How "good" is EUI?

[Lllllll]

Hi,

I'm applying to some different PhD:s in social science and I'm interested in EUI (the European University Institute in Florence). However, when I visited for the interview the PhD:s there didn't seem to enthusiastic about the program (department of political and social sciences). I also noticed their English skills were actually not too good (and the language test we took was VERY fundamental...). On the other hand, EUI is cliamed to be "best" in Europe in social science, in line with LSE and so on.

Does anyone know if this is actually "true", and if this is known outside of Europe? Does it apply to sociology as well as political science, or only to the latter? Do the EUI students actually get a successful, international academic career after graduation? Does anyone know? Ok, just one more question: What is the age distribution withing the SPS department of EUI?

[slothy]

EUI has a decent reputation in the US - although I can't think of any top sociology departments where I've seen EUI alums on the list of faculty. I think of it as where the top Ivy/Berkeley comparativeists go when they're ready to take an extended vacation. My guess would be that EUI grads tend to stick to the European job market because the institution strikes me as kind of fitting into that whole "Erasmus" / Euro-themed culture (sorry if I can't come up a better definition... I'm having a hard time putting my finger on exactly what I'm getting at here, but my experience at a very internationalized Scandinavian institution was that most of the Europeans were happy to be European with their big fat stipend checks from the European Commission and didn't necessarily aspire to cross the pond).

My instinct would be to direct you stateside if you're thinking you want a US academic career (or probably even a UK academic career). If not, I would still urge you to come to the US if you're thinking of sociology - or really anything other than qualitative comparative politics or theory, but that's just my biases perhaps. Due to language barriers, cultural factors, differing priorities on research, and a host of other factors there are deep divisions between how social science is done (and what type of work is prioritized/valued) in the US and the EU (with the UK as something of a middle ground). And I can of course think of many reasons why one might have a major personal preference for living in Europe - when I was over there I realized how thankful I am to be an American, but I recently talked to an European over here who felt exactly the opposite. I'd be happy to try to answer any more specific questions you have (I try to keep up with the differences between European and American soc and poli sci), although I'll warn you that I've never actually been to EUI so I can't really comment on that institution specifically beyond what I've already said.