What course will lead directly into a career as a political scientist?

grace.101

I would love to be a political scientist in England (London to be more specific). I'm curious as to what specific course would best suit this aspiration and what further studies might I have to do in England to become qualified? I intend to attend college in Ireland next year. I am currently looking at law and political science in Trinity , is this the most appropriate course to do?

sganyfx

Law and Politics is your best bet, other options
PPES.
BESS to a lesser extent.
Anything else with Political Science in the title...

Mr Pseudonym

What do you mean by "Political Scientist"? If you mean an academic, it'll be essential that you continue your education to PhD level.

If you mean one involved in think tanks, media, etc your route is far less prescribed, and, for that, less knowable!

In truth, the undergraduate course one takes isn't especially important. Politics/History/Economics/Philosophy would all be appropriate. In light of that, I'm not entirely sure why sganyfx believes Law and Politics is "your best bet". No course is noticeably better than another. The points for Law and Pol are greatly inflated because students perceive it as being prestigious; employers are oblivious to that prestige, though! If it were me, I think I'd do History and Politics in TCD. I've no substantial reason for saying that...but, History would seem to me to be a more appropriate discipline for one intending to stay in academia, and the Trinity name possibly still carries a little bit of weight abroad.

With regard to further studies, just make sure you get a First, and all graduate programmes should be open to you!

Grolschevik

As far as I remember, the only way of doing single honours political science is through BESS.

You'll need to do all the stats and research methods courses, and you'll probably need to do a master's, even if you don't want to become an academic political scientist. For the latter, you'll need a PhD, a solid work ethic, luck, and publications from an early stage in your doctoral process.

Mr Pseudonym

Grolschevik wrote: »

As far as I remember, the only way of doing single honours political science is through BESS.

Good point. It's not the case that one cannot graduate with a Single Honours in the other politics courses (PPES, Law/Pol, Pol/Geog, Pol/Hist) - one can elect to specialise in fourth year. But, BESS is the only course that doesn't prescribe that one continue studying both subjects equally until then.

Grolschevik

Yeah, that's what I meant. You can begin to specialise in only politics subjects in second year. Plus, compulsory first year exposure to sociology and economics is useful, too.