My son is deciding between Tufts and William & Mary and is planning on majoring in international relations. He went to the accepted students days for both schools and was both surprised and thoroughly impressed with William & Mary’s IR program. Conversely, after hearing a lot of great things about Tufts’ IR program, both he and I were really underwhelmed. During Jumbo Days students and parents are allowed to visit various academic departments and ask questions, but when we visited the IR department they were surprised to see us there and we had to explain why we were there along with some other students. They then tossed around the responsibility of having to talk to us like a hot potato before telling a student working with them to give us brochures and answer some questions. The student was nice and answered all of our questions but the answers were a bit underwhelming and seemed to convey that there was not as much to the department as we were led to believe. We were also able to sit in on two classes, one in political science and one taught by one of the senior faculty in the IR department. The former was disappointing because the lecturer was simply reading off of her own slides about some of her own, in my opinion, uninspired research. When answering questions she also said that there was no room for discussion in her classes. The latter class was on pretty dull subject matter, so I’ll give it more slack, but the professor himself let on that it is rare to get research opportunities as an undergrad and that internships are also pretty rare. In general, the professors seemed much less eager to help and much less involved than one would hope. I want to know if this was just an isolated experience that does not convey the truly great nature of the department.
Holy criminy, that’s a really surprising experience. I’d be underwhelmed, too. I suspect that you got a bum roll of the dice–there are inevitably some not-so-great professors, and even the good ones can have off days. As for the IR not expecting visitors during Jumbo Days–that is really odd, because IR is one of, if not THE most popular undergrad majors.
D1 intended to be an IR major, ended up being a computer science major, but in her heart of hearts is still an IR major. So I can’t give feedback having had a kid go through the IR program, but I can give feedback for a kid who’s had a lot to do with IR. The only class she took in the department was the first semester intro course, which IIRC there was a lot of reading, much of it interesting, but otherwise not highly challenging–OK, so that was the intro, not surprising it wasn’t a super-rigorous course.
Undergrads are allowed to take grad courses at Fletcher, Tufts’ IR grad school. That’s true for both majors and nonmajors. D1 took one course at Fletcher which she really enjoyed.
The IR program has a rigorous language requirement. D1 had two years of language under her belt at the start of her study abroad experience, compared with other students from other colleges with 3-4 years, but she found she was just as well prepared. Of course, this may possibly vary from language department to language department.
What D1 has most enjoyed is taking part in EPIIC, which is a year-long course that operates under the aegis of the Institute for Global Leadership, which runs independently of the IR department. You can read more about EPIIC at their website http://www.tuftsgloballeadership.org/program/epiic . I believe that EPIIC is unique to Tufts. D1 says that taking EPIIC is quite possibly her best undergraduate decision. It’s influenced her entire Tufts career, giving her the opportunity to travel extensively, to take on a decidedly more-IR-than-CS-major internship, and to consider the kinds of work she may want to do.
I’m sure that other parents with actual IR major kids can chime in–look up @mathmom if she doesn’t comment.
Not familiar with William and Mary at all so I can’t comment on their program.
mathmom was directed to this thread, so here I am. Tufts IR is a committee not a department and that may be part of the issue. My son would be the first to tell you that he thinks the IR department gets by on the reputation of the Fletcher School, but undergrads don’t really benefit from Fletcher as much as you might think.
He also took EPIIC and it was an absolutely fabulous experience - there’s nothing like it. You will meet real life practitioners in the field of what ever that year’s topic of EPIIC is. You’ll gain experience in running a conference. You become a mini-expert every week with hundreds of pages of reading so that you will have sensible questions for that week’s expert. And after all that work, you won’t get any IR credit. EPIIC also help fund a research trip to India and Pakistan over winter break. He’s said EPIIC is the best thing he did at Tufts - his only regret was doing it as a freshman, in retrospect it would have been better to do once he’d made friends and was more settled. It’s a very, very intense experience. You major in EPIIC the year you take it.
There are some wonderful professors at Tufts and a few duds for sure. In retrospect my son says he’d have done better to be a history major so he could have skipped the political science requirements which he did not care for and he wouldn’t have been stuck with the IR language requirement. (8 semesters or fluency. He chose Arabic and it was a struggle because he had to start at the beginning with no other useful languages under his belt. Most of the class knew some Arabic or knew Hebrew.) He spent his junior year abroad in Jordan and the IR department did not give him credit for anything - so he just got credit in Arabic and Gen Ed.
