
Penelope Higgins
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Everything posted by Penelope Higgins
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You could try the legal academic route: you need one well-placed law review piece, and a second one that you can talk about on interviews. The problem is that you need to find a way to support yourself while you're writing these - but there are various fellowship programs for people going this route (often they teach legal writing to first year law students). The upside: bigger salaries, lower bar for tenure... and you can work on many theory issues in law departments.
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Choosing the right comparative department
Penelope Higgins replied to karmacola's topic in Political Science Forum
I don't know enough about the South Asia field to make you choice, but I will say this: you should think hard about the comparative group in general and not just the South Asianists. A lot of the intellectual payoff as a comparativist, both in classes and (especially) in your own work, is thinking cross-regionally: drawing on ideas developed in one regional context (the kinds of questions asked, the kinds of arguments developed) and applying them to your region of interest. So look beyond the South Asia people to the other comparativists in those departments - you've got some good options to choose from. -
Comparative Politics - Top 15?
Penelope Higgins replied to polister81's topic in Political Science Forum
Just my 2 cents, but if you're interested in empirical (as opposed to theoretical) comparative development or political economy, NYU is not a great fit (unless there is someone there I can't think of). Yale has Scheve, Rosenbluth and Dunning (and others); Duke has Kitschelt, Wibbels, and Lange (and others). Tough call, but you can't go wrong between the two. -
Comparative Politics - Top 15?
Penelope Higgins replied to polister81's topic in Political Science Forum
OK. I'll bite. Name a top 10 comparative politics NYU placement who has worked with faculty still at NYU. Saiegh and Johns are the only two I can come up with, and Saiegh started out at Pittsburgh. Not exactly a stellar placement record. Still a great place for a particular kind of comparative politics, but I would not choose NYU over Yale unless I was sure I wanted to do that kind of work. -
I would definitely play the latter angle rather than the former billiam345 - the department is much more likely to improve your situation if you have another offer in hand. Berkeley used to be notorious for playing this game when they thought they could get away with it, but that was a long time ago when I was applying to grad school.
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My graduate program (one of H/Y/P) regularly admitted students from the same university - there were perhaps as many as 5 in one cohort. I know that this is true of the other programs as well, because I see the CVs of graduate students from these schools applying for jobs at my institution as they finish.
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With all respect to dysmetria, I think you would be very well served to also apply to Yale (Don Green and co. are very good at graduate training), and Princeton (despite some turmoil in the methods group, Ashworth just got tenure and will presumably be around for a while). Caltech and Stanford Business are also good choices if you are sure that you want to do pure methods work.
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In my experience serving on admissions committees, I (or one of my colleagues) often recognize the names of recommenders. Nevertheless, I think that letters from economists will serve you well if your interests are in methods.
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PhD chances and decision deadlines? (Pol Science)
Penelope Higgins replied to fenderpete's topic in Political Science Forum
Of all the programs 'milkbaba' listed, NYU is the one that is most focused on quantitative work in their PhD program, so it might not be a great match for you... But those qualifications should get you a good look lots of other places. -
Fall 2009 PhD Applicant! Do I stand any chance?
Penelope Higgins replied to mormegil's topic in Political Science Forum
A lot of departments will be very interested in your research interests, and there is no discrimination against applicants who don't have previous degrees in political science so long as they can clearly define a research interest within comparative politics - which it sounds like you were able to do. Depending on your test scores, letters, etc. I would say that you stand a good chance. Best of luck. -
Fall 2009 PhD Applicant! Do I stand any chance?
Penelope Higgins replied to mormegil's topic in Political Science Forum
AKarn - for electoral studies, a few places that come to mind are Princeton, UCSD, Irvine, Duke, and UNC. There are, of course, many others - electoral studies is not my field, but these are a few schools that occur to me as good places for that. With the grades and test scores you have, if you can supplement them with strong letters from some of the 'names' in comparative politics at Florida, you will be in good shape for the admissions process. To find safety schools, I would look to see where the authors you find interesting are teaching - not all of them will be at top 10 departments... -
A few scattered responses: * the GRE score: particularly for quant-oriented departments, the quant score is more important in my experience, especially if you are not a native speaker. * the lack of training: you need to be able to make a clear statement about your interests in political science in the personal statement - that is a very significant part of the admissions process. This means having done enough reading or whatever it takes to identify a question that political scientists are (or should be) interested in. It is certainly possible to do this with minimal coursework, but in that particular area of your interest, you need to be able to have more to say than "educated common sense." *departments worth looking at (beyond the top 10, which besides UCSD would also include Stanford and Michigan) include UCLA, and UC Irvine. Another great place would be NYU. Maybe Penn State, Texas A&M, WUSTL and Florida State are worth a look. In comparative, my sense is that UIUC is much stronger than MSU, and definitely a great option.
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Depends on your area of interest within political science... some subfields are stronger than others. And they rely quite heavily on faculty who also teach in other parts of the University, and on adjunct faculty, many of whom are prominent in the DC policy world. Overall, it is a pretty strong department that has made some good hires of late. And being in DC gives you lots of access to policy folks if that is your interest. The biggest downside, from what I have heard,is funding. They don't fund most of their incoming students, and competition for funding is pretty intense. If you search through old posts here about last year's admissions cycle, you can find more detail on that question...
