What do IR majors end up doing?

[Anonymous]

I have a kid who is interested but it seems like a very popular path of study with very limited career options. But perhaps I’m thinking too much in the DC mind set where these careers are literally disappearing and were highly competitive in the best of political times. Tell me about your IR major career paths! Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Political campaigns, law school, patent litigation: the classic IR path.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Political campaigns, law school, patent litigation: the classic IR path.

As a patent litigator, you need to pass the patent bar (yes, that is required for BOTH patent litigator and patent attorney/agent). To pass the patent bar, you need a stem major. So, no, IR major can't work as patent litigator.

[Anonymous]

Curious also!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Curious also!

+1

[Anonymous]

My daughter went to St Andrews. Joint Honors in IR and History.
Got a job at MBB after school in London. Transferred to the US in yr 3. She just graduated from HBS and is moving back to London to work at a consulting startup providing mgmt consulting and international political strategy to other startups with a global presence.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think your mindset is wrong. It’s a difficult environment right now and the State/USAID/other agency international program issues mean less ability to absorb new grads and other knock on effects. For example, development contractors have gotten crushed in the last six months.

Probably the two caveats are i) four years from now (or more, with grad school) the environment may be different and ii) lots of kids study IR and end up in non-IR related jobs like finance and consulting. But if your kid wants something closely related to their major it isn’t great.

[Anonymous]

Right now it’s a dead end. Really sad but the unfortunate reality in DC currently. Everyone who was going for an IR type job is scrambling for anything related and making those jobs impossible as well. My Ds is an IR and policy major and he does not have a FT job yet. (Grad in May). He’s interning in the Hill. He’s been fortunate to get some interviews and everyone has said they had over 1000 resumes. It’s really tough right now. That being said, in four years should be much different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter went to St Andrews. Joint Honors in IR and History.
Got a job at MBB after school in London. Transferred to the US in yr 3. She just graduated from HBS and is moving back to London to work at a consulting startup providing mgmt consulting and international political strategy to other startups with a global presence.

Oh, So Now It’s Harvard Business School? You Posted Before That She Was Going To Attend Harvard Law

[Anonymous]

I was an IR major in the 90s at UVA.

Ask your kid what they like about it. Is it the travel aspect? The politics? The way counties interact? The history?

There are similar majors: history, geography, political science, languages, etc.

Knowing what interests your kid about it will help you understand where they might need to pivot for other jobs.

But yes it is a typical law school, federal government or think tank job path.

For me it taught me to write well, understand the history and politics of other countries, and those have been great for the job I have now with a global Fortune 500. I went back and got a statistics masters 20 years ago to get into my current field of data analysis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Political campaigns, law school, patent litigation: the classic IR path.

As a patent litigator, you need to pass the patent bar (yes, that is required for BOTH patent litigator and patent attorney/agent). To pass the patent bar, you need a stem major. So, no, IR major can't work as patent litigator.

+1 You need a science background for this to work. Every patent attorney I know has a science undergrad degree, and many a science graduate degree,?in addition to a law degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter went to St Andrews. Joint Honors in IR and History.
Got a job at MBB after school in London. Transferred to the US in yr 3. She just graduated from HBS and is moving back to London to work at a consulting startup providing mgmt consulting and international political strategy to other startups with a global presence.

Oh, So Now It’s Harvard Business School? You Posted Before That She Was Going To Attend Harvard Law

I never posted before….what are you talking about?

My daughter graduated from St Andrews in 2019….I have no clue what you are talking about….and neither does you.

[Anonymous]

IR is a great field. But if you are graduating now or in the near future it might be a tough proposition if you want to be involved in Gov work. But IR is much more than gov work.

If your kid is starting now, 4 from now will be a different universe. I have no doubt that those with this skill set will be in demand in the post extreme populism environment that we find ourselves worldwide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter went to St Andrews. Joint Honors in IR and History.
Got a job at MBB after school in London. Transferred to the US in yr 3. She just graduated from HBS and is moving back to London to work at a consulting startup providing mgmt consulting and international political strategy to other startups with a global presence.

Oh, So Now It’s Harvard Business School? You Posted Before That She Was Going To Attend Harvard Law

I dont know this person. These personal attacks are ridiculous and detracts from the subject at hand.

[Anonymous]

Getting fired from the State Department.