I don’t think he regrets his choice, he was looking at U of Chicago for his other option, but he doesn’t think IR at Tufts is as good as it thinks it is. He didn’t apply to W & M because the kids in the website photos looked “too preppy”. /
So I know very little about it except I gather Model UN is very popular there.
So for a different point of view. DD2 is an IR and poly sci double major at Tufts. She loves, loves, loves the program. A big part of the IR major is that beyond the language requirement and a few intro courses there is not a strict curriculum. It is very flexible about what counts for the major, so generally it is what you make of it, no two iR majors are alike. DD has loved the opportunity to pick the classes she wants to take. She has taken grad seminars and Spanish literature classes that count for her IR major. She has strong relationships with stellar professors and has had very few duds. But again, she proactively researches class options and picks the best for her.
In terms of Fletcher - it informs the undergrad experience in two key ways One it brings tremendous speakers to campus that undergrads can generally get in to see. Two, the Fletcher reputation and alumni network is very broad. It helps make connections and get internships, etc. At least it has for my daughter - YMMV.
The IR resources at Tufts are very broad and diverse, including the study abroad options and classes in peripheral areas such as peace and justice studies, languages, public health, economics, etc. The major is very self-directed. For an independent kid who reaches out to professors and is proactive about what they want to get out of the experience there are endless possibilities. However, DCs who do not have a vision of what they want from the program have the freedom to make bad choices or wander into areas and classes where they are not happy.
Because of the diversity of topics the IR department is as math mom says more of a committee than a department. It is much more a collection of professors with a common interest than a highly structured hierarchy. So I am sure that contributed to the jumbo days impression.
Agree with 1012mom- my D loves the IR program for its flexibility. She is a double French/IR major and works with her amazing advisors to basically create her major, and takes all the classes she is interested in. She is doing the Tufts in Paris this semester, studying at the Sorbonne, and everything transfers. Couldn’t be better.
Unfortunately there’s no Tufts in an Arabic speaking country program. My kid also wanted to do a language immersion program and none of the Tufts programs provide that as far as I know. My son ended up taking his entire junior year abroad which made it tough to fit everything in. I agree with 1012mom that if you know ahead of time what you want to do, you will probably have a better time. My son’s other gripe was that most of the internships were aimed at those with an economics bent to the IR track. Don’t get me wrong he’s had some professors he loved. He got involved in the ALLIES program. And while he still doesn’t have a job, he’s gotten two very nice internships since graduating which we hope will lead to a real job soon. Current internship comes with a sizable stipend - plenty of spending money if you live with your parents!
@allie0630- I can see how your experience would be frustrating. I don’t want to speculate on the cause of the problems, but clearly the information you were seeking did not get communicated very well. The Tufts IR program is very broad and flexible, which can make it difficult to describe. Here is my best shot.
First of all, Tufts offers the small classes of a liberal arts college ( about 67% of its’ classes are under 20 students) with the breadth and depth of offerings of a small research university.
(In contrast, about 48% of William and Mary’s classes are under 20 students, and there are fewer offerings)
International Relations at Tufts is not a department and it is not a committee. It is an interdisciplinary program that spans both the School of Liberal Arts and the School of Engineering. The program is managed by a director and small staff located in an office on the sixth floor of The Cabot Intercultural Center, (one of the Fletcher Buildings). Over fifteen academic departments and interdisciplinary programs “participate” in the IR Program, which means they develop and teach courses with an IR focus, but technically the courses “belong” to the individual departments. The course with the name “Introduction to IR” is actually a course offered by the Poly Science Department intended to introduce students to the subject of IR. The department that “owns” the course is reflected in the course number, not in the name. The high level of participation in the program by the individual departments results in a large “core” of faculty teaching courses with IR subject matter as well as an extremely wide range of course offerings.
(Note that William and Mary has the same organizational structure for their IR program, but has only about five different departments participating, much fewer course offerings and a less flexible curriculum making it much simpler to explain.)