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New user - questions about departments
Penelope Higgins replied to crumpledpaper's topic in Political Science Forum
Have you thought about Rutgers? Midlarsky has written a book on genocide, and Jack Levy is a really interesting guy in IR. Reading your description of your interests, it is the first program that came to my mind... The terminal MA will help you if a) you did well, and someone there can write you strong letters - even if they are not a big name, likely they are graduates of, or colleagues of, the faculty in programs to which you are applying - and that can make a big difference. In terms of finding programs, my advice is always to look at departments where the people whose books or articles you like are teaching. I'm sure, though, that that is one of the methods you used to come up with the list you already have, so that may not be too much help. Here is my main thought, though: issues of ethnic conflict (which are not that far removed from genocide in terms of the kinds of research questions one might ask) are HUGE in comparative these days. So I would look at comparative groups in some of the departments you are considering to see who pops up. My hunch is that unless you are writing about international actors and genocide, much of the work you will be interacting with will be about the domestic politics of genocide. But take this with a grain of salt, since I am a comparativist... I hope this relatively uninformed scrawling helps... -
Presenting at Conferences...
Penelope Higgins replied to crazypoligirl's topic in Political Science Forum
Conferences should be used, I think, as a means to an end. In the end, what matters is publications. Publications may come from a conference paper (and conferences are useful ways to impose deadlines on yourself), but people fall into a trap of presenting at conferences for the sake of that and nothing more. My advice would be to be goal-oriented about conferences: Write the conference paper as though it were a journal article, and send it out after you get comments. Present dissertation-related material at conferences. Go to conferences where people who work on the kind of work you want to do go. Don't bother going to conferences where the quality of papers presented is generally not that high - these won't help on your CV at all. An APSA presentation is not a bad thing to get on your CV in grad school, but it won't get you an interview or a job. On the other hand, a paper that you presented at a conference, revised, and sent out for publication will get you an interview and a chance at a job. Just my 2 cents... -
Yale ($) or Stanford (free) for MA on way to PhD
Penelope Higgins replied to yticnineb's topic in Political Science Forum
I came to poli sci from an interdisciplinary MA in a different world area. I recommend this approach as a great way to figure out how you want to approach the study of Africa. Focus on the breadth of disciplines in your year, and you will be well suited to apply to PhD programs thereafter. -
Yale ($) or Stanford (free) for MA on way to PhD
Penelope Higgins replied to yticnineb's topic in Political Science Forum
I would go to Stanford in a heartbeat. The advantage of Yale just isn't worth the money. There are lots of interesting folks at Stanford, and African Studies (although the MA is new) is a very strong part of the university. In addition, if a thesis is optional (not required) there is no real need to write one even if you apply to PhD programs - the most important thing is to use the year to develop the background you need to have a good research agenda as you go into PhD programs, and to make the connections needed to get strong LoRs from prominent folks. You can justify this decision (as I did) on your applications by saying that you gave preference to coursework over thesis so that you could make a fully informed decision about the discipline within which you wanted to pursue your study of Africa. you've got two (three?) great options, but it just doesn't seem worth the $$$ to pay for Yale. -
alanapsci has the APSA poster scene about right - on the one hand, you don't have a captive audience of folks in the room who sit to hear you talk, but on the other, you get to have more intensive one on one conversations with the people who are interested enough to stop and look at your poster. I would prepare something to hand out, and be able to explain your work in 60 seconds - you should get some interesting questions from that... Congratulations on the acceptance. ISA, by the way, is the International Studies Association - IR and IR/Theory focused conference, happening this week in San Francisco. It attracts more non-US and non-mainstream work, but only really within those subfields. And (in my brief career) it tends to be in more interesting places than APSA, which rotates Boston/Philadelphia/DC/Chicago or something like that...
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It's not quite as hard as getting into grad school, but APSA accepts well under half of proposals for most of its sections... so many of us go as "spectators"...
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Columbia - Are you waiting too?
Penelope Higgins replied to lenin333's topic in Political Science Forum
In addition to all the folks you mentioned below, I would also think that Humphreys would be very interesting to you if you're interested in these issues of civil war and failed states. Fazal as well... Columbia is a great place to do this kind of work. -
Actually, having studied and worked at Georgetown, I can tell you that the school - at least the grad school of arts and sciences - has very little money. You can see this by looking at the facilities (the ICC is an awful building, and professors in some departments share offices!) and by looking at the faculty - so many adjuncts...
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Comparative Politics/Area Studies Corner
Penelope Higgins replied to rtrm's topic in Political Science Forum
Oops - my fault. I'm new to this site... -
Comparative Politics/Area Studies Corner
Penelope Higgins replied to rtrm's topic in Political Science Forum
Watts got his PhD 30 years ago, so it is hard to call him a 'rising star'. I might look at Macartan Humphreys (Columbia), or Chris Blattman (Yale) as young people doing interesting work on Africa... -
Comparative Politics/Area Studies Corner
Penelope Higgins replied to rtrm's topic in Political Science Forum
One place to look at very hard for Europe is Princeton, with Moravcsik, Pontusson, and others. Harvard, with Peter Hall (who I have heard is a great mentor), Iversen, and the Center for European Studies, is also a top place.