BA in International Relations

anto475

Anyone here doing it? Is it any good? Any actual jobs that can be gotten from it?

dizzywizlw

anto475 wrote: »

Anyone here doing it? Is it any good? Any actual jobs that can be gotten from it?

It's Okay the subject choice is quite poor unless you like Human Rights and all that liberal namby pampy crap :rolleyes:, not very many employment prospects outside of E.U. institutions and NGOs/INGOs.

Darren1o1

anto475 wrote: »

Anyone here doing it? Is it any good? Any actual jobs that can be gotten from it?

I have had friends completed this degree, from the first class to, and go into management. I know others have hope to going into the diplomatic service and so forth. I hear the class was interesting, but i have no experience in it. DCU has surveys on what previous student have done. Also I would contact the chair of the course and ask them about information pertain to the course content and the end goals/target of employment for grads.

anto475

Darren1o1 wrote: »

I have had friends completed this degree, from the first class to, and go into management. I know others have hope to going into the diplomatic service and so forth. I hear the class was interesting, but i have no experience in it. DCU has surveys on what previous student have done. Also I would contact the chair of the course and ask them about information pertain to the course content and the end goals/target of employment for grads.

i did there on the open day, i just want to get a student's take on it like, a view of the course without all the propaganda the college would put forward, y'know?

dizzywizlw wrote: »

It's Okay the subject choice is quite poor unless you like Human Rights and all that liberal namby pampy crap :rolleyes:, not very many employment prospects outside of E.U. institutions and NGOs/INGOs.

hmmmm ok. what kind of jobs in the EU do you know?

MsDarcy

I'm not doing IR but some of my modules are similar this year like Intro to IR and intro to law. Absolutely loved intro to IR, i had a choice of lots of modules and went along to see what this was like and it took me by great surprise. It's not the easiest course but if the subject matter interests you and you're passionate about it you will leave with I hope a good degree and will spur you on to try get into the field IR like previous posters said with ngo's etc... I know job prospects are important but doing something because you know you'l get a job out of it at the end is the wrong reason to pick a course. If you look at the course on page dcu.ie it will give you a list of all the modules and what they're about for the entire course. If your interested in global politics, human rights, etc then you might like it. Hope this helps

Aftershave

hi I did this course a few years back,
this is my opinion:

In terms of the course content its interesting stuff, the subjects are interesting and they do make you think about the world outside ireland.

The learning is very independant, you have 10 hrs a week but realistically you read and educate yourself, since the course is pretty open if you have an interest in a topic often you can pursue it. The teaching staff are more in a guide role than a teaching role.

The work can be a little intense, as the semester is only 12 weeks and things tend to pile up at the end of each.

Generally the staff are good and easy to approach, since the classes are somewhat small - around 50 people - you can build a relationship to them.

There is not so much political theory so if your interest is plato, I say forget it, also it has very little focus on ireland. alot of people I met their were dying to discuss the FG/FF debate but never got their chance.


On the down side, I dont think the degree as a qualification has much value.
There are alot of people that have just left secondary school and picked IR as it sounded good not because they have a real interest. Alot of the 'daddy feels I need a degree set'.

The attitude of the programme and DCU generally is very soft in that regard. They will find a way for almost everyone to pass. In my time there, alot of peope really did almost no work but got a 2:2 or even 2:1 out of this softness. Ireland is very small so this devalues the degree alot.

Honestly I feel a class of 25 would have bee more than enough.

As for jobs...
Well the IR field is tiny in Ireland, the good jobs are the diplomatic service, army, some NGOs and some other civ service sectors.
All of those are really hard to get into, especially if you dont know somebody,
sadly I feel nepotisim is a big big factor in this area.
With Ireland being bankrupt! all those civ service jobs are gonna be alot harder to come by. For every army place there are 40+ applicants, I know the situation for foreign affairs is even worse.

Second the whole IR field is small so a BA is unlikely to get you very far, MA is kinda the minimum, and thats easily the best part of 8000 euros to acquire, come 3 years from now.

Third without a language your going to find it V.difficult, as EU/UN ect all require at least one in addition to english. French, Chinese, Arabic, German, Spanish are best depending on the institution. In DCUs favour they do offer a language stream.


All in all I know some people that have gained good places with this in the EU, so IR in DCU can be a good start. Alot of their success was sheer luck though. The IR field is not one that readily provides job security or income stability, for that I'd say go do some thing tech based. On the other hand I read lots of interesting things and got to travel a little with it, and when I was younger it was a good place for me.



Hope that helps, feel free to reply

Mahogany

Quick question.

This course is my first choice on my Cao, but because of sheer laziness on my part I most likely won't get into it, I badly wanna do it though. Is there any other way I can get into this course in the future?

Also, is there anyone doing this course that applied for the HEAR scheme? I'd like to know how many points you could get shaved off for you.

Noodleworm

Have you applied for HEAR? isn't the deadline soon.
I know people can get a lot off it, as long as get the required grades. I know someone who got into their course despite being 70 point short for it. They got the grades it asked for though.

Mahogany

Noodleworm wrote: »

Have you applied for HEAR? isn't the deadline soon.
I know people can get a lot off it, as long as get the required grades. I know someone who got into their course despite being 70 point short for it. They got the grades it asked for though.

Yeah, and I'm well under the income limit aswell, is that a major factor?

Mahogany

Anyone?