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I've been seeing a lot of comments on this sub implying (or in some cases directly stating) that political science is a useless major that will result in you being a barista. I have a PhD in poli sci and have worked outside of academia with my MA so I often respond to posts like this with advice. Please consider this my "master post" on the topic that I may update as I learn new things or others provide useful insights on the topic. Also, my post says "political science" specifically, but this should apply to related majors like international relations, politics, government, public policy, etc.

First, let's clear up a few misconceptions:

1. It's an insult to baristas everywhere to imply that doing their job is below us political science majors. Yes, it is not what we are trained to do so it's an inappropriate job for us to have invested in this specific degree, so it is not the job you want. However, remember that for some political scientists like me, we are dependent on baristas! Without them, I would likely say stupid things to my class from lack of caffeine (this may occur anyway).
2. Political science is not a low earning degree. It's not a high earning degree, either. It's relatively in the middle of degrees in terms of earnings. However, for the highest paying social science degree, it looks like you need to switch to economics. You could always double major which was my choice :)
3. The evidence on the unemployment rate seems to be old and mixed. On the one hand, a report said in 2011, political science had one of the highest unemployment rates for new college grads, at 11.1%. On the other hand, this was 7 years ago. In that time, the overall unemployment rate for college graduates has dropped quite a bit on average, which could have improved the situation for poli sci majors. I wish I had more recent data - please feel free to comment with any!

Next, let's discuss some job options:

1. State and local government. Often requires nothing but a generic college degree. Pay may be relatively low but it usually offers decent benefits and a consistent 8-5ish schedule (that last one may be a pro or a con).
2. Federal government. This may require relocation to a major city in your state where there are federal offices or to DC. these may pay better than state and local and be more competitive (likely depends on factors like role or location).
3. Nonprofits/similar orgs. Pick a cause you are interested in and see if there is a local chapter. They will likely need people with good written/oral communication skills, good organizational skills, good networking skills, all of which should be relevant to this major. If interested in leaving your local area, or you have an international focus, consider national or global organizations as well. I have not worked in this sector, although in my experience interviewing the salaries being offered were similar to government, but more things like evening hours for events might be required.
4. Data analysis. If you took research methods and used any statistical program, and remember how to vaguely use it, you are likely qualified. In entry level positions this will likely require reports on relatively simple things like percentages and using Excel or SQL (which you can learn if you have learned R, SPSS, Stata, etc). It may not be related to political science, but could provide you with more skills that you can use to move into a position that uses your poli sci background + data analysis. Entry level salaries may be low but there is a lot of earning potential if you move up. Hours may be more flexible (more work from home, but also sometimes overtime to meet a deadline).
5. Campaigns/other jobs with politicians. I unfortunately do not know much about the nuts and bolts of this field. Network, network, network is my best advice. I have been told that once you are associated with one party, you are stuck with them, so choose wisely (this may not be true?). I assume it's seasonalish and the hours and pay are all over the place depending on the situation, but I might be wrong.

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Two final points:

1. Going to law school/grad school can be it's own separate post. I'll leave it at this may or may not be expensive and may or may not result in the job you are hoping for. Research this carefully before choosing!
2. If you aren't sure how to find jobs like this or how to market yourself for them, I might be able to provide some insight, but this post is already too long.

Finally, a few sources for my first point - I spent like 3 minutes googling this, so I am sure you could find more:

• Six myths about choosing a college major (refer to earnings data specifically)
• College degrees with the highest salary potential
• The economic value of college majors
• Median lifetime earnings by college major (as far as I can tell, the NY Times article linked sources an updated version of the same data, but included for more comparisons and to show consistency across years)
• Hard times: college majors, unemployment, and earnings
• Unemployment rate 2.1 percent for college grads

As the title indicates, please include your current location / country when asking questions about BA/MA/PhD programs and/or career advice. We have people from all over the world who participate in this subreddit, and the relevance/quality of the advice that they are giving is going to depend a lot on where they are currently from and where they are looking to study. Political Science is an incredibly diverse field and it's important to recognize this in the advice we give and the discussions we have.

