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bees

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Posts posted by bees

  1. Don't overthink things. 3 letters from people who know you well, ideally as a researcher, is what you want. But connections do matter, especially if your LOR writers are willing to do some lobbying on your behalf too (i.e., beyond writing the letter). 

    Yes, professors willing to pick up the phone and calling colleagues goes a long way.

  2. I would go to Brown over BU...neither of them place well though, so be aware of that. Mark Blyth seems pretty awesome, so that would be a draw for me. This doesn't necessarily mean don't go, it just means being aware that a tenure track job at a research university or top liberal arts college is extremely unlikely when you finish.

    Yeah, Blyth is great.

  3. Brown does have Colgan, McDermott, and Miller who have pretty impressive CVs. Colgan and Miller, however, are both APs so no guarantee they'll stay at Brown. 

    McDermott likely off to USC. Good young assistant professors, though, like Jordan Branch who already is publishing in IO and other places.

  4. I spent the entirety of my undergrad studying political theory, but now I want to study more substantive areas like international relations and political economy. I know it is going to be a tough transition so I was wondering if there is any standard approach to preparing for the inevitable quantitative research. I have been reading from The American Political Science Review, completed a social statistics course, and I am slowly honing my quant skills with Khan Academy; what else can I do to break my undergrad cherry?

    Good research design skills are worth developing. So many papers demonstrate great quant skills but fall down based on research design flaws.

  5. Hey, I'm an undergrad intent on getting a PhD/MA. I would like to do research/accademia or work in International Development. 

     

    My question is: why are you doing polisci? What are your goals, and why did polisci meet them over Economics or Sociology, for example? And how does grad school in polisci differ from undergrad? My experience so far is that there isn't a lot of mathematical or statistical rigor (in a top 10 school), which I feel would benefit the field (of course, I am still a newbie). 

     

    Any thoughts or insights would help. Thanks. 

     

    Why do you think political 'science' needs more mathematical rigor? I think it needs all kinds of different methodological rigor, but math is hardly the only game in town. Alas, we are all now unthinking KKV drones. All grad students should be made to read Patrick Thaddeus Jackson's book on Political Science and methods of inquiry.

  6. Ah, political theorists! You foolish but wonderful people! Is there someone's work there that you particularly admire? I would email them and pose the question. You never know the politics between programs and departments unless you're on the inside.

  7. USC places quite well given their ranking, and I've heard that they have quite a bit of funding available because they are working to build up the program.

    That's who I was thinking of. Pat James, Brian Rathbun etc. And adding faculty a lot recently which is a good sign of health.

  8.  

    I graduated from a top liberal arts college with a double-major in economics and political science.  Upon graduation, I went to work for an economic consulting firm, deciding that I wanted to move away from the private sector and submitted applications to study economics in graduate school.  I achieved admission to a top program on the strength of my recommendations and grades.  However, upon arriving at school, I was shocked by the level of mathematical training and ability that is required in graduate level economics (the burden of which grows heavier every year, I understand), and that despite my excellent performance in the undergraduate-level courses and on the GRE (I graduated in the top 2% of my class, and scored 800 on the math section and 700 on the verbal), there was no way that I was going to get through what actually felt like a Ph.D. in physics or mathematics, especially without an undergraduate major in math and perhaps a couple of graduate courses as well (and frankly, I have to admit that I am not exceptional at writing mathematical proofs nor do I enjoy it particularly much, a disposition that I discovered the hard way is fundamentally incompatible with graduate school in economics).  Confident that I was going to fail out, I voluntarily withdrew during the first semester.
     
    The reasons, then, that I am considering studying political science instead are as follows: 1. It was my other undergraduate major, precisely because it was one of the two things that I found most interesting, 2. In contrast to what I saw in grad-level economics, I hope that there would be more of an opportunity to focus on substantive issues in political science, and 3. While I understand it is a difficult and grueling path, I would like to have an academic career, with a think tank/DC career being an acceptable fallback if academia did not work out.  I certainly understand that I would need to take some methods courses, but I expressly am not interested in, say, developing new statistical methods. Overall I wish to combine qualitative work with a regression or a little time series or probit here or there--if all of American politics is actually about who can do the fanciest math or the trendiest new Bayesian analysis or the most innovative formal models, then I think that this would be the wrong discipline for me.
     
