language skills can be useful (especially literacy in that language) - reading texts in their original language gives better information than reading translations!
Comparative Politics - Institutions and political processes of other nations; I have little exposure here except through my intro coursework, but you can learn to analyze government action by understanding the context of other government action. A great crossover between CP and AP is understanding the Brexit vote and its potential implications on the American presidential race.
Political Theory - The history of political thought; theories around political movements and governments. There is a lot of crossover between this subfield and philosophy.
In addition to those four, there is also political economics. How does politics influence the economy, and vice-versa?
What do political science majors do after college? Lots of stuff. Some of my friends went to law school; some of my friends went to get their Master’s degrees; some worked in political environments; I became a management consultant!
I actually don’t think high school students should primarily base their choice of college on a major, particularly such a widely available liberal arts major like political science. Truth is, you can major in political science virtually anywhere, and any good college is going to have a solid enough political science department. And if one is undecided, I think it’d be sad to choose a college on the basis of the ‘strength of the department’ only to decide 6 months later that you really want to major in something else. Majoring in something hard to find like criminal justice or atmospheric science is a different story (and even in those cases, the important thing is to attend a university that has the major at all). But I think here on CC there’s an overemphasis on high school students creating their college list on the basis of ‘intended major’ when for most majors that’s really not a paramount concern.