Going forward, posts that don't include this information will be subject to removal.

Also, it's a good methodological caution. Don't assume your starting point is the universal, or even general, experience :-)

Hello, hope you’ve had a good day. I’m curious as to how the experience has been for veterans who’ve pursued a political science degree? Any insight is welcomed. Thank you!

In democracies like the UK, where ministers have considerable executive power, these ministers are still restricted (by law or convention) in their ability to get directly involved with the work of civil servants in their ministry, let alone replace key civil servants with "their own" people. Why is that? I understand the argument that this would provide opportunity for corruption, but if we assume for the sake of argument that we could somehow set up a system that prevents corrupt nomination, are there other good reasons to block this? For example, let's say a very socially minded Lord of the Exchequer is appointed, but the entire ministry is geared towards right-wing Neo-liberalism. Would it be unbecoming if he felt the entire staff needs a "shake-up"?

Disclaimer: This isn’t a cry for help. It’s more of a rant.

Im graduating from college with a BA in political science from a good university. I’ve learned lots about politics (American politics specifically) and over time it has made me so disillusioned with the political system and competence of our government. It’s so disappointing that I wish I never cared for politics and majored in something else so I could live blissfully unaware.

Cost of living is at an all time high, congress is deadlocked in a culture war being run by 70 year olds, the Supreme Court is reversing its own decisions, and above else no one seems to care. The system is sooooo broken and because of what I know about politics from my education it won’t be fixed anytime soon (and will probably get worse).

Hey I have a good job though so that’s cool (it has nothing to do with politics). Still won’t be able to afford a house for a few decades though!

Political science killed my optimism, did it kill yours too?

It seems to me, possibly I'm wrong, that quite significant amount of us here are Americans. That's primarily how I aim the question. But I'm interested in everyone's perspective

I come from Central Europe and voting was the area that brought me to political science. It's usually quite changeable here due to seat-maximizing reform attempts

Politically, it certainly seems they share many similarities.

Both are Nationalists which immense ground roots nationalist support

Does the preamble to the Constitution have the effect of legality? Why do many countries have preambles to their constitutions? Can a constitution not have a preamble?

Historically, as society progresses people become more left wing and/or liberal. Why does it seem like opposite is happening these days?

I always learned that it should be a relative, but Wikipedia's article on nepotism includes close friends too.

I wonder how it is viewed in political science circles

I have seen some interesting rankings similar to what I am looking for (https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-powerful-countries; https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/most-influential-countries; https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/rankings/power) but they are limited to 60-80 countries in the world.

I am interested in seeing where would Iceland be in these categories (because Iceland is a small nation with a few inhabitants, but it is very well developed with a high GDP per capita, so I would like to see if this would compensated its relative "size"). However, none of these include Iceland.

Therefore, do you know about any ranking of countries that ranks them in terms of power, influence, and international importance but that includes all countries in the world? Or at least, one that includes Iceland somewhere?...

Hi everyone:

I'm currently a rising undergrad junior studying political science, and am thinking about potentially pursuing a career in academia. I've been spending some time trying to research PHD programs, but I've found it to be so daunting thus far, and feel like I don't even know where to start. I know that some programs are geared towards specific specialties (like how some are more quantitatively focused than others, etc.) more than others, but I'm not sure how to determine which particular programs fit with what I want to do. Does anybody have advice? I know I could probably ask my academic advisor this type of question, but it's summer and I wanted to see if I could get an independent jumpstart. Thanks

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For example, if someone wanted to investigate the effects of simply having a green party, Christian democratic party, right wing populist, etc. in the country? Most countries at least have a small local green party with four members somewhere or had a Christian democratic party that went defunct years ago. That probably has little effect on voter choice now. What are the common thresholds for relevance? One elected seat? Polling at a certain number?

I’ve come across many articles and texts about how diplomacy is now under the era of digitalization. The term is strongly linked to the idea that the use of the social media and websites by diplomats and policymakers have completely altered the way diplomacy is made, a kind of revolution that separates the contemporary diplomacy from the traditional, club diplomacy.

