New Student Needing Advice

[mhst]

I am a prospective student looking for some guidance ... I graduated with a 3.75 GPA, have great letters, and a very solid GRE score. The difficulty I am having are as follows: A. I am unsure exactly what I want to study. I ultimately want to be a professor, and from what I have been able to research CP and IR are what peak my interest the most. I lean towards qualitative research, but am very willing to give quantitative a go [i have never done any, so I honestly don't know!]. B. I don't know if I should go into a PhD program right off the bat or go for a terminal Masters [which I have heard advised on previous posts for unsure students]. C. With my interests in mind, does anyone have any suggestions about what schools would be best? I have a bit of an odd situation, my husband has just gotten out of the Navy and is going for his Engineering Undergrad, so we have to find a school that meets both of our needs. Any words of advice would be greatly appreciated.

[BrunoPuntzJones]

If you haven't already, go to your letter writers with this question. Explain the situation and your reasons for considering graduate school. Most faculty are pretty good about responding to these kinds of questions and will be able to give you useful, more specific advice. What you've listed here in terms of interests makes it impossible to come up with a narrow list of schools.

Generically speaking: (1) Don't limit your applications to terminal masters programs. Apply to both. You don't want to pay for a graduate degree in political science. (2) Some uncertainty is expected with first year graduate students. Your research interests will change during the program, and faculty are (generally) accommodating with this.