Reply to what quantitative skills are needed for social sciences jobs (political science, IR)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DS is a second year college student and recently declared an international relations major (I would not be surprised if he winds up switching to political science because of the IR language requirement, and their true interest is international politics which major doesn't exist at their college).

I'm a lawyer and spouse is an accountant, and we don't have friends in the fields that may spin from these majors (to be honest I'm not even exactly sure which jobs those may be, but I'm trusting that DC will figure it out with help from the college career center). But everything I read and hear is that strong quantitative skills are what even the social science fields are looking for these days. At DC's college, there are very little quantitative requirements to satisfy these majors - I think poli sci and IR eac require one research based class (which is incorporated into a topical class, not even research in of itself as a class), and IR also requires a basic econ class. That's it.

DS is actually strong in math, he just doesn't love it so isn't interest in taking the classes. We're going to encourage him to build strong quantitative skills to make himself in either of these majors more marketable, but neither spouse nor I are sure what to advise. An economics minor is very light in quant based classes. His college doesn't have a statistics minor. I don't think I could ever convince DS to consider a math or comp sci minor (he has very little comp sci skills).

For those of you hiring grads in the IR and poli sci fields (political risk analysts, whatever these jobs are), what do you look for with respect to quant skills in your applicants? Specific majors/minors (if so, which ones), or proficiency in certain coding, or what else :-) Also, can these skills be acquired via taking certain classes you consider "musts" (e.g., econometrics) vs needing certain majors/minors.

Thanks for any advice. We are suggesting DC discuss more with his advisor, but he did when he declared the major and the adviser didn't seem focused on quant skills at all (maybe b/c they were educated at a different time, and are in academic vs professional world?). [/quote]

Your kid is gonna be going up against people who are graduating from programs like this:

https://sfs.georgetown.edu/academics/undergraduate/majors/ipol/

I would suggest your kid to major in econ and NOT polisci

IR/Polisci is not for lower tier school kids

[/quote]

I do appreciate everyone’s candor. I am a little thrown for DS’s sake of statements like these, I admit. DS is at a fine college but not Georgetown level, but wouldn’t he competing for jobs against Georgetown students no matter what his major is? Is your point that IR and poli sci are “soft” majors so where you got the degree matters more versus if he majored in comp sci anywhere? That’s disappointing to hear.

PS - Reading that SFS page, the IR major (whatever they call it) seems very pre-professional there (eg, they learn to write white papers and memos), and it definitely is not at DS’s college.

- OP[/quote]

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