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Either go to the UNIVERSITY for this for at least a masters degree or two of them and even a PhD, or donate about $300,000. (or lots more) to a successful presidential candidate.That said: Careers in International AffairsWe are often asked about the employment prospects of student who major in International Relations. We take their questions regarding career planning very seriously.While a degree in International Relations does not lead to a specific career in the way that, accounting or engineering does, a major in International Relations, by emphasizing clarity in speech and writing, analytical skills and a detailed knowledge of world politics prepares students for careers in government, journalism, law, non-governmental organizations, international business, and teaching and research. Recent IR graduates currently work in all of these fields. Some have gone directly into careers upon graduating; others have enrolled in graduate school prior to employment.This web page describes some of these positions, how best to prepare for them, and the special opportunities available to do so at Lehigh. For further career guidance, do not be afraid to ask questions of the faculty and other professionals such as the people at Career Services. The International Relations Commons Room (Maginnes Hall 203) has many additional sources of information.Foreign ServiceThe best-known international career is undoubtedly diplomacy. The lead institution here is the Foreign Service of the United States. This group of approximately 8,000 people staffs American embassies abroad and the State Department and the United States Information Agency in Washington. The Foreign Service offers an attractive career, but the selection process is extremely rigorous. Of the approximately 12,000 people who took the exam a few years ago, only about 200 were selected. The examination is interesting and free, so anyone interested should certainly take it, but realistically your chances of being selected are very slim indeed. The Foreign Service has been concerned about minority recruitment over the past few years, and such applications are particularly encouraged.Entrance is by examination; there are no formal educational requirements. The first stage is a written exam given once a year which takes all day and uses the format of the SATs and other exams from the Educational Testing Service. Those who receive the required minimum grade are invited to participate in the second stage, which is a series of simulations and exercises with other candidates. The whole process takes about a year so you need to plan to get a job or go to school in the meantime.The first stage stresses knowledge of American history and culture as well as International Relations or foreign countries. Many people think this is odd, but Foreign Service officers represent the United States and will often work with foreigners who have spent a lot of time studying this country; they must know their own history and culture very well indeed. If you are particularly interested in the Foreign Service, make sure you are knowledgeable about American history, literature, government, and economics. Environmental and scientific expertise are increasingly useful as well. Foreign language competence is required, although not necessarily at entry; nonetheless it makes sense to achieve competency before the exams.Other Government AgenciesThe bulk of people working in international affairs in Washington work for agencies other than the State Department. Unfortunately there is no single recruiting device such as the Foreign Service exam for these organizations. The larges employment opportunities are the Defense Department (both military and civilian) and the intelligence organizations, particularly the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency. Information about military careers can be obtained from the ROTC groups on campus. Civilians hired by the Defense Department tend to be people with particular specialties; advanced degrees are usually required. Given the informal hiring process, actual job experience, which in practice means internships, is very important.Intelligence careers can be divided into analysts (people who work with secret material trying to decide its significance) and clandestine operators. Anyone interested in such positions should look at the book Careers in Secret Intelligence by David Atlee Phillips, a former CIA officer; David Wise's "Campus Recruiting and the CIA," New York Times Magazine, June 8, 1986 is also useful. The Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency both hire junior-level career people on the basis of exams. Contact each agency separately to see what their current needs and procedures are. They also hire many people with particular skills for analysis, usually with advanced degrees. They seem to be particularly interested in exotic languages, geographic area specializations, economics, political science, international relations, mathematics, computer science, engineering, and physical science. Again internships are particularly useful here.The Agency for International Development (AID) administers American foreign aid and has a fairly large staff. In general it seems to recruit people with technical training in areas like economics or agriculture. Their relationship with the State Department changes with each reorganization; if you are interested, contact them directly. Smaller organizations include the Export-Import Bank and the Office of the Special Trade Representative.Many "domestic" executive agencies have international activities or offices; these are often small, but sometimes they offer interesting opportunities. Commerce, for example, is concerned with foreign trade, Agriculture with farm exports, Justice with international legal issues, etc.The number of people on Congressional staffs concerned with international affairs has greatly increased in the past few years. There is no single recruiting process for such jobs; people are selected on the basis of contacts, past experience, and educational qualifications, roughly in that order. Internships are crucial for anyone interested in these sorts of positions.United NationsThe United Nations, located in New York City, is a fascinating place to work, and it has lots of employees. Jobs on its permanent staff are allocated on the basis of national quotas, since it is clearly inappropriate to have most jobs held by citizens of one of its members, and therefore it is difficult for American citizens to get hired.Private Sector: WashingtonThere are a large number of private research groups (often known as the Beltway Bandits, from their location on the Beltway highway around Washington and their dependence on government contracts) and pressure groups of every political stripe in Washington with interests in foreign affairs. Hiring is informal, so internships are important for anyone interested.Private Sector: International BusinessMultinational corporations play a prominent role in current international affairs. Most Americans tend to think in terms of working abroad for an American corporation, but in fact there may well be better opportunities working in the U. S., either for an American or perhaps even a foreign firm (of course, that may not be what you think of as an international job).American corporations used to send significant numbers of Americans abroad, where they were often something of a trial. They were expensive, had a high failure rate (sometimes as high as 50%), did not want to stay long, did not know the language, and often alienated foreigners. Moreover, the corporations did not know how to use the people with international experience when they got back and often essentially punished them for going abroad. Thus most corporations moved to develop indigenous managers (Norwegians to run Exxon Norway, Nigerians for the Coca Cola branch in Nigeria, etc.) and to reduce the role of Americans abroad.Recently there has been something of a reaction against this trend, although different corporations have different policies. The number of Americans being sent abroad is certainly smaller than it used to be; better selection and training has reduced the failure rate. People with particular technical skills are often sent abroad. In addition, many companies are re-developing international assignments for their fast-track managers because of the importance of foreign markets. It is unlikely that an employee will be sent abroad by a large American company unless they fall into one of these two categories.The other side of the coin, of course, is that foreign companies doing business in the U. S. hire many Americans. Moreover, an increasing percentage of American corporations do business abroad, so much "normal business" in the U. S. involves international issues. In general, if students want to go into business, they need a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) degree from the best business school they can get into; this degree and some alternatives are discussed later. If interested in working for a foreign company, knowledge of its language and culture can be invaluable, but it is no substitute for business training. Nobody is going to hire an individual just because they know the appropriate language; they have to also think the candidate will raise their profits.Among businesses, international banks have been the most willing to hire people without business degrees; they expect to have to train employees regardless of their background. Another alternative is analyzing the political risks of investments in particular countries. There are some jobs here within corporations and at consulting firms; however, relatively few people have been hired, and it is not clear that they will be able to move up to other jobs within the organization.Private Sector: Non-ProfitThere are literally hundreds of private, volunteer organizations which work in international affairs; they are so important that they have been awarded the ultimate distinction of their own acronym, PVOs. Some of the PVOs are religious in origin; others are entirely secular. Some are quite large, others are minuscule. They share a lack of direct government control and general concern for humanitarian issues. Prominent examples include Crossroads Africa, Oxfam, Catholic Relief Services, and Maryknoll. The American government administers some foreign aid through some of these agencies, and they have been prominent in such issues as famine relief in Africa. The PVOs overlap somewhat with private advocacy organizations such as Amnesty International. Many of these organizations employ small permanent staffs; recruitment is often based on previous performance as a volunteer. Salaries are low, but many people find the work extremely rewarding.University Teaching and ResearchAmerican universities serve, among other things, as repositories for international expertise. Faculty work within departments, usually organized around the major disciplines such as economics, political science, and history. Their job consists of teaching (communicating skills and knowledge to students) and research (creating