Learning how to make a difference
The political science major at Principia goes beyond "politics as usual." According to one professor, "Political science is a modes-of-thinking major. Students practice legal reasoning, theoretical and philosophical analysis, qualitative and historical study." A junior with a double major in political science and sociology has combined his interests to study the political system of the United States "to find a way that I can effect change and better understand how governmental policies work, as they affect sociological issues."

Citizenship 101
A senior says that she sees "the direct relationship between political science and being a good citizen. It teaches you to be aware, to have informed views on current issues, to see how interrelated all of the global issues are." A professor adds, "Our objective is to break through the negativity many people feel toward politics, because governance is an absolutely necessary part of life. It's the rule making by which we live. We try to address citizenship, to encourage students to be active, involved, informed. . . . Politics is fun because it's the way that decisions and policies get made."

International and domestic issues covered
"There's a good international focus at Prin," observed a student concerning courses she's taken in European politics and politics of developing nations. "I think having a lot of international students here helps too, because they bring insight that sometimes even the professors don't have." Another senior says she enjoyed the focus on video teleconferencing in a contemporary European politics class. "Every Friday we would do a sort of "Europe Week in Review" where we'd each be responsibile for a country and would have to produce a 30-minute video about that country's politics. It really kept us up to date, and we had to be prepared to interact with 'representatives' of the other countries." One professor teaches a course on Chinese politics and then takes students for an extensive tour in China, where they study the culture and the political process. Another professor did the same combination of studies in Vietnam, including a detailed analysis of United States relations with Vietnam before, during, and after the Vietnam War.

Communication skills and research capacity
"The Political Science Department," says a senior, "was the best at teaching me how to think, how to process ideas and be a great public speaker through presenting papers and making effective speeches." A recent graduate who is now a research associate for the Institute for Policy Analysis in Boston recalls that he learned to "write papers effectively" in a course in American politics, in which he had to write two papers a week. "You quickly learn what is essential in these papers. You lose the fear of writing paper after paper. Now when I am presented with the task of writing an analytical paper, this fear doesn't exist. I just plot a course mentally and charge ahead without getting bogged down." One senior tells of a poli sci professor who regularly asked for each student's opinion on a political issue. "He forced us to go through our train of thought and come up with a reasoned opinion. It was a question of accountability." A professor notes the accessibility of information on campus. "We're using the Internet broadly. I pull stuff off the Net about NATO every day." And students can do the same.

Practical and professional applications
One graduate, while still a student, arranged an independent-study course at the United States embassy in Zambia and stayed on to help with an election-monitoring team headed by former President Carter. A junior was sent by the Political Science Department to a political affairs conference on the post-cold war world at the Air Force Academy in Colorado. "It was a real-life situation — political theory on a real practical learning base — something that will be immediately usable when I finish school." This student also went with a political science professor to a professional meeting in Chicago and was impressed that everyone appeared to know the professor. A senior presented two papers at conferences — a popular culture conference in Philadelphia and a conference focusing on the '60s. More recently she participated in a student-run political conference at Texas A&M.

Making a career of it
"I've been able to get to a level at work that is usually reserved for older, more experienced journalists, and because of my writing skills I've been able to survive. Political scientists look for trends and broad developments and that's exactly what I'm doing right now in editing," says a 1994 poli sci graduate who is now an editor at the national desk of The Christian Science Monitor. Another recent graduate who had studied at the universities of Washington and Wyoming before transferring to Principia says, "Having that one-on-one time with the professors really piqued my interest, and I saw that I might have a career in the political realm." He moved straight to Washington, D.C., upon graduation, to work as press secretary to the a senator of a western state. "It's just been a great progression, from being at Principia to being an assistant press secretary, to a press secretary for a congressional campaign, and now press secretary for a governor."