<p>Hey y'all, I'm in the college search process and am eyeing UVA.
Could anyone tell me about UVA's political science/prelaw/gov program for undergraduates?</p>
<p>It would be great if someone who is currently majoring in that could say something, or someone who currently attends UVA to help me out..</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Hey ChillyPenguin. I’m a Government-American Politics major. Best department at UVA, but I’m biased, of course.</p>
<p>I’ll get the prelaw stuff out of the way: There is no pre-law track. If you want to go to law school, you can major in whatever you want. Ultimately, you just need a great LSAT score. Getting involved with various organization on Grounds will also look good on your application.</p>
<p>By the way, attending law school right now is probably not the best idea unless you REALLY REALLY love law. You’ll be incurring a lot of debt, and the field is saturated with lawyers. Talk to lawyers. Ask around. Get as much information you can about law before you choose to go down that path.</p>
<p>So, what do you want to know about the Politics department? What are you interested in? Foreign Affairs? American Politics? Ask away!</p>
<p>I just graduated with a degree in Government and I will second bigwill’s wise advice concerning law school. I seriously considered law school for a while until I was confronted with the grim realities of the field. There are a lot of common misconceptions about the law profession and I decided it was best for me not to enter this job market with $200k in loan debt weighing over my head. If that is what you want to do, be 100% committed, know what you are getting into, and be prepared to live with the result–whether it be great or suckky. But more to the point, UVA’s politics department is pretty good, and most of the professors have some pretty impressive CV’s. The only drawback is that the TA’s do most of the grading–unless you are in a seminar or another small niche course. Therefore the quality of the professor you have is sometimes irrelevant. But all in all, I really liked most of the TA’s and Professors in the politics department and had a quality experience.</p>
<p>If you look at UVa’s student course evaluation website, [url=<a href=“http://www.thecourseforum.com%5DtheCourseForum%5B/url”>http://www.thecourseforum.com]theCourseForum[/url</a>], the Politics and International Relations professors are rated highly - higher than many other departments on average. However, there is apparently somewhat of a shortage of professors.</p>
<p>Ahhh yes… the dreaded shortage! Several professors are leaving/have left. 
</p>
<p>Take a couple politics classes during your first year so you can get on track for fulfilling the major. Here’s a link to the requirements: [Government</a> Requirements | Department of Politics, University of Virginia](<a href=“http://politics.virginia.edu/governmentrequirements]Government”>http://politics.virginia.edu/governmentrequirements)</p>
<p>thanks for the quick replies.
I’m not too sure as far as careers go what I want to do after school but I know I would like to do something with law–possibly with criminal justice, or government. I’d really love to work in gov later on.</p>
<p>And then there’s Maude. Or in this case, Larry. Check out centerforpolitics.org
Larry is great - I know him from a zillion years ago when I was a 'Hoo. He’s a bit busy these days with all the goings-on re President Sullivan. My bet on the over/under for when that’s resolved is two weeks. In two weeks, the Rector will be out, the Vice Rector will be still around but neutered, and President Sullivan will be reinstated. An unfortunate time - but a GREAT small-scale political science case study.</p>