new knowledge and communicating it to others). University faculty usually have a great deal of freedom in selecting what they will research and teach, enabling them to develop specialized knowledge in a wide variety of areas.For the past fifteen years or so, university teaching jobs have been quite scarce, making it hard to encourage undergraduates to aim toward such careers; however, there may be increased demand for college teachers as the next baby boom reaches college age and a large number of current college faculty retire. (Some recent research suggests that there will be less change in political science than in other disciplines.) Therefore, college teaching has become a more reasonable career choice for current undergraduates. The only relevant degree for college teaching is the Ph.D. In this.cas2., students should attend the best university they can get accepted to. (See also the discussion of political science graduate programs below).InternshipsInternships are a critical supplement to any sort of educational background to get interesting jobs in international affairs. Because of the informal hiring processes, personal contacts are indispensable. Most students do not have close relatives high up in these organizations; internships are the next best thing. Internships give students direct experience in job situations. Students learn for themselves whether they like this sort of work and what is required to make a career in it. Often they get direct job offers. If not, they make personal contacts and get recommendations from job supervisors; if nothing else, they have something on their record which distinguishes them from the thousands of other people who will graduate with B.A. degrees from state universities at the same time.Two general rules of internships: anything is better than nothing, and the longer the better. Summer internships are the most common, and if that is what is available, take it; however, students should be aware of some limitations of summer internships. Summer internships are limited to summer months, which are short in time frame. Moreover, summer interns are so common that they are often used by offices as clerical labor, people to run xerox machines, address envelopes, etc. Many students use the experience for socializing, which is fine but detracts from the image of those with more serious interests. Lastly, so many students take summer internships now that employers are less impressed than previously.International Experience: Study, Work, and the Peace CorpsInternships in Washington are extremely useful, but they are not the same as experience abroad, and such experience can be very valuable in getting jobs; however, there are several options to consider. Students can spend a semester abroad studying in practically any country they choose. It is also possible to work abroad, although this is sometimes difficult because of local laws: volunteer service is often a better bet. Information on these options is available at the Office of International Education, Career Services, and the Study Abroad Office.After college, the Peace Corps is an option worth seriously considering. The Peace Corps is an agency of the U.S. government which sends Americans abroad, usually for two years to Third World countries, to help the people of other countries toward economic and social development. Volunteers often work on their own in rigorous physical conditions. Aside from living abroad, Peace Corps people get independent management experience at a very early age. As a result, Peace Corps experience is highly valued by employers hiring for international jobs.Alternate Educational TracksThere is no single educational path to international jobs; in fact, it is quite common for people in the same position to have very different sorts of educational backgrounds. Moreover, there are many people in interesting jobs with only B.A. degrees (and sometimes without them). Either graduate education or experience (preferably both) is usually essential to gaining access to these positions.Law SchoolMany very senior people in international affairs are lawyers, but law school is probably not the most efficient way to start a career in international affairs. Law school is three years of a curriculum which is mostly irrelevant to international relations. It is difficult to get into good law schools, and there is usually no financial aid except for loans. The current surplus of lawyers means that law school graduates are now having serious trouble getting jobs. It is true that students may be able to get an interesting non-legal job with a law degree, since employers figure they must be reasonably intelligent if they have survived law school, but there are other alternatives. If students want to be a lawyer, go to law school. If they do not, they should think seriously about the alternatives.There is a good deal of confusion about international law as a career. It is convenient to divide international law into public and private. Public international law is concerned with whether or not the behavior of governments corresponds with international law, whether the American invasion of Panama was legal, for example. This is what the term international law means to most people, but there are very few institutions which will pay people to do such analysis. The State Department keeps about eighty lawyers on staff for this purpose, but most of the other people in the field teach in universities (probably as many in political science departments as in law schools).Most international lawyers are concerned with private international law, how individuals and corporations can carry on transactions within different and sometimes conflicting legal systems. If a tanker registered in Liberia and owned by a company in the Bahamas carrying a load of oil owned by an American corporation hits a Russian submarine and dumps its oil onto Belgian beaches, who pays what to whom? Private international law is popular because people and organizations will pay money to get answers to these sorts of questions. This kind of work, in turn, sometimes leads to other things; international lawyers often serve as representatives for multinational corporations to the public and governments, a kind of business diplomatic corps. Nonetheless, international law is a fairly minor branch of law, and this is reflected in law school curricula; if students take two international law courses in three years, they will be doing well. (The University of Iowa seems to be an exception; it is advertising a more extensive program in international and comparative law.)Law school is the best alternative for anyone who wants to practice private international law, but students must remember that they must be a lawyer first and an international lawyer second. If they want to study public international law, students may actually do better in a Ph.D. program in political science specializing in international law, although there are very few places in the U.S. where this is a serious alternative; their career will presumably involve working in a university as a teacher-researcher, either in political science or, less likely, in law school.There is no pre-law curriculum in the United States; essentially law schools will take students regardless of their major if their grade point average and law board scores are high enough. Inasmuch as curriculum makes a difference, they prefer students with broad interests in the liberal arts and tend to frown on pre-professional degrees. In particular they recommend that students do not take law courses before they get to law school, arguing (probably correctly) that other institutions will just teach them incorrectly and that they will have to undo all the damage others have caused. However, anyone interested in law school should take one course which requires intensive reading of cases, just to see if they can tolerate it for three years, since that is what they will do in law school.Graduate Business SchoolsLaw school is often attractive to students who want to get an "interesting" job but do not want to be lawyers. For such students business school is often a better bet. It takes two rather than three years, it is a little easier to get into a good one (being female helps in business school admissions; law schools admissions are mostly sex-blind), and there are still jobs for new MBA graduates (although for several years there have been rumblings that this market also will be saturated). The jobs are not limited to corporations either; American business schools claim to teach management, the coordination of people and resources to accomplish a given goal, which is what all large organizations try to do. As a result, government and even non-profit institutions are hiring business school graduates for jobs which, twenty years ago, would probably have gone to lawyers. Most people now assume that MBA graduates, like lawyers, are intelligent, and as a bonus they may even have some useful skills.Unlike law schools, most business schools have a separate department called International Business; however, these departments are not usually highly regarded within their own schools, in part because they do not rely heavily on econometrics and are therefore thought to be "soft." Moreover, there are very few jobs for new MBAs with International Business majors. As explained above, very few young Americans are now sent abroad by corporations. Therefore students must get hired by the corporation for their substantive skills and later try to develop a special interest in the international side of things. The recommended strategy is to take a double major in a substantive area (marketing, finance, management, etc.) and International Business.Among the "regular" business schools, the best by reputation are Harvard and Stanford; New York University has been cited as the best in international business, and Yale's School of Organization and Management is an interesting attempt to combine training in business and public affairs. There are also a couple of programs especially geared to students interested in international business. The American Graduate School of International Business, just outside of Phoenix, more familiarly known as Thunderbird, is the only major business school in the country not affiliated with a university, and it has developed an impressive reputation for training high quality personnel in international business. The University of South Carolina business school has developed a program which requires a foreign business internship. Both of these programs stress language competence. Their reputation also attracts recruiters looking for people with these sorts of interests. They offer a Masters degree, which is not an MBA, which is usually a drawback. Outside of these programs, an advanced business degree that is not an MBA is not worth much.For many undergraduates, the major drawback of graduate business school is its heavy reliance on economics and mathematics. Anyone interested in business school should take microeconomics and macroeconomics (the order does not matter) and several advanced economics courses to see how well they do and whether or not they are comfortable with