<p>Numerous articles recently have cited Tufts as one of the schools of choice for its IR / IS program. I was wondering if anyone was familiar with these programs at Tufts and, if so, any thoughts. I used to think that schools such as GW, G-Town, and American were the most sought after IR/IS schools but perhaps I have overlooked Tufts as well as maybe some others.
Thanks.</p>
<p>Tufts, JHU, and Gtown are top-tier undergraduate IR schools (also graduate but that's another story)
American and GWU are second-tier mostly because they are less selective, but they're still great programs.</p>
<p>I'm an IR major at Tufts and I absolutely love it. In high school I always felt that I would have trouble picking a major b/c I wouldn't want to confine myself too anything; I have too many academic interests. "International Relations" to me sounded like I'd be learning about diplomacy, but that's totally not what it is. The IR major is an interdisciplinary, pick-and-choose major. It requires a certain amount of political science classes (usually that examine nations/regions that aren't America), economics classes, history, possibly philosophy, and there is a big language requirement (8 semesters, including one culture class, but I've never really thought about that as hard b/c I passed out of 6 semesters of language as I'm fluent in Russian). I love it because I can take classes that interest me, and there are soooo many options. In fact, I accidentally filled IR major requirements while trying to fill my World Civilizations req (Democracy and Capitalism in Japan) and Natural Sciences req (Environmental Biology), both of which counted towards the International Economics subcluster.</p>
<p>But then again, I did research and tried to find out which professors were good, and signed up for classes with them, which is why I have really gotten a lot out of my experience. I have a class with Prof. Mufti right now, who's the director of the IR program, and it's amazing. If you emailed him with any questions I'm sure he'd be happy to answer.</p>