After so many years of effort, you’ve finally received your degree. It feels great, but what are the next steps? “Now what?” you might be thinking to yourself.
In a previous article, I reflected on my own personal journey as a class of 2024 graduate with a bachelor’s degree in English literature. While English may, at times, be a derided degree, my article attempted to dispel these myths and show the versatility of being an English major.
However, in that particular article, I was not able to touch upon that I also graduated with a minor in Political Science. Similarly to English, at times Poli Sci—as it is fondly known as—has a negative reputation.
AU offer both a major and a minor in Political Science, as well as degrees in related fields, such as Political Economy.
In particular, in the Political Science program, students “[a]pply the intellectual, information literacy, and critical thinking skills required to study politics and government, [d]istinguish between the different concepts and methodologies used in political science and its various sub-disciplines, ¨summarize the major issues and debates that have emerged in these sub-disciplines, [a]nalyze the probable causes of political events and the impacts of those events upon subsequent and future political behaviour, especially as concerns conflict, conflict resolution, and conflict management, [e]xplain the roles of states, state structures, individuals and societal institutions in political phenomena, [c]ombine the methodologies and ideas of political science and other social science and humanities disciplines to investigate and explain political phenomena, [and e]valuate different ideas, theories, explanations and predictions about political phenomena on the basis of reason, evidence and analysis.”
Possible careers include “elected official, campaign manager or pollster, public servant, local government administrator, policy analyst, research specialist, lawyer, journalist, public relations specialist, teacher, [and] academic.”
According to AU-specific statistics, the average age of graduates is 31, with an 81% employment rate, a $65,000 median income, and a 95% rate of student satisfaction with the program.
Post-graduation, for myself personally, this minor has helped me to continually critically think about issues and better understand current and historical processes, as well as international power dynamics. In addition, in my current career, which focuses on grammar, it has helped me better analyze the historical processes behind the spread and continued domination of the English language, as well as the nuances and power dynamics behind terminology.