that mode of analysis. An economics major is not necessary for graduate business school, and an undergraduate business degree is usually not recommended. Note that graduate business schools have their own standardized test, the Graduate Management Admissions Test.Political Science Graduate ProgramsEvery major American university has a political science graduate program awarding a Ph.D. degree, and international relations is a field within almost all these departments. The departments also award a Masters of Arts degree, but this is not particularly useful. The Ph.D. requires two to three years of coursework, followed by comprehensive examinations and a thesis, which usually takes another year or two full-time; obviously the time will be longer if students have to go part-time because of limited resources.The Ph.D. degree is basically a research degree. It is essential for anyone who wants to teach at a college or university, and it is often found among researchers and analysts working for the government as well. On the other hand, the degree is given in political science; students can concentrate in international relations, but are required to take courses and examinations in other fields such as American government and political theory as well. Moreover, it takes longer to get than any other option discussed here, and it is not clear that it is worth the extra effort and money unless you are going into college teaching. One group of Foreign Service examiners, when asked how useful graduate school would be, said that the two to three years of coursework would be useful, but that the candidate would do better spending a couple of years in the Foreign Service than working on a doctoral dissertation. Several programs retraining people with Ph.D. degrees to go into business have been fairly successful, but this is a pretty roundabout way to get into business; if that is the desire, try for graduate business school.A major in political science is not required for admission to graduate programs in the discipline, but students should take at least enough courses to decide if they want to do this full-time for a long time; the biggest difference between graduate and undergraduate work is that they must live one subject twenty-four hours a day. Admission is usually based on grade point average, Graduate Record Examination (yet another standardized test) scores, and faculty recommendations. In general the best departments are found in the leading universities. If students want more specific guidance, talk to international relations faculty; this is one subject they know something about, and they will be current on the varying reputations of political science programs around the country.International Affairs SchoolsAs noted above, every major American university awards the Ph.D. degree in political science. A few universities also have schools or programs offering a two-year interdisciplinary Masters degree in international affairs or (discussed in the next section) in public policy or public management. The distinction between a graduate program in political science on the one hand and a school of international affairs (or public policy or management) on the other hand is sharp. Graduate programs in political science are designed to provide academic training: the required coursework and research are aimed at preparing students to become professors of political science. International affairs schools, by contrast, provide professional training. Much as law schools teach their students the practical knowledge needed for a career in law, and business schools teach their students the practical knowledge required for a career in business, schools of international affairs aim to teach the management, communications, economics, statistics, and foreign language skills needed in a professional career involving international affairs. The precise name of the degree offered by these schools varies from place to place: Master's of Public Policy, Master's of Public Affairs, Master's of Public and International Affairs, Master's of International Affairs, and so forth.Originally, some of these schools were designed to produce candidates for the Foreign Service. Since so few applicants are accepted into the Foreign Service and since admission is now by examination, these schools have altered their focus and now try to prepare students to work for other government agencies and for international businesses as well.In general, the curricula at these schools stress international politics, history, and economics. There are; however, substantial differences in emphasis between various schools of international affairs. Some put relatively more stress on management skills and economic and statistical training, seeking to train generalists who can comfortably move into a variety of jobs or fields. Others put relatively more stress on language or area skills, or on specialized training in a particular policy problem (for example, international trade or arms control), in an effort to prepare students for a more narrowly-defined career track. In addition, different schools offer different geographic or policy specializations. If considering this educational route, students should write to particular schools for their catalogs and compare the curricula offered.These schools take placement seriously, an important point to consider. Typically they require (and help arrange) an appropriate internship in the summer between the two years of the program. The older and better established schools also have a considerable alumni network upon which to call. If interested in working for the government in international affairs, one of these schools may be the best bet. To varying degrees these schools also provide training that is useful (and is seen by potential employers as useful) in the business world, particularly in the world of international banking and finance. Certainly many graduates of international affairs schools get jobs with major corporations. It is less clear; however, whether this training is optimal for a business career and whether or not graduates of international affairs schools may have to go back to business school later on.There are relatively few schools of international affairs. All of them are competitive for admission and the best are extremely competitive. Increasingly, the top schools strongly prefer admission candidates who have already had some relevant career experience -- for example, who have worked in Washington for a few years, have been in the Peace Corps, or have worked with an international charity or PVO. Financial aid varies substantially from school to school typically and is based on merit rather than need. Presently, the most prestigious of these schools are the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton and the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard, both of which stress management and do not specialize exclusively in international affairs but consider domestic concerns as well. Other top, very competitive programs include the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University; the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University; the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University; the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University; the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California at San Diego; and the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh. Somewhere in here is the International Relations Program at Yale, which is much smaller than the others and allows students essentially to custom tailor their educations. The international affairs schools at the University of Maryland, George Washington University, The University of Southern California, the University of Denver, the University of Kentucky, and American University, as well as a new program at Georgia Tech., are somewhat easier to gain admission into. Many of these schools also offer combined international affairs/law degrees with selected law schools; admission to combined programs requires separate admission to both the school of international affairs and the law school.Public Policy SchoolsIn addition to the schools of international relations discussed immediately above, there are a number of other schools that are very similar except that they do not have a clear international relations focus. That is, they offer professional training in public policy or policy management designed to prepare students for a career in government or dealing with government but do not offer as much specialization in the particular problems of international affairs. As with the schools of international affairs discussed above, many of these are highly competitive and, again, there are curricular variations between schools so students should read their catalogs carefully. Like the international affairs schools, the Master's programs at these schools are typically two years long with an internship in the intervening summer. These schools, too, tend to take placement very seriously. If interested in a career in government and interested in domestic policy issues as well as international ones, this may be the right educational track.Beyond the schools of international affairs discussed above, some of the most prestigious schools of public policy include: the Institute of Policy and Public Affairs, Duke University; the Institute of Public Policy Studies, University of Michigan; the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota; the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, and the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas.Preparing for Careers while at LehighUnlike medical school, none of these different types of schools has a very specific set of undergraduate requirements. In fact students can quite reasonably apply to all of them at the same time with the same set of undergraduate courses, although they will wind up taking many of different standardized tests. This in turn means that students do not have to make any drastic choices until their senior year. For any of these tracks, a general liberal arts background is an adequate preparation. A pre-professional degree such as business may make a students somewhat less attractive but will not be a major obstacle if they do well on their standardized tests.Within liberal arts, majors are not really very important. Students should major in the subject they like the most because they will do better in it and learn more. The critical thing is to get experience in a number of different areas and be able to read, write, and think well. A student seriously interested in international relations should develop a curriculum which includes the following as a minimum: (1) proficiency in writing English by consistently taking courses that require paper writing; (2) mathematical skills, preferably through calculus; (3) introductory and advanced history courses; (4) relevant courses in international relations and political science; (5) economics at least through international economics (which will include micro and macro), preferably through international trade and finance; and (6) mastery of at least one foreign language, through 