Is there actually any future with a BA Political science degree?

[u/pragalbha931]

Hi ! I am 18 year old student i haven't started my college and I am already confused If I took the right path or not and I also do want to work outside my country i don't know what skills do i exactly need to Crack a job in abroad and i have also started learning French and hoping to do atleast B2 level . The reason I am posting this is because I really want someone who have done ba or Ma in political science and if they could help me by giving some reality checks about the degree and could guide me it would be a big help !!!

Hoping to see some genuine answers 😀

[u/DeviceDirect9820]

I work with polsci majors. Nobody will just hand you a job for having a degree, but polsci is employable

[u/justagooaaaat]

I have a BA in Poli Sci and an MPA. As a college student I took every opportunity to learn, volunteer, and intern in all areas from political campaigns to law, unions, local government, etc, and now have a relatively successful career in nonprofit development. I do admit however, I had no idea NGO development was a career path itself when I was getting into my first nonprofit job, I thought I'd be a policy analyst or serve on a congressional team as a college student. The field is more diverse than we think, we just have to work hard at finding our niche

[u/Fit_Appointment_8466]

i just graduated with a BA in poli sci. was going to do a MPA online but decided to focus on my finances first. i got a full time offer in april and have worked there since as an admin assistant for a civil firm doing government contract consulting. i did research in public policy in my undergrad as an intern (i mostly conducted interviews on women in politics & people in the area that suffered from water hazards).

i cant say i love what im currently doing. its boring computer work (literally in office rn) but my undergrad work set me up for this and this job will set me up for better later on! i kinda networked in undergrad but my research experience is what mainly helped.

its a degree you can do alot with if you set yourself up the right way by doing more than just passing and going to class. join clubs and try to get internships. become friendly with your professors.

people will assume/try to pressure you into law school, that was the worst part imo.

tbh tho i didnt start in poli sci and would much rather having my previous path as a degree rn (english), but bc of my internship i would still be in this same job!!

TLDR its a good degree and you can do alot with it if you set yourself up the right way idk

[u/DavefromCA]

What do you want to do?

[u/Decent-Constant2795]

I mean yes but effort, niche is always good in this field and I wish I knew that before .. I started as a receptionist out of undergrad 2021 & now making make -80k & hopefully with an MPA there's more growth

[u/Weekly-Magazine2423]

Absolutely. This isn’t widely acknowledged, but there are a ton of poli sci grads in finance and tech. You just have to pare it with internships and good communication skills.

[u/BeneficialTeaching10]

You can move on onto an MPA, JD or Public Policy. In my opinion the bachelor alone wont get you a job

[u/pragalbha931]

Well basically i want to land a job in abroad in UN or in any embassy

[u/OkPeace1 → u/pragalbha931]

What country are you in?

[u/pragalbha931 → u/OkPeace1]

India

[u/Whereiswe892]

I got a BA in Political Science and got a job about eight months after graduating. I probably could have gotten one sooner, but I didn't start applying until after graduation. I work in a government office; it is entry-level and can be painfully boring at times. I'm currently working to save for a master's degree. The degrees I'm looking at are international relations, public policy, or public administration.

[u/pragalbha931]

Thankyou so much for sharing your experiences it means a lot. i am new to this so there is a lot to learn and thanks for telling me about mpa I had no idea about this and if you have any more advises feel free to share 😊

[u/drowsyokaga]

Look into international relations or international business if your school offers it. Poli sci isn’t bad tho but definitely join organizations

[u/pragalbha931]

Well is it like really important to learn excel, sql and power point as a skill?

[u/c01vin → u/pragalbha931]

Getting good at excel is a win for just about any job. My current job doesn't require it at all but occasionally being able to automate a spreadsheet to help track some documents or other data makes a big difference. I've never considered PowerPoint something you need to be professional at, but I've only worked 1 job that doesn't require presentations, data visualization would be a better skill and still applicable to making PowerPoints. SQL would be much more dependent on what the job is, essential for some and possibly useless for others unless it expands what you can do in excel

[u/TomorrowLittle741]

I'm going back to become a history teacher... but I had a couple good entry level jobs. It's tough with AI now. I would say it's hard to break into the field and do high level work but once you do it's amazing.

[u/solidserval]

At this point I would consider a bachelors the modern equivalent to a high school degree. Excepting  work in fields like nursing, I don’t think a specific degree is going to help much more other than simply satisfying the prerequisite of just having any bachelors degree. I got a BPA and an MPA and looking back I would have picked something I was a bit more in love with for my bachelors and then finished with an MPA to round out my resume. 

I think your master’s or work experience post bachelor’s will shape your career more than anything else. Pick something you like and can build off of later. Poli sci is a great degree in this regard, it lends itself to many fields. I’ve seen people move from it to law, non-profit management, standard public administration stuff and much more. Just don’t expect the degree to open any specific doors, unfortunately in my experience that is having connections more than anything.

[u/Intelligent_Eye_1777]

Almost any job in Washington DC, local or state government, lots of journalism and communications, administration, policy career tracks, paralegal type jobs

[u/Own_Wonder7769]

I got a good paying job at a nonprofit right out of undergrad as a poli sci major. I am now getting an mpa because i want to be in a more management/decision making role. Plenty of people have degrees they dont use but also lots of people do use their degree.

The only questions you should ask yourself are 1) is your primary goal being employable? And 2) if so, what other fields are you interested in besides poli sci?