Hi GradCafe,
My name's Thien. Political Science has been a long time research interest of mine, and I would like to pursue it for higher education. However, given I do not have a strong background in this area, I would love to receive your advice based on my experience and research interest.
I graduated from a 3-year Bachelor of Business program in Western Sydney University (Australia), with a GPA of 5.833/7, or around 3.3/4.0 on US scale. I am currently a Research Manager at an international market research company, with around 3 years of professional experience. I have basic knowledge & experience working with statistics & quantitative analysis.
In terms of research interest, I am interested in literature about political behavior, especially community psychology and nationalism. I am currently working with a Duke professor on a research paper about voting behavior in authoritarian country context, with plans of getting it published in a peer-reviewed journal by next year. The research is based on empirical data collected from a randomized controlled field experiment.
I can speak fluent English, Vietnamese and a bit of French (DELF B1 level).
I would like your advice regarding which institutions/countries (American/Australia or Europe) would be stronger in this research domain, and what are the chances that someone with little academic background in PoliSci can successfully switch to a master's degree (preferably in research track) in this field, and what should I focus in my application (LoR, writing sample, SOP, GRE score, etc.) to better my chances.
I appreciate all your help and thanks in advance!