Joint BA/MA in International Relations

JHS
Fri, 13 Mar 2015 14:21:59 +0000

Two close friends of one of my kids did the BA/MA program several years ago. I talked to both of them about it a few times while they were in the middle of it as 4th years, and know something about what they did afterwards.

I don’t think it’s difficult to be accepted to the program, provided you appear up to it academically. I doubt there are any “soft factors” at all, beyond being serious about it and capable of doing the work. This is something you should talk about with your advisor and, more importantly, the DUS in the International Studies program. You ought to do that ASAP, because if you decide to undertake this it will definitely affect your course selection, and you would probably want to know that before finalizing your spring quarter courses.

For my kid’s friends, it was a LOT of work, really a lot of work. It took over their lives as fourth years, and totally took over their curriculum – no fun electives or interesting courses outside IR, and they were glad they had completed the core by the end of their second years. They both found it satisfying and stimulating, but overwhelming at times, and you really have to like doing extended research and writing. I know they essentially had to drop their extracurriculars and big pieces of their social lives. It may be theoretically possible to do this and to complete a double major in something else (like economics), but as a practical matter you probably don’t want to try that.

I’m not certain if I remember correctly, but one or both of them may have needed the summer to complete their theses. They participated in graduation, of course, and were listed as BA/MA recipients, but they may not have gotten their masters degrees until later (which of course means spending all or part of the summer on it).

When they were undergraduates, both of them planned to go to law school within a year or two after graduating, but they have both been working at Washington think tanks for a number of years. One of them spent some time working in England after college, too, and bounced through some short-term internships and project gigs before getting hired permanently.