<p>Hello, </p>
<p>I have been doing college search for a while and I found out what I am looking for in a college. I have come to a list of 14 universities and I do not know how to judge their Political Science programs. Can anybody tell me what I should be looking for in a good program?</p>
<p>Thanks,
Ghada</p>
<p>It is hard to name things for you to look for as what makes a good political science program is different for everyone. </p>
<p>For example some people might want the professors to be published in high journals because this means they do lots of research. Normally when this is the case it is at a big school where the professors don’t work as closely with the students. So another person might not care about where the professors are published and instead might want the professors to do research with the students.</p>
<p>As you can see from the above example what makes a political science department great is different for everybody.</p>
<p>There are so many strong political science programs and the field is so over saturated with phDs (meaning even at “second tier” schools you’re likely to get extremely well credentialed professors) that a desire for a strong program should not be a principle driver of your college search. Realistically hundreds of schools have a perfectly serviceable to outstanding poly sci program but these institutions range from West Point to Reed College to the University of Oklahoma. Those are all very different schools which likely appeal to very different people. Choose based on the usual institutional characteristics, affordability, and then look at their political science offerings. Likely, they’ll be more than adaquate for most undergrads.</p>
<p>You might want to look at experiential opportunities: semester in DC or at the UN, internships at the State Capitol, study abroad with political experience or visits (like in Brussels or Strasburg at the European Parliament, in La Hague at the International Court…)
You can check if politicians have graduated from the school in the past 20 years and if they take on interns for their campaigns.
You can check and see if there are several political clubs (and not just one from the party that interests you: if there’s just one, it means there’s very little political debate, which isn’t good for a poli sci major).
You can think about what branch of poli sci you’re interested in and see if some professors’ research focuses on that wide branch - even at small regional schools professors do research but of course they specialize a lot. ie, if you’re interested in women’s issues in American politics, check and see if a professor indicates s/he is interested in women’s issues (in any country). If you’re interested in the Middle East, check and see if someone on the faculty shares an interest in one issue in one country from the Middle East. To do research on a tiny point of knowledge, you need to know almost everything around it.
Most importantly, find characteristics that you like, then choose schools that have those, but have varying degrees of selectivity. That’s the most important thing you can do for yourself.</p>
<p>
</p>
<ol>
<li>Courses covering the major political science subfields (typically including political theory, comparative political systems, international relations/global issues, American politics)</li>
<li>Courses covering quantitative methods in the social sciences </li>
<li>Full time faculty covering each of the major PS subfields, with doctorates from major research universities</li>
<li>Small classes (with many discussion/seminar classes enrolling less than 20 students and taught by professors not grad students)</li>
<li>A senior thesis or project requirement</li>
<li>High PhD production rates compared to colleges of similar size (you can look this up on the NSF/webcaspar site)</li>
<li>Social science research and internship opportunities</li>
<li>High admission standards relative to your own qualifications (but not so high as to be out of reach); good financial aid; good 4-year graduation rates for the whole college</li>
</ol>
<p>This is my field, bachelors, masters, and ABD in a PhD program. I haven’t been in school for a while, but I can give you some suggestions based on enduring tensions in the field.</p>
<p>What kind of “political science” do you want to study? There is an ideological split in the field (that has NOTHING to do with “politics” as we see in the day-to-day newspaper stuff) that really will affect your choices. </p>
<p>Do you believe that political forces can be understood best with words or numbers? Do you want to study like a sociologist looking at the stats or a historian telling a the story? A good hint about a college or university’s take on this can be found (sometimes, not always) in the department name – is it “Political Science” or is it “Government” or “Politics?” </p>
<p>What do you want to do after graduation? Electoral work? Journalism? Lobbying? Polling? Foreign Service? Academia? (bad job market there, there is a reason I’m ADB, LOL) So much of work in this field is political (pun intended) – do some research on the academic experts in your area of interest – having a good mentor is everything when it comes to finding internships and work after graduation. So, for example, the University of Connecticut may not even be on your radar, as it’s a decent school but generally not a standout unless you are into women’s basketball. However, if you are interested in polling and polling data analysis, it’s probably the best place in the world to study and get into your field right away. </p>
<p>Your personal political ideology may be irrelevant or very important based on what subfield you choose to pursue. This matters most for the Theory subfield, and second most for American Politics (and even then, only insofar as it’s good to have professors with connections to candidates and officials you’d work for if you could) And, for theory, there are FOUR, not TWO bins for sorting – this isn’t MSNBC vs FOX, it’s a more theoretical and nuanced question:</p>
<p>Left/Communitarian – “Takes a village.” Etzioni at George Washington U is your guy here
Right/Communitarian – a real Conservative, in the traditional sense, Catholic U, especially Ryn for theory, but the whole department
Left/Individualist – Look to University of Missouri and Vallentyne for this one
Right/Individualist – You’ll find at least one professor to fit this bill in every department…if there is any tokenism in the world, this is it, LOL. No names spring to mind, but if they have published with Cato multiple times, you are good to go.</p>
<p>tk21769 is spot on with items 4 and 8, I believe. The other items are of variable importance depending on your specialty and your answer to my first issue. I went to Qualitative focused schools and so #2 was scoffed at. You could go to Georgetown and get a top-notch education without being a stat grind. </p>
<p>The crucial thing is what do you want to do, what in particular do you want to study? Government/Politics is only one step more specialized than History…you need to assess subfields to get a better idea of what to look for.</p>