300 level language and literature courses.The point of a major is to provide an intellectual focus for a number of courses. At most universities, students interested in international relations find that difficult to achieve. They must piece together the courses they want by majoring in one discipline and minoring in a related one; political science-history and economics-political science are common combinations. Or they may choose a program that provides an in-depth knowledge of a particular geographic area, such as Russian, Asian, or Latin American Studies. In general a diverse curriculum is more likely to be useful in the future than narrow specialization; students can specialize later if they so choose, but at the undergraduate level it is very difficult to get any single topic in great depth. Disciplines like sociology, geography, comparative literature, classics, art history, philosophy, religion, and the various foreign language and literatures should not be overlooked, and people who are competent in science and international affairs are also at a premium.Lehigh students have an option available to students at few other universities, a separate Department of International Relations. This offers several advantages over a program of study that combines a major in one department with a variety of other courses pulled together from different departments. First, students are not required to take courses outside of international relations to fulfill major requirements, such as those in American politics that usually comprise half the curriculum in political science. Second, all the courses relate to one another better than when courses are taken from different departments, each of which is principally oriented toward its program. Third, the depth and range of courses in international relations offerred by Lehigh's Department of International Relations are considerably greater than in most universities.For further career guidance, do not be afraid to ask questions of the faculty and other professionals such as the people at Career Services. The International Relations Commons Room (Maginnes Hall 203) has many additional sources of information.Suggestions For Further ReadingGuide to Careers in World Affairs. Foreign Policy Association, New York.Kocher, Eric, International Jobs: Where They Are and How to Get Them . Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.Phillips, David Atlee, Careers in Secret Intelligence.Rossman, Marlene L., The International Businesswoman . Greenwood Press.Volunteer! The Comprehensive Guide to Voluntary Service Abroad . Council on International Educational Exchange, New York.Win, David, International Careers. Williamson Publishing Company.Wise, David, "Campus Recruiting and the CIA," New York Times Magazine , June 8, 1986.Work, Study, Travel Abroad: The Whole World Handbook . Council on International Educational Exchange, New York)

Q. Is the Teachers College at Columbia University a good school?Yelp: an unorthodox rating of Teachers College - Columbia University from the students’ perspective, near unanimous voicing of disappointment and major problems. Unexpected for such a storied and renown institution, with distinguished alumni.Followed by two more conventional rankings/general info.Ranking: TCCU #7.Teachers College, Columbia UniversityColleges & Universities525 W 120th StNew York, NY 10027Phone number: (212) 678-3000Business website: tc.columbia.eduRecommended Reviews Teachers College - Columbia University.Dan T. New York, NY 1/2/2010 Listed in Awwww yeah: The Heights, Schools “Excellent educationally but much to improve--facilities/etc. should align with tuition to alleviate the faculty and student disillusionment for the cost of the education and services rendered.”Mike O. Brooklyn, NY 3/29/2014 One of the oldest and best ed schools in the country. Faculty are great. Students are bright and hardworking. Spent a year and a half here getting my M.A. as a Literacy Specialist and had a great, unforgettable experience.L L. New York, NY 8/7/2014 I know Yelp is not the greatest place to rate a school, but I have to say that I was totally disappointed by TC. First of all, if you just want Columbia on your degree paper, go for it, because TC is probably one of the easiest (and maybe the cheapest) ways to achieve this.Now I will talk about why I was disappointed. One of the common things people complain about is the faculty-student ratio. It's true. It matters because your advisor won't have that much time to try to guide you and even listen to you! It depends on people of course, but at least mine literally told me she didn't have time (during her office hours!!) to help me choose classes. Faculty-student ratio also matters because it is very hard to have in-depth discussions in a classroom with more than 50 people who are just trying to say something to show they are "participating".Their career services are also inadequate, and especially poor when it comes to international students who are already a large community at the school. No one even keeps a record of which employers would hire international students, because "it is not required by the US government". Since when an Ivy League school does not offer anything more than what is required by the US government?The quality of the peers is questionable. I am not sure how much the admissions threshold has been lowered within the last few years. All I know is that I got to see fewer and fewer people that are really competent. What bothered me the most is that some of its programs (including mine) are not academically rigorous at all. I've known people who pretty much didn't do anything in a term-long group project and could easily get an A. I've known people who copied other people's homework and could easily pass. Sometimes the professors might not have known what was going on, but sometimes they knew and they didn't care.Again, different people come out of TC with totally different experiences. I had those bad ones because I happened to meet certain people, happened to work with certain people, and happened to take certain classes. However, I am definitely not the only person who felt much disappointed. Talk to as many current students or recent grads as you can before deciding to attend TC, get an insight of where TC is heading towards, think thoroughly what you want and see what and how TC can provide, otherwise you will regret spending your time and money there.Craig B. Philadelphia PA 10/1/2011 Just spend a week at Teacher's College and you'll have a decent handle on what's wrong with education in this country. Here you are smack in the center of the Hogwarts for teachers, but it's really just an opportunity to hand over A LOT of money to get Columbia University listed on your resume. It should be criminal because these are teachers that we are talking about. At least if Teachers College actually imparted something useful that can be used to improve the quality of education in this country, but this is just a pure money grab.- Most of your classes have a minimum of 30+ students. Some have more than 50. Go look on the TC web site to see the number of students enrolled in classes under "Class Schedule". This is hardly graduate education. You're just being given articles to read and papers to write. Little to no class discussion. In graduate school, you should expect classes that have a max of 15.- Most of what you get from these articles is pretty basic and things that you will learn after you have taught for about two years. In two years no one is going to care that you went to Columbia; they are going to care what type of teacher you are, and you won't get that at TC.A good number of classes are taught by graduate students and adjuncts, in some programs more than half. It's something of a bait and switch because you think that your classes, especially required classes, will be taught by faculty, but really they aren't. Do the math. At about $4,000 per class, TC takes in about $150,000 for some classes and pays the adjunct maybe $4,000 to teach it. For example, here is Professor Joanna Williams trying to claim that she teaches a class in Educational Psychology when, in fact, she never teaches a class in Educational Psychology: tc.columbia.edu/academic…In fact here she even says "I teach a master's-level course in educational psychology" (1:52) when, again, a grad student or adjunct teaches the class. It's just deceptive. The administration knows about this. They are too busy counting your money to care. tc.columbia.edu/hud/inde…Faculty+Interviews- If you do get a class with an actual professor, it's pretty much read to you from the same yellowed paper that the professor has used for decades. Not a lot of adaptation or creativity goes into the programs.- Also do the math: you are charged for three credit hours, but most classes only meet for for about two hours.- TC accepts a massive number of students for the MA programs and herds them through. You will not have a problem being accepted because pretty much every application is accepted. This is to help pay for the PhD students. But many of the PhD students can't get work.One of the few respected programs, and one actually with any real rigor, is Organizational Leadership. Yet TC is one of the most dysfunctional bureaucratic environments that you'll find yourself in. Try dealing with the registrar, paying a bill, or getting your e-mail set up. People refer you to someone else and that person will refer you back to the first person. I was in one class that had a janitorial closet in the back and janitors would walk in and through the classroom during class time with ladders and other pieces of heavy equipment. In one case I applied for and was granted an extension by the registrar. Then later the registrar came back and said that I had an issue because I had no extension. I showed the registrar her own letter, signed by her, that clearly stated the extension and the terms of the extension, and that still wasn't enough. She said that she needed to meet with a special committee. This is very common. Most students can tell you a story like this.In the end TC graduates teachers who are burdened under a massive amount of debt. Try to pay that off on a teachers salary. I'm sure some of the students believe that they got a decent education, but they don't really have something impressive to compare their TC experience to. They think that TC is normal. Hope that they don't emulate it in their own classrooms.I've written all of this because supporting teachers is very important, and two months after you start classes at TC this is what you are going to wish that someone had told you when you were looking at graduate programs.If gold will rust, what will iron do?Erin M. Manhattan, NY 3/14/2011 Wow. I realize it has a good reputation, but honestly, it shouldn't. This is by far the worst school I've ever attended. Overpriced. Zero support from faculty or the administration. In fact, not only will they not help you, but they will build roadblocks to prevent you from accomplishing what you need to do. Poor classes, most of which are taught by graduate students. Some of the graduate students are fine, but why am I paying so