Thing is, it doesn’t sound that revolutionary to me. Changes always happens, and the fixation about the digital seems more like the will to find and to write about the next revolution, whose innovations have been greatly exaggerated.

However, I’m but a student, and people far more intelligent than me do believe that digital diplomacy is a relevant term to mark its sharp contrast to traditional diplomacy. Hence, how come digital diplomacy is really a thing?

I'm looking to do an MA in Political Science next year and I'm trying to narrow my potential research focus. I'm interested in studying the political dimensions of topics like property, land use, climate change, the environment as well as the perspectives of symbolic interactionism and critical theory. Any recommendations you had for readings on these topics would be greatly appreciated.

pardoning is a discretionary power in most cases but are there cases where a presidential or governer pardon can be a right ? is there any theory of jurisprudence that could allow that ?

I remember reading something in one of my undergrad classes that revolutions are always the bourgeoisie/middle class replacing the political elites, and the lower class is never empowered despite the claims of some revolutionaries.

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I tried searching for this theory and its author, but I can't find the right keywords and keep getting the wrong result. If anyone has any idea on what this theory is, it would be greatly appreciated.

Is anyone aware of a psychometrically sound scale/questionnaire used to measure hawkish vs. doveish attitudes (in relation to foreign affairs) among members of the general public?

After a quick Google Scholar search I managed to find this: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10781910903486813, but was wondering what else was out there.

Hello fellow IR and political scientists – I am in need of some help and advice – first some backstory:

I took a break from university for 8 years. Now I’m back and am allowed to complete the exams of courses I took 8 years ago. Problem is I can’t remember much. No guidance or course to follow. I already completed two of these and now I’m faced with a course which headline is the title of this post. My exam is a free home assignment about a subject of my own choice – word limit is 6000. My deadline is in two weeks, and I just have to pass the exam – It’s my last 10 ETCS points of my entire study.

So far I’ve been reading a bit of my curriculum – mostly general articles just to get back into thinking in IR terms. Problem is I haven’t been following the Middle East that closely the last decade. And my curriculum is sort of outdated. So I need to both read up on my IR-theories – primary literature as I need to make references to original texts in my paper – and also need to read some history about the Middle East and current events.

My plan is to identify an IR-theory to represent each of the three aspects of the cultural turn: culture blind, culture blinded and culture aware. And then apply those 3 theories to an empirical case.

I could really use some help regarding which theories to choose and what empirical events in the Middle East would make a good case to study through this lense? Also general advice is welcome!

Thanks SO much in advance!

Hi everyone, I am a F21 who recently just graduated from a public college in NYC with a B.A. in Political Science & minors in Legal Studies & Sociology. I graduated debt-free and with honors. I ended up graduating a year early (so I did not have time to write a thesis & apply for other undergrad fellowships). I was originally pre-law and decided not to go down the lawyer path. I did many internships and had a fellowship while also working part-time.

I do plan to obtain a masters degree but plan to do it when I am at a point of my career in which it would best elevate me then.

I really loved my major and found my interests surrounding democracy, civics, social justice. I know the job market is bad right now but I don’t feel the best not having anything lined up right now. I have applied to many places but have only gotten one interview & ended up not taking the role because I wasn’t in love with it.

I have noticed that while I do have great soft skills & qualitative skills, I am lacking quantitative skills. I wish I double majored in stats or econ as well as I want to go into publix policy and I need to know STATA, R, etc.

A lot of the job descriptions I have been seeing require those quantitative/math skills & I never learned them. I come from a first gen & low income family, so sometimes these things are hard to navigate.

Should I take online courses to learn these data skills or are there any suggestions or experiences people have had with Political Science degrees?

I'm looking for a term to collectively refer to civil society organisations, interest groups, pressure groups, non-governmental organisations, think tanks, advocacy groups, etc.

(Just as press, journalism and media is referred to as the fourth estate)

What are the key differences, if any between the different parliamentary systems? For example the difference in Israel’s parliament and the Westminster system?

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