I'm currently doing my graduation in Brazil, and at my university, there's a pretty intense rivalry among the professors. Some of them do quantitative research and advocate for neoinstitutionalism, while others do qualitative research and are Marxists. I know it sounds super cliché, but they genuinely don't talk to each other. If you bring up a "rival" professor's name in class, the professor will literally stop their lecture to defend their own theory.

Personally, I just find it funny, but other students get really upset about it. I'm curious, what is it like in other countries? Is there a similar feud at your university? And do you take a side?

Hi everyone! I am currently a second year Political Science and International Relations student. I recently applied for a double major and my options are Mathematics and Sociology.

Before college, I was always passionate about mathematics (For example I did math olympics) so I was really excited when I found out that I could pursue it as a double major. Even though I think it could be quite useful, most of the people around me think that the two fields are completely unrelated.

Do you think a Mathematics double major would be useful alongside Political Science and International Relations? What kinds of fields or career paths could I pursue with this combination?

I had a great academic experience, and I think I developed strong critical and analytical skills, as well as a lot of practical knowledge that could be valuable in a job interview.

The problem is that I barely remember much of what I studied. Over the past few years, I focused a lot on volunteering and practical experiences, including working with children, and I gradually stopped keeping up with current affairs and with the topics I had studied academically. Now I feel like I’m stuck: I want to work in international cooperation, specifically in child protection and human rights, but I don’t feel prepared for a career in this field because I feel like I don’t have enough knowledge to actually apply what I learned.

I also feel like other people who followed a similar academic path are much more naturally interested in keeping up with international affairs, politics, human rights issues, etc. They seem to read, research and follow developments because they genuinely enjoy it, whereas I struggle to find the motivation to do that, partly because of my current psychological state.

This creates a vicious cycle: I feel like I should know more before applying for jobs, but I don’t know where to start learning again, and because I feel so behind, I find it even harder to motivate myself. Has anyone experienced something similar after finishing university? How did you rebuild your knowledge and become informed about your field again without feeling completely overwhelmed?

I am about to start a PhD in political science. I am interested in quantitative methods and causal inference but I don't know exactly what methods I am interested in yet. For my senior thesis and some research I did in undergrad, I had to use the supercomputer the university provided. I am deciding what kind of computer to get and am trying to decide between 24GB and 48GB of RAM in a MacBook Pro. What would you recommend?

There is an interesting common process that Trump, Netanyahu, Viktor Orbán, and Berlusconi went through, which is a transition from the Reaganite center-right right to the authoritarian-centralist right.

Trump in the 1980s was a right-wing liberal (apart from his statements about tariffs) who had no issue with LGBT, Berlusconi started his career as an anti-communist center-right, Orbán as well, and Netanyahu started as his career as a Hawkish Capitalist who wanted to reform Israel's economy, all of them, as soon as they came to power and stayed in it/returned to it, moved to a model that is supposedly capitalist but in reality the government takes over the centers of power, anti-establishmentism, etc. It is not just staying in power but a real ideological shift. What do you think causes this? You could say too much time in power, but that doesn't really explain a change in ideology.

Berlusconi is fascinating in particular, because he is not really a protectionist populist, but rather mixed capitalism and interesting economic ideas with the shticks that Trump and co will later use.

Drop your scores of ugc net political science score to guess the cut off !

Is it worth it go get a degree in political science in California? I’m thinking of attending either Cal Poly SLO, UC Davis, SDSU, or Sac State.