much for my fellow students to teach me? Getting my doctorate there managed to make me less marketable, and to make it even harder to find a job. Well, all in all, it was a horrible experience and I will never recommend it to anyone.Zuleika R. Clifton, NJ 12/14/2016 Way overpriced for the quality of education it provides. Will take forever to process things (fasfa, petsa video,etc). You never get a reply back from emails. Also, majority of PhD grad students teach MA students rather than real professors. You get all of this for a huge amount of debt. In my opinion, it will take your whole life to pay the debt of teachers college if u become a teacher. Nowadays jobs are very scarce and tough to get. So make a wise decision. My friend got in here with a 3.1 GPA so it's not competitive.Lindsay S. New York, NY 11/23/201425 check-ins Not amused by my program.Teachers College Columbia University leverages the RingCentral cloud communications platformMarina S. Staten Island, NY 10/6/2014 Expensive, but it's a private school in the US, just like any other. The PhD students got a lot of attention from a few professors, which was very noticeable to us, the MA students. Sometimes we felt a bit ignored. I give as much as 3/5, because I got a Master's degree and that helped me get a job which I couldn't get without it.The professors are very knowledgeable, on the most part. We had a problem only with one instructor who hadn't even had a Master's Degree and was teaching a lab course strictly from slides with no additional information. (We know how to use basic Word and Excel. but we spent a few weeks worth of classes reading slides about it).In general, I learned a lot and I really enjoyed the course work. My concentration was in Motor Learning and Control (Bio Behavioral Sciences). I also met many wonderful people who were in the same or in related MA and PhD programs.I just would have liked it more if we (MA students) got a bit more attention from the few important professors in the program.Katya R. New York, NY 6/30/2013 I did an orientation as was considering a Master's there.The teacher to student ratios are quite large and from all my research this is far from a rigorous program.It seems like a veritable diploma mill where the basis for the transaction is very expensive classes in return for a Columbia branded resume (with not what one would expect at a master's level in between). If you fail out of this program, it is because you never showed up for class or the tests, ever.The very high acceptance rate supports this. Columbia has turned a very needed program into a cash cow. This model has been playing out in many of the MS level classes at TC and at the university at large.This is the Harvard Extension School (being very, very kind here to Columbia by even offering that associative reference) equivalent in a teaching program.Buyer beware, and do your own due diligence before you apply (since the above is more or less common knowledge).Tiffany C. Manhattan, NY 12/1/2011 Updated review The school is great! With all the money they have they should be able to remodel the place a little. I love the vintage look, but some of the classrooms need to be re-done. the programs here are great and so are the professors. I wish it cost less money to go there, but i guess you have to pay for a good education. The area around is nice, definitely one of the quieter places in the city.Sam W. Hoboken, NJ 4/21/2012 Want an Ivy League degree barely worth the paper it's printed on? Then TC is for you.This place is an utter racket of criminally high tuition, mediocre to laughable instruction, flimsy joke degrees that will ensure our national education system is staffed by dim layabouts for a long time to come.I can't wait for the National Council on Teacher Quality to drill TC into the ground this fall.Tanya L. Boston, MA 4/10/2011 I really want to rate my graduate school higher. I am grateful the education graduate school of Columbia University admitted me with just a 3.3 undergraduate GPA and gave me the opportunity to get a Master's degree here.I am really appreciative I got a small minority scholarship for working on the academic journal, CICE (Current Issues in Comparative Education) at Teachers College. I would try and get my doctorate here, but the school does not fully fund doctoral students sadly.However, I thought the academic advising system was particularly bad in the department of International and Transcultural studies, as it is TC's policy to pair you up with a professor as your advisor. My former professor could care less about advising me. When she agreed to advise my thesis over the summer, she later flaked out on me when I got an impersonal, mass email from the department head mentioning that she was leaving to take another job in DC. My advisor couldn't even take 10 minutes to write a personal adieu to her advisees, or to say goodbye? Absolutely pathetic.Fortunately, this negative advisory experience was counteracted by a Teachers College faculty member who took me on last minute to help me graduate in 1 year time. In addition, I had several professors that were very good at teaching: Terosky and Hatch come to mind as great.However, I am disheartened by the school itself, because it doesn't seem to value hiring it's own alumni. I would love to work for TC, but I have not been one of the chosen ones. There are non-alumni working in its alumni affairs office and career services offices, and although I'm sure they do an decent jobs, there are alumni out there like me that would give our left arm to work for our alma mater and are not given interviews.Teachers College library itself is absolutely gorgeous: 3 floors of plush chairs and pretty wood desks. I found Teachers College to have enjoyable areas of study. The bookstore employees were always helpful, too.Another qualm I have is the career services center attitude that because I have a Columbia University degree that I will find full-time work soon. Au contraire: being Ivy League in this economy doesn't necessarily mean anything. You cannot advise Teachers College alumni to have hope through reliance on being affiliated with a well respected school. Furthermore, the alumni database the career center touts needs to be built up A LOT more because it is barely searchable as is.Diandra D. Pelham, NY 5/31/2011 I had the BEST time in graduate school ... to the point where I wish elementary, middle, high school and college could have been similar. I love the professors here. The buildings are clean, the classrooms well lit and ventilated. The surrounding neighborhood is perfect for students to let off steam or grab a drink after a grueling day of studying or attending lectures.I was fortunate to receive two strategically located student teacher placements, as well as an on-campus job, which made my intensive year program at TC manageable and enjoyable.My classmates and I typically didn't finish our last class until 10 pm (classes didn't start until 5 because all of us student taught during the day). Nonetheless, professors were always available to talk or answer questions whenever (and I do mean WHENEVER) we had them.We would frequently go to West End (before it became Havana Central- RIP) for drinks and food and stumble home discussing how we could use Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences to determine what alcohol said about our respective personalities. The good 'ol days ...I've gone back to the UWS sporadically to visit with some professors (one was even a guest at my wedding) and see the neighborhood, but truthfully, I'm due for another visit very soon.Elizabeth N. Irvine, CA 2/23/2013 The professors are great and so are the students! The Library and Thorndike are the newer or remodel places in comparison to Thompson, Grace Dodge, HM, and more that need some remodeling. I also love the dinning hall that seems so classic and fancy for a University cafeteria.A B. Boston, MA 6/26/2010 I LOVE TC. I know I am spending WAY too much money here and my loans are adding up, but I am getting a degree that will get me any job in the future (well not 'any' but, within reason). I think if you want to be just a regular education teacher you should not go here because of the expense. But if you are looking for a more specialized degree (special ed, ABA, speech pathology, etc) then this is a GREAT place to go.Paul W. Stamford, CT 3/20/2007 Since no teacher's college can teach a prospective teacher how to teach, either don't teach or find a less expensive way to get the same PC drivel elsewhere. Otherwise, great place to live, and lots of perks in the neighborhood. We lived for four years and I did two masters.Ashley D. Paris, France 4/22/2009 TC is expensive. The education programs are excellent from what I've heard. The psychology departments are good, but the large enrollment of the M.A. programs lend a "degree mill" sense I don't care for. Organizational psychology gets the best bang for the buck - I'm not sure the M.A. in clinical psych would be worth the price. I attend at a discount, but I would consider the cost (as well as living in NYC) very carefully before coming. That being said, I really enjoy my particular program (M.A. Organizational Psychology) and am very happy I have come.About TCABOUT TCACADEMICSADMISSION & AIDSTUDENTSFACULTY & RESEARCHAbout TC At a GlanceAbout TCTimelineA Legacy of InnovatorsDiversity & CommunityOffices and AdministrationOur Students, at a GlanceThere are 5023 students enrolled at Teachers College. Approximately 77 percent are women, and among US Citizens, 13.3 percent are African American, 14.6 percent are Asian American, 13.5 percent are Hispanic / Latino/a, and 3.5 percent have identified with two or more ethnicities. The student body is composed of 20.2 percent international students from eighty-four different countries and nearly 80 percent domestic students from all fifty states and the District of Columbia.College Profile 2016-2017Total enrollment: 5023New Degree Students: 17621398 Fall Enrollment364 Summer EnrollmentDegree LevelMasters: 3624 / 72.2%Doctoral: 1302 / 25.9%Non-degree: 97 / 1.9%StudentsFull-time: 1484 / 29.5%Part time: 3539 / 70.5%Gender Diversity of Matriculated StudentsFemale: 3868 / 77%Male: 1105 / 22%No Answer: 50 / 1%Among Domestic Students Only (Excludes International, Other and Unknown)African-American: 516 / 13.3%Asian-American: 564 / 14.6%Latino/a: 522 / 13.5%Native American: 7 / 0.2%Two or More: 134 / 3.5%Caucasian: 2121 / 54.9%Other & Unknonwn: 143 / 2.9%Among International Students Only (Excludes Other and Unknown)International students: 1016 / 20.2%Africa: 15 / 1.5%Asia: 780 / 76.8%Canada: 46 / 4.5%Europe: 57 / 5.6%Latin America & Caribbean: 82 / 8.1%Middle East & North Africa: 36 / 3.5%Median Student Age30 yearsTeachers College, Columbia UniversityGrad SchoolAll Graduate School RankingsOverviewEducation Admissions Academics Ranking Student Body Cost Teacher PreparationScienceSocial Sciences & HumanitiesHealthU.S. News Education School CompassExpanded School ProfilesAverage GRE ScoresCertification Statistics#7 Best Education Schools2017 Quick StatsAddress525 W. 120th StreetNew York, NY 10027Students1,713 enrolled (full-time)3,207 