TBCTT

This makes sense actually. I was under the assumption that grad school meant goodbye hobbies, social life, and anything not school related.

To anyone that is going through the grad programs or has gone through them already, what was the work load like? Were you able to have hobbies / free time at all? I hear people saying that life gets put on hold during graduate school and you can kiss goodbye to any fun you might want to have. How true is that really? The programs I would be applying to are International affairs / international economics at SAIS, UDenver, TAMU, and Georgetown

This is actually a very good question, both about the New School and about staying away from non-APSIA accredited programs. anyone have any insight on this?

Yahoo quite frequently posts about "majors that are not worth the money," http://education.yahoo.net/articles/avoid_these_majors.htm?kid=1O1DO, and quite frequently majors that are included in this section are mentioned. In this case for example, economics and government are brought up. Is this list, in your opinoin, bogus, or is there reasoning to it?

I have two classes from undergrad (100-200) level classes that I got Ds in. I dont like it. they were both from my first year of college way back in 08. I am applying to graduate school next fall for IR programs and do not like these "blemishes" on my transcript. Would retaking them to prove that I can actually perform well in classes I screwed up in be an alright thing to do?

I live in Illinois and work full time at the moment. Moving away to DC area simply for grad school does not seem like something I can really do at this time. Illinois has some good schools obviously, (northwestern / UChicago) and luckily I live near chicago. But these schools are also very expensive. I hear horror stories from both the internet and people I work with about student loans and that is something I would like to avoid. There are other schools in the area such as NIU (claimed to have a top rank MPA program) and Depaul University that are good, but obviously not as great as these upper tier schools are. Would going to one of these less expensive schools really be a shot in the foot when it comes to future job outlook? I guess with great cost would come great opportunity...and that is what I am worried about

does anyone have any insight on this?

Sorry for the lack of clarification. This would be for the united states

I know US schools are well regarded as very good schools that have great IR programs, but would going to school abroad (not as expensive, not as long, and get to experience a new culture) result in an IR masters that would equal the same kind of weight as an american university degree? This question would apply to mainly government jobs in intel, diplomacy, and/or policy.