collegebound2009

Does anyone know if the political science/government department is good? I of course don't mean good as in the sense that it can be bad at harvard, but in a sense if the program is nationally recognized. I don't have access to the top poltical science programs ranking from US news, not like I trust them anyway. Anyone who is currently in that program is a +. If you could tell me if it is a common major that would be appreciated as well.

twinmom

Gov is a very common major at Harvard.

mathmom

The FAS Handbook for Students: Chapter 3: Fields of Concentration has descriptions of each major and also charts showing how many students are in the major of each of the last several years. You can see that government is quite a popular major. I've always assumed it has a good reputation.

cosar

The Gov department has some amazing faculty, including Stanley Hoffman, Michael Sandel, Stephen Rosen, Robert Bates, Theda Skocpol and Sidney Verba. Here's a link to the faculty list:

Gov Dept Faculty Spring 2008

The course offerings are pretty broad, and the junior seminar program has been particularly successful. Here's a listing of this year's course offerings (the junior seminars are the Gov 90 series):

HERS Output

And Gov department people also have access to resources at the Kennedy School and the Institute of Politics.

However, Gov is a large department and there have been complaints about inadequate advising, lack of personal attention, and the g-d awful sophomore tutorial (now mercifully only one semester instead of two because Harvard now doesn't require students to declare a major until the end of the first semester of sophomore year). The number of Gov concentrators has declined from 236 in the Class of 2008 to 164 in the Class of 2009 to 125 in the Class of 2010, as described in this article in the Crimson:

The Harvard Crimson :: News :: Fewer Students Opting for Gov

The decline in concentrators seems to have woken up the Gov department administration, and they're pledging to address the compaints. Between that and the smaller size of the department, it will probably get better. If it's an area that interests you, the academic resources really are very good. But you might be happier in a smaller, more intimate, concentration if there's one that interests you equally.

collegebound2009

Thank you. I looked up that site; I had no idea that gov't was that common there until I looked at the concentration of other popular majors.