enrolled (part-time)Tuition$1,454 per credit (full-time)$1,454 per credit (part-time)Education School OverviewThe education school at Teachers College, Columbia University has a rolling application deadline. The application fee for the education program at Teachers College, Columbia University is $65. Its tuition is full-time: $1,454 per credit and part-time: $1,454 per credit. The Teachers College, Columbia University graduate education program has 150 full-time faculty on staff with a 4.6:1 ratio of full-time equivalent doctoral students to full-time faculty.Programs and Specialties#2 Tie Curriculum and Instruction#5 Education Policy#6 Educational Administration and Supervision, in Educational Psychology#2 Elementary Teacher Education, in Higher Education Administration#6 Secondary Teacher Education, in Special EducationAdmissionsApplication deadline rollingApplication fee $65Director of Admissions David EstrellaTOEFL and/or IELTS required for international studentsAcademicsFull-time faculty (tenured or tenure-track) 150Student-faculty ratio 4.6:1Degree programs offeredPrograms/courses offered inStudent BodyTotal enrollment (full-time) 1,713Gender distribution (full-time) Male (23.1%) Female (76.9%)CostTuition full-time: $1,454 per credit part-time: $1,454 per creditRequired fees $856 per yearTeacher PreparationStudents who took an assessment to become a certified or licensed teacher during 2014-2015 216Education School Overview details based on 2015 dataAlumniMuhammad Fadhel al-Jamali, Prime Minister of Iraq (17 September 1953 – 29 April 1954)Charles Alston (1931), artistHafizullah Amin, President of AfghanistanNahas Gideon Angula (MA, EdM), Prime Minister of NamibiaMary Antin (1902), author of the immigrant experienceMichael Apple, professor of Educational Policy Studies, University of WisconsinWilliam Ayers, elementary education theorist, founder of Weather Underground, and professor at University of Illinois, ChicagoSarah Bavly, nutrition education pioneer in IsraelAbby Barry Bergman, science educator, author, school administratorJohn Seiler Brubacher, educational philosopher; professor at YaleDonald Byrd, jazz and fusion trumpet player; music educatorBetty Castor, politician and President of the University of South FloridaChiang Menglin President, Peking University, Minister of Education, Republic of ChinaShirley Chisholm, first African American woman elected to Congress, and former US Presidential candidateNorman Cousins, editor, peace activistElla Cara Deloria (1915), Yankton Sioux ethnologistEdward C. Elliott, educational researcher and president of Purdue UniversityAlbert Ellis, cognitive behavioral therapistEdward Fitzpatrick, president of Mount Mary College and noted expert on conscription during World War I and World War IIClarence Gaines (M.A. 1950), Hall of Fame basketball coach, Winston-Salem State UniversityGordon Gee (Ed.D. 1972), President of Ohio State UniversityTsuruko Haraguchi (Ph.D. 1912), psychologistAndy Holt (Ph.D. 1937), president of University of TennesseeSeymour Itzkoff, Professor Emeritus of Education and Child Study, Smith CollegeGeorge Ivany (M.A. 1962), President of the University of SaskatchewanThomas Kean (M.A. 1963), former Governor of New JerseyMaude Kerns (M.A. 1906), pioneering abstract artist and teacher[32]H. S. S. Lawrence (M.A. 1950, Ed.D. 1950), Indian educationistLee Huan, former Minister of Education and Premier of the Republic of ChinaMosei Lin (Ph.D. 1929), Taiwanese academic and educator; first Taiwanese to receive a Ph.D. degreeJohn C. McAdams, associate professor of political science at Marquette UniversityAgnes Martin (B.A. 1942), artistRollo May, existential psychologistChester Earl Merrow, educator, U.S. Representative from New HampshireRichard P. Mills, former Commissioner of Education for both Vermont and New York StatesJerome T. Murphy, Dean Emeritus at the Harvard Graduate School of EducationGeorgia O'Keeffe, American artistThomas S. Popkewitz (M.A. 1964), professor of Curriculum Theory at the University of Wisconsin-MadisonNeil Postman (M.A. 1955, Ed.D. 1958), cultural criticCaroline Pratt (educator), progressive educator, founder of City and Country School (Bachelor of Pedagogy, 1894)Thomas Granville Pullen Jr. President University of Baltimore, Maryland State Superintendent of EducationRobert Bruce Raup (Ph.D. 1926), Professor Emeritus, Philosophy of Education, and critic of the American Education systemHenrietta Rodman (1904), teacher, feminist activistCarl Rogers (M.A. 1928, Ph.D. 1931), psychologistMartha E. Rogers (M.A. in public health nursing 1945), nursing theorist, creator of Science of unitary human beingsMiriam Roth, Israeli writer and scholar of children's books, kindergarten teacher, and educatorAdolph Rupp, Hall of Fame basketball coach, University of KentuckyWilliam Schuman (B.S. 1935, M.A. 1937), composer, former president of the Juilliard School of Music and of Lincoln Center for the Performing ArtsJames Monroe Smith, president of Louisiana State University, 1930–1939Karl Struss (B.A. 1912), photographer and cinematographer; pioneer in 3D filmsBobby Susser (M.A. 1987), children's songwriter, record producer, performerTao Xingzhi, Chinese educator and political activistEdward Thorndike, psychologistRobert L. Thorndike (M.A. 1932, Ph.D. 1935), psychologistMerryl Tisch, educator, Chancellor, New York State Board of RegentsMinnie Vautrin, (M.A. 1919), educator and missionary.Ruth Westheimer (Ed.D. 1970), sex therapistFloyd Wilcox (M.A. 1920), third president of Shimer CollegeJohn Davis Williams, Chancellor of the University of Mississippi (1946 to 1968)Zhang Boling (1917), Founder and president, National Nankai University, Tianjin, ChinaBest Education SchoolsRanked in 2016 | Best Education Schools Rankings MethodologyA teacher must first be a student, and graduate education program rankings can help you find the right classroom. With the U.S. News rankings of the top education schools, narrow your search by location, tuition, school size and test scores.Rank School name Tuition Total enrollment#1 Stanford University Stanford, CA $45,729 per year (FT) 373#2 Tie Harvard University Cambridge, MA $43,280 per year (FT) 891#2 Tie Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD $1,000 per credit (FT) 2,161#4 University of Wisconsin—​Madison Madison, WI$11,870 per year (in-state, FT); $25,197 per year (out-of-state, FT) 1,030#5 Vanderbilt University (Peabody) Nashville, TN $1,818 per credit (FT) 908#6 University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA $47,364 per year (FT) 1,140#7 Teachers College, Columbia University New York, NY $1,454 per credit (FT) 4,920#8 Tie Northwestern University Evanston, IL $48,624 per year (FT) 318#8 Tie University of Washington Seattle, WA$16,536 per year (in-state, FT); $29,742 per year (out-of-state, FT) 938#10 University of Texas—​Austin Austin, TX $8,402 per year (in-state, FT); $16,338 per year (out-of-state, FT) 1,025#11 University of California—​Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA$11,220 per year (in-state, FT); $26,322 per year (out-of-state, FT) 686#12 Tie University of Michigan—​Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI$21,040 per year (in-state, FT); $42,530 per year (out-of-state,FT) 524#12 Tie University of Oregon Eugene, OR$16,032 per year (in-state, FT); $22,752 per year (out-of-state,FT) 592#14 Arizona State University Phoenix, AZ$10,610 per year (in-state,FT); $27,086 per year (out-of-state,FT) 2,627#15 Tie Michigan State University East Lansing, MI$705 per credit (in-state, FT); $1,353 per credit (out-of-state, FT) 1,862#15 Tie New York University (Steinhardt) New York, NY $36,912 per year (FT) 3,117#15 Tie University of Kansas Lawrence, KS$378 per credit (in-state, FT); $881 per credit (out-of-state, FT) 1,209#18 Tie Ohio State University Columbus, OH$11,560 per year (in-state, FT); $31,032 per year (out-of-state, FT) 989#18 Tie University of California—​Berkeley Berkeley, CA$11,220 per year (in-state, FT); $26,322 per credit (out-of-state, FT) 343#20 University of Minnesota—​Twin Cities Minneapolis, MN$15,844 per year (in-state, full-time); $24,508 per year (out-of-state, full-time) 1,861#21 Tie University of Southern California (Rossier) Los Angeles, CA$1,666 per credit (full-time) 1,866#21 Tie University of Virginia (Curry) Charlottesville, VA$14,856 per year (in-state, FT); $24,288 per year (out-of-state, FT) 937#23 Tie Boston College (Lynch) Chestnut Hill, MA $1,310 per credit (FT) 793#23 Tie University of Illinois—​Urbana-​Champaign Champaign, IL$12,060 per year (in-state, FT); $26,058 per year (out-of-state, FT) 792#25 University of California—​Irvine Irvine, CA$11,220 per year (in-state, FT); $26,322 per year (out-of-state, FT) 274

Not necessarily! There are major cities all over the country with representatives of the international NGO’s, not to mention all over the world! You must think creatively, to succeed in this or any job.Careers in International AffairsWhile a degree in International Relations does not lead to a specific career in the way that, accounting or engineering does, a major in International Relations, by emphasizing clarity in speech and writing, analytical skills and a detailed knowledge of world politics prepares students for careers in government, journalism, law, non-governmental organizations, international business, and teaching and research. Recent IR graduates currently work in all of these fields. Some have gone directly into careers upon graduating; others have enrolled in graduate school prior to employment.This describes some of these positions, how best to prepare for them.Foreign ServiceThe best-known international career is undoubtedly diplomacy. The lead institution here is the Foreign Service of the United States. This group of approximately 8,000 people staffs American embassies abroad and the State Department and the United States Information Agency in Washington. The Foreign Service offers an attractive career, but the selection process is extremely rigorous. Of the approximately 12,000 people who took the exam a few years ago, only about 200 were selected. The examination is interesting and free, so anyone interested should certainly take it, but realistically your chances of being selected are very slim indeed. The Foreign Service has been concerned about minority recruitment over the past few years, and such applications are particularly encouraged.Entrance is by examination; there are no formal educational requirements. The first stage is a written exam given once a year which takes all day and uses the format of the SATs and other exams from the Educational Testing Service. Those who receive the required minimum grade are invited to participate in the second stage, which is a series of simulations and exercises with other candidates. The whole process takes about a year so you need to plan to get a job or go to school in the meantime.The first stage stresses knowledge of American history and culture as well as International Relations or foreign countries. Many people think this is odd, but Foreign Service officers represent the United States and will often work with foreigners who have spent a lot of time studying this country; they