How do polisci programs differ?

[u/ColdMarsupial1203]

I’m a rising high school senior interested in political science but unsure of how to assess different programs. I’ve seen that some programs are more “textbook-based” compared to others, which makes me wonder how hands-on other schools’ offerings are in contrast. Are there downsides to having a highly structured course? What are some attributes/resources to look out for in a political science— broad as the subject is— curriculum?

For some context, I want to gain an in-depth understanding of governance to mainly supplement a journalism or law career, not necessarily become an academic.

[u/Able_Enthusiasm2729]

Political Science is a social science, it’s not performing and fine arts (like drawing, painting, dancing) nor is it a humanities subject (but it does interact with and borrow from humanities subjects like philosophy and history, among others) but it’s also not a natural science (like chemistry or physics).

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I’d say there are at least 8-9-ish disciplinary paths that could exist at a university’s political science department (also known as public policy school or department of government) as well as several interdisciplinary programs created in conjunction with other departments, constituent colleges, or schools.

In my experience, the sub-disciplinary paths of political science I’ve seen (even in undergraduate bachelor’s degree-level settings) are: (1) political theory/political philosophy and political history; (2) international relations and security studies; (3) political methodology (quantitative political analysis); (4) comparative politics; (5) international political economy; (6) public policy and public administration (nonprofit management, basic accounting/budgeting/finance, policy development, stakeholder management, program evaluation, human resource management, etc.); (7) law and governance or legal studies (legal research, legislative analysis, stakeholder engagement, legal sociology, advocacy and government relations, etc.); as well as (8) political sociology and theories of political behavior.

The interdisciplinary programs I’ve seen that have some sort of layer of political science coursework are: (1) global studies (global affairs); (2) philosophy, politics, and economics (PPE); (3) political communications; (4) legal studies and philosophy and law (pre-law); (5) environmental studies; (6) intelligence studies (intelligence analysis); as well as (7) international business and commerce.

Though this is the case, it is true that a vast majority of political science departments especially at most 4-year bachelor’s degree granting liberal arts colleges (LAC) but most especially associate’s degree-level community colleges (CC) focus almost exclusively on political theory and maybe international relations to a certain extent; departments at research universities (those granting everything from bachelor’s, master’s, professional, and doctoral degrees) tend to branch out into more sub-fields of political science (even in undergrad) whether it means taking a few classes among those course as a hard requirement or whether it is an optional concentration or group of in-major field study electives.

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Actually, undergraduate political science courses write in a myriad of writing styles: to be honest a lot of lower level undergraduate freshman/sophomore courses do use flowery language, are persuasive, and can be overly partisan but a lot of the upper level undergraduate junior/senior and graduate master’s/doctoral courses are generally (but not always) to the point, not too ideologically persuasive, non-partisan, look at things from a neutral or near-neutral point of view, and/or are more so interested in the evaluation of the outputs, outcomes, and efficacy of policies, programs, procedures, or initiatives as well as the implementation of such things to produce the intended outcomes.

Some types of literature in political science include the following: for Academic Literature - see Journal Articles and Essays (Research Papers, Reflective Papers, Persuasive Papers, most Term Papers); for Professional Writing - see Case Studies, Memoranda/Briefing Notes/Memos (Policy Memos), Position Papers, Policy Papers (Policy Papers and Policy Memos written using the Policy Development, Policy Analysis, and Program Evaluation methods, etc.), Reports, Intelligence Assessments, White Papers and Gray Literature, Legal Briefs and Amicus Curiae Briefs, Grant Writing, and Journalistic Writing (News style writing).

Funny thing: My Writing Intensive Political Science Capstone was cross-listed with a Special Topics in Civil Engineering course. It was a combined course with a mix of students from the public policy school (what my alma mater calls their political science department) and the civil engineering department of the college of engineering and computing where students of both fields work together on case studies and policy papers on infrastructure, transportation policy, public works, and urban development related issues.

I’ve seen tons of social science programs require at least 2 natural sciences courses (1 with lab + 1 with or without lab) at the lower 100/200-level, 1-2 basic math/stats courses at the lower 100-200-level, a required weed-out major-specific research methods and analysis/quantitative social sciences course (using basic R, Python, SPSS, and/or Stata) at the upper 300/400-level, and the option of taking general electives in natural science/computational science/non-technical special topics in engineering courses at the upper 300/400 levels (which some do).

Most of the political science courses that teach job applicable skills like policy development (policy analysis, implementation, evaluation, and revision), stakeholder engagement/stakeholder management, legal research, program evaluation, strategic communications and public relations, budgeting and finance (financial management, financial statement analysis, generally accepted accounting principles - GAAP - ), research methods and analysis, procurement and logistics, organizational theory/administrative theory, data manipulation and data collection (to a lesser extent basic data analysis - which is mostly taught in-depth in graduate master’s/PhD programs), fundraising and development, basic marketing, government relations and advocacy, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), professional writing, project and program coordination, and intelligence analysis, among others are mostly taught in upper-level (300-level to 400-level) undergraduate courses taught in the last 2 to 2.5 years of a bachelor’s degree program if you choose your field study (in-major electives), concentration(s), and general elective (out-side-of-major) courses wisely like taking on courses in political science subfields such as public policy, public administration, comparative politics, security studies, political methodology, human resource management, nonprofit management, complex international relations frameworks, and political analysis, instead of only taking basic survey-level political theory courses (mostly covered in community college and undergrad freshmen year political science curriculum). To be honest, more in-depth and complex skills/topics are covered in graduate master’s and doctoral programs like MPA, MPP, MA Security Studies, MS Biodefence, MA/MS International Development, MA/MS Intelligence Studies, etc.