International Development Studies & writing skills

thecheesecake
Wed, 17 Sep 2008 22:54:21 +0000

ok, I am not an IDS major, but after taking a cursory glance at the pre-major and major reqs, I’d say that it doesn’t look all that difficult. But, I don’t think it’s one of those majors where you can get away with having writing skills that barely pass the first level of college English. By that, do you mean like the equivalent of English Comp 3 here? That would be pretty bad, because I’ve known people who’ve gotten A’s in English Comp 3, and their writing was worse than those I’ve read from middle schoolers. But anyway… although the prereqs seem cake, your friend would be looking at the major classes, which comprise of “social and critical theory” courses and “thematic” courses. Those probably involve in depth analyzation and a substantial amount of writing. Your friend may have a harder time than others…

I know for my dept (econ), a lot of the classes are heavy on the quantitative side of things, so there are some people who like it because they can’t write to save their lives.