must know their own history and culture very well indeed. If you are particularly interested in the Foreign Service, make sure you are knowledgeable about American history, literature, government, and economics. Environmental and scientific expertise are increasingly useful as well. Foreign language competence is required, although not necessarily at entry; nonetheless it makes sense to achieve competency before the exams.Other Government AgenciesThe bulk of people working in international affairs in Washington work for agencies other than the State Department. Unfortunately there is no single recruiting device such as the Foreign Service exam for these organizations. The larges employment opportunities are the Defense Department (both military and civilian) and the intelligence organizations, particularly the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency. Information about military careers can be obtained from the ROTC groups on campus. Civilians hired by the Defense Department tend to be people with particular specialties; advanced degrees are usually required. Given the informal hiring process, actual job experience, which in practice means internships, is very important.Intelligence careers can be divided into analysts (people who work with secret material trying to decide its significance) and clandestine operators. Anyone interested in such positions should look at the book Careers in Secret Intelligence by David Atlee Phillips, a former CIA officer; David Wise's "Campus Recruiting and the CIA," New York Times Magazine, June 8, 1986 is also useful. The Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency both hire junior-level career people on the basis of exams. Contact each agency separately to see what their current needs and procedures are. They also hire many people with particular skills for analysis, usually with advanced degrees. They seem to be particularly interested in exotic languages, geographic area specializations, economics, political science, international relations, mathematics, computer science, engineering, and physical science. Again internships are particularly useful here.The Agency for International Development (AID) administers American foreign aid and has a fairly large staff. In general it seems to recruit people with technical training in areas like economics or agriculture. Their relationship with the State Department changes with each reorganization; if you are interested, contact them directly. Smaller organizations include the Export-Import Bank and the Office of the Special Trade Representative.Many "domestic" executive agencies have international activities or offices; these are often small, but sometimes they offer interesting opportunities. Commerce, for example, is concerned with foreign trade, Agriculture with farm exports, Justice with international legal issues, etc.The number of people on Congressional staffs concerned with international affairs has greatly increased in the past few years. There is no single recruiting process for such jobs; people are selected on the basis of contacts, past experience, and educational qualifications, roughly in that order. Internships are crucial for anyone interested in these sorts of positions.United NationsThe United Nations, located in New York City, is a fascinating place to work, and it has lots of employees. Jobs on its permanent staff are allocated on the basis of national quotas, since it is clearly inappropriate to have most jobs held by citizens of one of its members, and therefore it is difficult for American citizens to get hired.Private Sector: WashingtonThere are a large number of private research groups (often known as the Beltway Bandits, from their location on the Beltway highway around Washington and their dependence on government contracts) and pressure groups of every political stripe in Washington with interests in foreign affairs. Hiring is informal, so internships are important for anyone interested.Private Sector: International BusinessMultinational corporations play a prominent role in current international affairs. Most Americans tend to think in terms of working abroad for an American corporation, but in fact there may well be better opportunities working in the U. S., either for an American or perhaps even a foreign firm (of course, that may not be what you think of as an international job).American corporations used to send significant numbers of Americans abroad, where they were often something of a trial. They were expensive, had a high failure rate (sometimes as high as 50%), did not want to stay long, did not know the language, and often alienated foreigners. Moreover, the corporations did not know how to use the people with international experience when they got back and often essentially punished them for going abroad. Thus most corporations moved to develop indigenous managers (Norwegians to run Exxon Norway, Nigerians for the Coca Cola branch in Nigeria, etc.) and to reduce the role of Americans abroad.Recently there has been something of a reaction against this trend, although different corporations have different policies. The number of Americans being sent abroad is certainly smaller than it used to be; better selection and training has reduced the failure rate. People with particular technical skills are often sent abroad. In addition, many companies are re-developing international assignments for their fast-track managers because of the importance of foreign markets. It is unlikely that an employee will be sent abroad by a large American company unless they fall into one of these two categories.The other side of the coin, of course, is that foreign companies doing business in the U. S. hire many Americans. Moreover, an increasing percentage of American corporations do business abroad, so much "normal business" in the U. S. involves international issues. In general, if students want to go into business, they need a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) degree from the best business school they can get into; this degree and some alternatives are discussed later. If interested in working for a foreign company, knowledge of its language and culture can be invaluable, but it is no substitute for business training. Nobody is going to hire an individual just because they know the appropriate language; they have to also think the candidate will raise their profits.Among businesses, international banks have been the most willing to hire people without business degrees; they expect to have to train employees regardless of their background. Another alternative is analyzing the political risks of investments in particular countries. There are some jobs here within corporations and at consulting firms; however, relatively few people have been hired, and it is not clear that they will be able to move up to other jobs within the organization.Private Sector: Non-ProfitThere are literally hundreds of private, volunteer organizations which work in international affairs; they are so important that they have been awarded the ultimate distinction of their own acronym, PVOs. Some of the PVOs are religious in origin; others are entirely secular. Some are quite large, others are minuscule. They share a lack of direct government control and general concern for humanitarian issues. Prominent examples include Crossroads Africa, Oxfam, Catholic Relief Services, and Maryknoll. The American government administers some foreign aid through some of these agencies, and they have been prominent in such issues as famine relief in Africa. The PVOs overlap somewhat with private advocacy organizations such as Amnesty International. Many of these organizations employ small permanent staffs; recruitment is often based on previous performance as a volunteer. Salaries are low, but many people find the work extremely rewarding.University Teaching and ResearchAmerican universities serve, among other things, as repositories for international expertise. Faculty work within departments, usually organized around the major disciplines such as economics, political science, and history. Their job consists of teaching (communicating skills and knowledge to students) and research (creating new knowledge and communicating it to others). University faculty usually have a great deal of freedom in selecting what they will research and teach, enabling them to develop specialized knowledge in a wide variety of areas.For the past fifteen years or so, university teaching jobs have been quite scarce, making it hard to encourage undergraduates to aim toward such careers; however, there may be increased demand for college teachers as the next baby boom reaches college age and a large number of current college faculty retire. (Some recent research suggests that there will be less change in political science than in other disciplines.) Therefore, college teaching has become a more reasonable career choice for current undergraduates. The only relevant degree for college teaching is the Ph.D. In this.cas2., students should attend the best university they can get accepted to. (See also the discussion of political science graduate programs below).InternshipsInternships are a critical supplement to any sort of educational background to get interesting jobs in international affairs. Because of the informal hiring processes, personal contacts are indispensable. Most students do not have close relatives high up in these organizations; internships are the next best thing. Internships give students direct experience in job situations. Students learn for themselves whether they like this sort of work and what is required to make a career in it. Often they get direct job offers. If not, they make personal contacts and get recommendations from job supervisors; if nothing else, they have something on their record which distinguishes them from the thousands of other people who will graduate with B.A. degrees from state universities at the same time.Two general rules of internships: anything is better than nothing, and the longer the better. Summer internships are the most common, and if that is what is available, take it; however, students should be aware of some limitations of summer internships. Summer internships are limited to summer months, which are short in time frame. Moreover, summer interns are so common that they are often used by offices as clerical labor, people to run xerox machines, address envelopes, etc. Many students use the experience for socializing, which is fine but detracts from the image of those with more serious interests. Lastly, so many students take summer internships now that employers are less impressed than previously.International Experience: Study, Work, and the Peace CorpsInternships in Washington are extremely useful, but they are not the same as experience abroad, and such experience can be very valuable in getting jobs; however, there are several options to consider. Students can spend a semester abroad studying in practically any country they choose. It is also possible to work abroad, although this is sometimes difficult because of local laws: volunteer service is often a better bet. Information on these options is available at the