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I'd take anything on poliscirumors with a grain of salt. I don't know any current doctoral candidates or students there, just someone who applied to the program before deciding against it to pursue other interests/goals and mentioned that getting accepted was a pretty painless process.

I've been eyeing this program myself! The courses look interesting and apparently UCF has a decent amount of fellowships that can be applied for. It's a program that only started recently and so far the most critical thing I've seen was a one-star review on the UCF Poli Sci dept.'s Facebook page from a disgruntled graduate student. However, my concern would be that it's at some distance from places I'd imagine would hire Poli Sci grads with a Security Studies or IR focus, albeit their brochure does hint at UCF's historical connection to the space coast and aerospace industry.

"Think Tank" NGOs might be a good option to look into depending on your focus.

I'm in the M.A. program in Asian Studies at Florida State University. If anyone has questions, feel free to ask!

Just heard back about the Virtual Student Foreign Service position I applied for! Got an interview and an offer. I'm pretty happy about this.

I know I may sound like something of a pack rat, but I ALWAYS keep my textbooks. I'm in the same department for grad school as undergrad and have kept all of my undergraduate texts in case I need to refer to them in an academic paper and just so I can look back at them for foundational materials to build on or to gain a comprehensive understanding of arguments and bits of knowledge that recur throughout my courses.

Current Association for Asian Studies member. I receive the Journal of Asian Studies on a regular basis.

I'm also at FSU, in the Asian Studies Master's program administered by the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy! Nice to meet you!

I think your experience would be to your benefit, and I say this as someone with a significant amount of education and little/no work experience who is pursuing a similar degree with the intention of a possible career in government service. That experience will probably give you a leg up in finding a position of the type you are describing.

What can you tell me about the UCF Security Studies program? I am interested in pursuing their PhD program at some point after completing my Master's in Asian Studies (in which I am taking a lot of the International Affairs core and supplemental courses) at FSU.

Not personally, since I chose to go to university and graduate school in the same town where I went to high school. Looking forward to homesickness when I eventually move though.

Thank you, swedishcoffee! I've submitted my application and am hoping to be interviewed for a position. There are definitely time/money/travel constraints that would prevent me from realistically pursuing a non-virtual internship with any of the agencies I applied for projects with, but I'm hoping that I can gain some valuable experience and successfully network from the VSFS program.

Been on a huge Cold Cave kick lately, and also listening to a lot of the industrial and darkwave stuff on Artoffact Records like AAIMON, 3Teeth, and Seeming. I've also come to like quite a bit of synthwave like Perturbator, Kavinsky, Com Truise etc. in recent years. What about the rest of you? What's been in your CD player/cassette player/record player/iTunes library these days?

As a huge anime geek, I've been appreciating the hell out of Knights of Sidonia. I highly recommend it, even if you don't particularly like Japanese animation.

I've recently started to read C.J. Cherryh's Faded Sun series. Awesome fictional politics and anthropology in a sci-fi setting. If you like cyberpunk, William Gibson is a good go-to. So is Richard K. Morgan, who incorporates kind of a hardboiled detective attitude. If you like your science fiction with more of a fantasy element, C.S. Friedman's Coldfire books are a fun read.

Did you end up being accepted to any positions? I'm applying for VSFS positions with DOS, FEMA and The Smithsonian this year. If you did end up with a position, what advice would you have for someone else who is applying?

The people teaching the courses for Florida State's MPA concentration/certificate program in EM are great. I can't recommend them enough. Also, anyone interested in EM should definitely start with the free online courses through the FEMA Emergency Management Institute website.

The city bus system was made somewhat more decentralized a few years ago, which has created more problems than it has solved. Unless you live close to campus and can walk or take the campus bus, the city buses, especially those which run a route to or from campus, are incredibly convenient unless you live somewhere on one of those two routes. However, even if you do live on one of those routes, it will easily take you two hours through completely random places/the middle of nowhere before you get to campus. You are better off driving or finding someone to carpool with for the sake of efficiency (although parking on campus is reportedly rather difficult).

I was also wondering about funding. It looks like my program doesn't have much in the way of specific funding (unless one earns a TAship) by virtue of being interdisciplinary rather than a specific departmental program.

makingmoves: sounds like you've got some pretty decent goals in mind. Knowing what you want to do with the degree is certainly important!

Thank you! I will!

LOL'ing at this thread. Wasn't expecting to find such entertainment on grad cafe.

I understand that my program takes applications for GA and Graduate Teaching Assistant positions along with the admissions application, so I submitted a resume and the required checklist form for a departmental assistantship application . I talked to the advisor and apparently the deadline/season for Graduate Assistant applications had already passed in the Fall. Since the application for a GA position was part of the application, I'm not sure whether I should ask her if future appointments are available for students who are already enrolled? (I'm probably going to brave the question anyway) I am aware that the International Studies program of which my graduate major is part occasionally has openings for teaching assistant positions (and I do make sure to keep up with announcements through the campus blackboard system as well as the official Facebook page).

After signing up for classes I came to the rather unfortunate realization that my grad school classes cost twice as much as the undergraduate classes that I took at the same university… and found myself pretty damn shocked. Anyone else in a similar position?