Concentrations, Focuses, Interests

[theskinny]

Hi all,

I've been reading for a while but I've never posted before. I've noticed a lot of posts in which the authors have really fleshed out interests when it comes to what they want to concentrate on in specific programs. My question is to what extent you guys think this is important to having a gratifying and productive experience. Of course no one wants to enter into a program frivolously, but picking a concentration just to have your interests narrowed seems artificial and potentially counterproductive. One of the things I'm coming across is that just about everything (IR related) is pretty interesting on some level, what do ya'll think?

[MYRNIST]

Hi all,

I've been reading for a while but I've never posted before. I've noticed a lot of posts in which the authors have really fleshed out interests when it comes to what they want to concentrate on in specific programs. My question is to what extent you guys think this is important to having a gratifying and productive experience. Of course no one wants to enter into a program frivolously, but picking a concentration just to have your interests narrowed seems artificial and potentially counterproductive. One of the things I'm coming across is that just about everything (IR related) is pretty interesting on some level, what do ya'll think?

Good question.

I think from a pure personal fulfillment perspective, you don't necessarily need to focus on one specific area. If a smorgasbord of development, human rights, security, law, etc. is what fulfills you, more power to you.

That said, I think that approach is very poor for actually developing expertise, both academically and professionally. Basic time limits and the sheer amount of knowledge required to be "expert" in something rules out doing a little bit of many fields. You need to pick something and delve really deeply into it to gain that proficiency level. It's also a pretty poor job strategy. No organization, private or public, wants a jack of all trades. They have specific needs that require a specific knowledge set. That extends beyond just IR into any field, actually - 90% of what any career counselor will tell you is pick something you have an aptitude/interest in, and become expert at it. If you know a little bit about everything but are not expert in anything, you will have an incredibly difficult time getting a job, accepted to a PHD program, or whatever else you want to do. Factor in the time and cost of grad school and it's even more damaging.

I think there are a lot of interesting things in IR, but I personally find one area far more interesting than the rest. My decision to specialize in security issues (even more specifically, in Russian and Chinese-related security issues) is not based on some professional calculation like I outlined above, it's I'd far rather do security than any other branch of IR.

I think you need to do academic exploration and personal reflection to decide what career/skillset is something you'd be happy to devote most of your professional life to before you go to grad school.

How do you think having well-defined professional and research interests is artificial and counter-productive?

Edited July 26, 2011 by MYRNIST

[runonsentence]

I'm not in government affairs, but I can tell you that it will be very difficult to get into most graduate programs in most fields in the first place without having some kind of scholarly identity and some state research interests. In my own field some programs are more happy to train generalists, but they are generally MA programs, and they would still be looking for you to demonstrate the capacity/potential to develop some kind of trajectory and more narrow interests while studying there. My own MA program was one such program.

Also, it seems like you're under the assumption that just because one has specific research interests, one isn't interested in anything else. It's still perfectly fine to find other aspects of your field interesting; having specific research interests shouldn't prevent this. Further, most graduate programs expect that your research interests will grow, evolve, and change as you continue to study, research, and/or teach.

I wouldn't assume, either, that others have "pick[ed] a concentration just to have [their] interests narrowed." How do you know they haven't narrowed down their interests based on past research experience, coursework, and careful reading?

[Mal83]

While I was an undergrad studying International Studies I didn't really have any idea of how to narrow my interests, I too found, and still do find, that most areas of this vast field are incredibly interesting. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to pursue until I got some professional experience, I figured it out after a lot of contemplation and researching. You have to think beyond the degree to what you see yourself doing in a career and how to become qualified to do it. You have to figure out what is most compelling to you and what programs out there suit your interests best. Exploring various concentrations in order to just study it all is a nice idea, but that's kind of what undergrad is for as well as relevant experiences before pursuing graduate school. If you decide to apply for International Affairs programs, you certainly don't need to have it all etched in stone in your SOP or anything, but you should have some idea of which direction you'd like to go in. Generally, you don't even have to declare a concentration in the first semester, which is good for someone in your position. However you still need to express to the admissions committees that you have career goals in mind which should obviously correlate to what you will devote your time to as a grad student. But the fact is, that you will, sooner rather than later, have to choose a concentration/specialization in order to complete the degree. So MYRNIST is correct in saying that the "I just want to learn a little about everything" is not a productive approach to graduate work in this field because it's simply too vast. Going into this with no direction in mind would actually be the counterproductive thing to do because you might not figure it out in time.

Edited July 27, 2011 by Mal83

[theskinny]

I may have been projecting a bit when I said that narrowing one's interests can be artificial. I think if I simply chose to choose right now, that would be artificial (and potentially counterproductive). Thanks for the responses though guys. I'm mainly concerned about making the most of graduate school, and students' preparedness and focus seems to vary greatly by degrees. Graduate school isn't the same kind of given as undergrad, so I think I'm putting some pressure on to make sure that this would be a good decision. I feel like people in IR are often especially focused, whereas I know friends who have gone into domestic MPP programs with fairly vague ambitions and concentrations and have gotten a lot out of the experience.