The Tufts IR curriculum consists of a five course “Core” (four of which are chosen from a list of options)
http://ase.tufts.edu/ir/documents/curriculumCoreCourses.pdf
It also has a seven/eight course “Thematic Concentration”. There are 15 concentrations to choose from, organized around 6 major themes. Each concentration requires both a research methods course and a “Capstone” (an upper level seminar, honors thesis, or directed research). The remaining course requirements as well as the list of available courses to satisfy the requirements vary based on the concentration. The list of available courses per concentration tends to be several pages long. Here are three examples:
http://ase.tufts.edu/ir/documents/curriculumTC1A.pdf
http://ase.tufts.edu/ir/documents/curriculumTC2C.pdf
http://ase.tufts.edu/ir/documents/curriculumTC3.pdf
Finally, there is an eight course language requirement.
(In contrast, the William and Mary IR curriculum has a seven course “Core” with no choices, a research methods course, a capstone, a culture course and two elective courses chosen from a relatively short list. The language requirement is seven courses rather than eight)
In addition to Study Abroad and Study in Washington programs, Tufts also offers a wide range of programs designed to augment the base IR academic curriculum. These include non-traditional courses taught by external experts and offered through the Experimental College (usually a few IR related courses each semester) and about 25 different programs offered through the Institute for Global Leadership (IGL). EPIIC is sponsored by both the IGL and the Experimental College, and ALLIES is sponsored by the IGL.
http://tiglarchives.org/programs
http://www.excollege.tufts.edu/coursesCurrent.asp
(William and Mary has no equivalent organizations.)
In terms of undergraduate research/internships, here is a list of funded opportunities -note that unfunded research/Internships (sometimes for academic credit) also takes place.
The IR Program directly funds 5 Summer Research and 2 Summer Internship Programs (this is above and beyond the research opportunities funded by each of the 15+ departments that participate in the IR program)
http://ase.tufts.edu/ir/research/studentSummerResearch.htm
At the University level, Tufts funds four programs:
Tufts Summer Scholars Program
http://uss.tufts.edu/undergradEducation/research/summer_scholars/
Tufts Summer Internship Program
http://career.tufts.edu/students/internships/funding.asp
Tufts Undergraduate Research Fund (for independent research expenses)
http://uss.tufts.edu/undergradEducation/research/undergradResearchFund.asp
Tufts Library Research Award
http://tischlibrary.tufts.edu/about-us/projects-student-awards-and-innovations/undergrad-research-awards
The Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service also funds 4 programs:
Tisch Summer Fellows Program
http://activecitizen.tufts.edu/tsf/
Tisch Scholars Program
http://activecitizen.tufts.edu/students/scholars/
Tisch 1+4 Bridge year program with 4 international locations
http://activecitizen.tufts.edu/tufts1plus4/
I have a healthy respect for both of these schools, and Tufts is traditionally known for their IR. I don’t normally associate William and Mary with IR per se, but rather strong humanities in general, and located close to DC. That said, in this particular case, if your son has gone on visits and felt stimulated and impressed by William and Mary, it may be wise to go with his gut and attend William and Mary. I don’t think either school is deficient in reputation, nor post-grad opportunities.
Thus it may come down to fit; for him (and a bit surprisingly to me), William and Mary wins for IR offerings. Smaller size and class offerings is only natural at a smaller school, but does not necessarily imply that the educational engagement or depth will be the lesser for it. It does sound like the Tufts presentation was uninspired, which could mean several things, and not all of them bad; it could actually indicate that the proceedings and quality of IR at Tufts are so self-evident that the administration doesn’t feel it necessary to put on much of a show. That would be an optimistic reading, but certainly a possible one. I can say that the good friends I had from high school who attended Tufts way back went specifically for IR-types of study, and they ended up succeeding within that (loose) realm in their career paths.
The IR program at William & Mary is very strong. Additionally, one can pursue an IR major and receive a dual degree from both W&M and Saint Andrews.
http://www.wm.edu/as/undergraduate/curriculum/special/standrews/programs/ir/index.php
William and Mary has the Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations, plenty of research and other opportunities at the undergrad level…
Enough said
https://www.wm.edu/offices/itpir/news/mapping-recovery-aiddata.php