Students!

[VO #23]

Originally Posted by peter12

Holy ****. Good for you! How tough was it to get into LES?

I'm sort of in the middle of a BA Honours Poli Sci degree at the UofC.

I'm actually quite surprised/happy/scared after my acceptance to the LSE. It is pretty tough to get in - in 2004, there were 1349 applications for 69 spots.

IR is the most competitive program at the school, and is generally regarded as the top non-North American program; I have seen a ranking that places it on par with Johns Hopkins' SAIS, Harvard's Kennedy School, and Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School, and ranked higher than the programs at Yale, Oxford, and Cambridge. LSE itself is a really good school too, it was ranked as the second-best school in the world for social sciences (behind Harvard), and eleventh-overall in the world. Needless to say, I'm very surprised I got accepted, and will likely get my clock cleaned by my classmates next year.

How do you like the UofC program? I took two years at MRC and liked the faculty quite a bit. Are you planning on going to grad school afterwards?

[Go_Flames_3]

Originally Posted by Sainters7

Currently at MacEwan College in Edmonton(Edmonton's version of MRC), and either next January or September 2007 I'll be on to the U. Still undecided whether itll be UofA(because I live here now), UofC(because thats where I was born n raised) or SFU(because I lived in Vancouver the past two years). Goin for my Bachelor of Edu.

Hey if you want to take education you should go to the Uof L (lethbridge), they have one of the best/most recognized ed programs in Canada. Its a pretty good city to go to school in and still pretty close to calgary. And even better it will get you outa oilers country

[Phanuthier]

3rd year Electrical Engineering at the UofA

[MassFlames]

junior at UMass Lowell. english major with a concentration in writing and a sports journalism internship this summer

[SeeGeeWhy]

Originally Posted by VO #23

I'm actually quite surprised/happy/scared after my acceptance to the LSE. It is pretty tough to get in - in 2004, there were 1349 applications for 69 spots.

IR is the most competitive program at the school, and is generally regarded as the top non-North American program; I have seen a ranking that places it on par with Johns Hopkins' SAIS, Harvard's Kennedy School, and Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School, and ranked higher than the programs at Yale, Oxford, and Cambridge. LSE itself is a really good school too, it was ranked as the second-best school in the world for social sciences (behind Harvard), and eleventh-overall in the world. Needless to say, I'm very surprised I got accepted, and will likely get my clock cleaned by my classmates next year.

How do you like the UofC program? I took two years at MRC and liked the faculty quite a bit. Are you planning on going to grad school afterwards?

Congrats on the placement, it sounds like you've had a very long and tough road to take to be where you are going today!

I am curious what sort of work you will be doing when you graduate from the LSE...

[peter12]

Originally Posted by VO #23

I'm actually quite surprised/happy/scared after my acceptance to the LSE. It is pretty tough to get in - in 2004, there were 1349 applications for 69 spots.

IR is the most competitive program at the school, and is generally regarded as the top non-North American program; I have seen a ranking that places it on par with Johns Hopkins' SAIS, Harvard's Kennedy School, and Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School, and ranked higher than the programs at Yale, Oxford, and Cambridge. LSE itself is a really good school too, it was ranked as the second-best school in the world for social sciences (behind Harvard), and eleventh-overall in the world. Needless to say, I'm very surprised I got accepted, and will likely get my clock cleaned by my classmates next year.

How do you like the UofC program? I took two years at MRC and liked the faculty quite a bit. Are you planning on going to grad school afterwards?

I am really enjoying the program here at the UofC. My Honours focus is public policy and Canadian politics, something the department has a fair amount of experience and repute in. Grad school is definitely the plan for me. I managed to get an amazing summer internship and with the reference letter I hopefully recieve it could be one step to going to a top graduate school.

If I could handle it, I would try to get into an American school, but Canadian schools such as Carleton or McGill would be really nice.

[VO #23]

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

Congrats on the placement, it sounds like you've had a very long and tough road to take to be where you are going today!

I am curious what sort of work you will be doing when you graduate from the LSE...

MSc- International Relations is interesting in that it is a professional program which also is the foundation of academic study. In the professional route, a lot of IR grads will work for their home country's Foreign Service, do international affairs journalism, international banking, management consulting, work with NGOs and IGOs, etc. For academia, you can use the MSc program as a stepping stone for a PhD in international relations, history, political science, sociology, and other disciplines. Those that complete a PhD will often either teach at a university or work in policy think-tanks.

As far as what I want to do with my degree, I would like to move into consulting for a few years in order to pay off my loans. But I'd also really enjoy working for an NGO or IGO, especially for a group such as the United Nations. I am also considering the Foreign Service, or possibly attending law school afterwards.

[VO #23]

Originally Posted by peter12

I am really enjoying the program here at the UofC. My Honours focus is public policy and Canadian politics, something the department has a fair amount of experience and repute in. Grad school is definitely the plan for me. I managed to get an amazing summer internship and with the reference letter I hopefully recieve it could be one step to going to a top graduate school.

If I could handle it, I would try to get into an American school, but Canadian schools such as Carleton or McGill would be really nice.

Carleton's Norman Robertson School is an excellent public policy school. I know a guy there and he says that while the workload is crushing (as it is at every grad school), he has learned a lot. If you are considering the U.S., you'll need to have a great application (including GRE scores, which aren't needed in Canada or the UK) and lots of money. Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton fully funds all of its students, and for this reason it is really hard to get accepted. The Fletcher School at Tufts (in Boston), JHU's SAIS, Harvard's KSG, Columbia's SIPA, and Georgetown's SFS are the other top American programs, and they each charge upwards of $25K a year for tuition (often two-year programs, remember).

My advice for grad school apps is to start preparing your application packages well in advance - make sure you know who are going to write your references, what you want to research, etc. Grad programs are really tough at the top Canadian schools; Toronto and McGill generally admit less than 10% of their applicants for MA programs. I would recommend applying at a wide-range of schools as well. For example, one of my friends was accepted to do a Master's in political science at Saskatchewan with significant funding (around $10K if I remember correctly) and another of my friends will be doing her Master's in history at Alberta with about $8K in funding.

Anyways, if you have any other questions about grad schools, please let me know.