    My main concern, then, is that with a substantive interest in American politics but not theory, the mathematical demands of today's political science Ph.D. programs would also be excessively onerous.  At econ grad school, for example, there were poli sci Ph.D. students (who I believe were Americanists) in my Ph.D. microeconomic theory course with me.  I am not totally incapable of math--I got As in Calculus I and II and Linear Algebra, and I am willing and able to take courses in applied statistics--I got As in each of intermediate and upper-level econometrics in undergrad.  However, if ever again I had to take anything approaching the econ Ph.D. courses, it would just not be workable.  In seeking advice out about applying to economics programs, Ph.D. after Ph.D. I talked to vastly underestimated what I would be up against and even seemed sanguine about the fact that I hadn't taken calculus-based statistics or real analysis (the latter of which I did eventually do, albeit a not so rigorous summer course at a local public university), so I am almost shell-shocked and terrified of another seeming bait-and-switch--I don't want to head off somewhere intending to study politics only to find myself struggling to prove that the eigenvalue decomposition of something is some other unintelligible thing.
     
    I am wondering, then, if I am right even to be considering applying for such programs, or whether, even deep into the poli sci rankings, American politics is just mathematical proofs and hardcore econometric theory all the way.  Then, assuming that I should apply, what should I say to convince graduate schools that I am not going to abandon them or fail required methods courses, given my previously abandoned Ph.D.?

     

     

    Kendra, if I may, I think you may be over-thinking this. You're clearly very smart and would be a very competitive applicant. Which Americanist political scientist do you most admire? Which sub-field? Go to the Annual Review of Political Science, pick out a few of the articles that sound most interesting to you in terms of your substantive interests and see if you could see yourself doing that kind of work in the future. My guess is that you'll find stuff that suits both your interests and your abilities.

  9. MA. I assume you're going the PhD route? And do you know if funding the funding issue is generally in the PhD area at gtown or university-wide?

    Generally PhD, but the MAs are often seen as money-raisers for the university. I guess some people get funding from a load of others who get none but want the brand. The only problem with DC-area PhD programs is that often the professors are off doing consulting work rather than working closely with grad students.

  10. I got prelim admission notification today, still waiting for the committee to provide funding info...fingers crossed!

    Masters or PhD? Good luck if with PhD- traditionally loads of problems re.funding but DC is a great town.

  11. Thanks for the response.

    In a similar vein, do any IR people look to the TRIPS survey from William and Mary for guidance on IR programs? At first I considered it a very strong indicator, until I realized a huge chunk of the respondants came from Harvard and Columbia. Maybe that won't skew things too much, but since these are "reputation" rankings...

    TRIPS is decent too. To be honest, the main thing is 'do they place their students?' (bear in mind that starter jobs tend to be 20-40 places below your grad school on average) and who, and how closely, would you be working with? If you have a close working relationship with a faculty member who is pleasant, will write letters for you, and make 5 years of your life a non-miserable existence, then that's great.

  12. We had this discussion a week or two ago, though it turned into an argument about Ayn Rand...

    I would start with some philosophy of science. Get yourself a copy of Curd and Cover, Patrick Thaddeus Jackson's new book, download some ISA President Addresses and start thinking broadly about how you approach looking at social issues. You can read endless papers when you get there and there are 4 million quals reading lists online which show the canon.

  13. I don't think we can guess too much about their placement since the website says that they have only placed 11 students so far. :)

    Yeah, they only started a joint program two or three years ago, from what I understand, because before that it was IR and Pol Sci before. So the 11 placements are from that recent time period.

  14. I was wondering what the general perception is on USC's POIR program. Can anyone shed some light? Is it a lot different from the traditional political science program? How do their students fare after graduation? I'm not sure what people think about their post-graduate placements.

    Thanks in advance.

    Some big names: McCubbins, Tickner and some established scholars like Odell, James etc. Solid program. Placements are good and getting better.

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