Office of International Education, Career Services, and the Study Abroad Office.After college, the Peace Corps is an option worth seriously considering. The Peace Corps is an agency of the U.S. government which sends Americans abroad, usually for two years to Third World countries, to help the people of other countries toward economic and social development. Volunteers often work on their own in rigorous physical conditions. Aside from living abroad, Peace Corps people get independent management experience at a very early age. As a result, Peace Corps experience is highly valued by employers hiring for international jobs.Alternate Educational TracksThere is no single educational path to international jobs; in fact, it is quite common for people in the same position to have very different sorts of educational backgrounds. Moreover, there are many people in interesting jobs with only B.A. degrees (and sometimes without them). Either graduate education or experience (preferably both) is usually essential to gaining access to these positions.Law SchoolMany very senior people in international affairs are lawyers, but law school is probably not the most efficient way to start a career in international affairs. Law school is three years of a curriculum which is mostly irrelevant to international relations. It is difficult to get into good law schools, and there is usually no financial aid except for loans. The current surplus of lawyers means that law school graduates are now having serious trouble getting jobs. It is true that students may be able to get an interesting non-legal job with a law degree, since employers figure they must be reasonably intelligent if they have survived law school, but there are other alternatives. If students want to be a lawyer, go to law school. If they do not, they should think seriously about the alternatives.There is a good deal of confusion about international law as a career. It is convenient to divide international law into public and private. Public international law is concerned with whether or not the behavior of governments corresponds with international law, whether the American invasion of Panama was legal, for example. This is what the term international law means to most people, but there are very few institutions which will pay people to do such analysis. The State Department keeps about eighty lawyers on staff for this purpose, but most of the other people in the field teach in universities (probably as many in political science departments as in law schools).Most international lawyers are concerned with private international law, how individuals and corporations can carry on transactions within different and sometimes conflicting legal systems. If a tanker registered in Liberia and owned by a company in the Bahamas carrying a load of oil owned by an American corporation hits a Russian submarine and dumps its oil onto Belgian beaches, who pays what to whom? Private international law is popular because people and organizations will pay money to get answers to these sorts of questions. This kind of work, in turn, sometimes leads to other things; international lawyers often serve as representatives for multinational corporations to the public and governments, a kind of business diplomatic corps. Nonetheless, international law is a fairly minor branch of law, and this is reflected in law school curricula; if students take two international law courses in three years, they will be doing well. (The University of Iowa seems to be an exception; it is advertising a more extensive program in international and comparative law.)Law school is the best alternative for anyone who wants to practice private international law, but students must remember that they must be a lawyer first and an international lawyer second. If they want to study public international law, students may actually do better in a Ph.D. program in political science specializing in international law, although there are very few places in the U.S. where this is a serious alternative; their career will presumably involve working in a university as a teacher-researcher, either in political science or, less likely, in law school.There is no pre-law curriculum in the United States; essentially law schools will take students regardless of their major if their grade point average and law board scores are high enough. Inasmuch as curriculum makes a difference, they prefer students with broad interests in the liberal arts and tend to frown on pre-professional degrees. In particular they recommend that students do not take law courses before they get to law school, arguing (probably correctly) that other institutions will just teach them incorrectly and that they will have to undo all the damage others have caused. However, anyone interested in law school should take one course which requires intensive reading of cases, just to see if they can tolerate it for three years, since that is what they will do in law school.Graduate Business SchoolsLaw school is often attractive to students who want to get an "interesting" job but do not want to be lawyers. For such students business school is often a better bet. It takes two rather than three years, it is a little easier to get into a good one (being female helps in business school admissions; law schools admissions are mostly sex-blind), and there are still jobs for new MBA graduates (although for several years there have been rumblings that this market also will be saturated). The jobs are not limited to corporations either; American business schools claim to teach management, the coordination of people and resources to accomplish a given goal, which is what all large organizations try to do. As a result, government and even non-profit institutions are hiring business school graduates for jobs which, twenty years ago, would probably have gone to lawyers. Most people now assume that MBA graduates, like lawyers, are intelligent, and as a bonus they may even have some useful skills.Unlike law schools, most business schools have a separate department called International Business; however, these departments are not usually highly regarded within their own schools, in part because they do not rely heavily on econometrics and are therefore thought to be "soft." Moreover, there are very few jobs for new MBAs with International Business majors. As explained above, very few young Americans are now sent abroad by corporations. Therefore students must get hired by the corporation for their substantive skills and later try to develop a special interest in the international side of things. The recommended strategy is to take a double major in a substantive area (marketing, finance, management, etc.) and International Business.Among the "regular" business schools, the best by reputation are Harvard and Stanford; New York University has been cited as the best in international business, and Yale's School of Organization and Management is an interesting attempt to combine training in business and public affairs. There are also a couple of programs especially geared to students interested in international business. The American Graduate School of International Business, just outside of Phoenix, more familiarly known as Thunderbird, is the only major business school in the country not affiliated with a university, and it has developed an impressive reputation for training high quality personnel in international business. The University of South Carolina business school has developed a program which requires a foreign business internship. Both of these programs stress language competence. Their reputation also attracts recruiters looking for people with these sorts of interests. They offer a Masters degree, which is not an MBA, which is usually a drawback. Outside of these programs, an advanced business degree that is not an MBA is not worth much.For many undergraduates, the major drawback of graduate business school is its heavy reliance on economics and mathematics. Anyone interested in business school should take microeconomics and macroeconomics (the order does not matter) and several advanced economics courses to see how well they do and whether or not they are comfortable with that mode of analysis. An economics major is not necessary for graduate business school, and an undergraduate business degree is usually not recommended. Note that graduate business schools have their own standardized test, the Graduate Management Admissions Test.Political Science Graduate ProgramsEvery major American university has a political science graduate program awarding a Ph.D. degree, and international relations is a field within almost all these departments. The departments also award a Masters of Arts degree, but this is not particularly useful. The Ph.D. requires two to three years of coursework, followed by comprehensive examinations and a thesis, which usually takes another year or two full-time; obviously the time will be longer if students have to go part-time because of limited resources.The Ph.D. degree is basically a research degree. It is essential for anyone who wants to teach at a college or university, and it is often found among researchers and analysts working for the government as well. On the other hand, the degree is given in political science; students can concentrate in international relations, but are required to take courses and examinations in other fields such as American government and political theory as well. Moreover, it takes longer to get than any other option discussed here, and it is not clear that it is worth the extra effort and money unless you are going into college teaching. One group of Foreign Service examiners, when asked how useful graduate school would be, said that the two to three years of coursework would be useful, but that the candidate would do better spending a couple of years in the Foreign Service than working on a doctoral dissertation. Several programs retraining people with Ph.D. degrees to go into business have been fairly successful, but this is a pretty roundabout way to get into business; if that is the desire, try for graduate business school.A major in political science is not required for admission to graduate programs in the discipline, but students should take at least enough courses to decide if they want to do this full-time for a long time; the biggest difference between graduate and undergraduate work is that they must live one subject twenty-four hours a day. Admission is usually based on grade point average, Graduate Record Examination (yet another standardized test) scores, and faculty recommendations. In general the best departments are found in the leading universities. If students want more specific guidance, talk to international relations faculty; this is one subject they know something about, and they will be current on the varying reputations of political science programs around the country.International Affairs SchoolsAs noted above, every major American university awards the Ph.D. degree in political science. A few universities also have schools or programs offering a two-year interdisciplinary Masters degree in international affairs or (discussed in the next section) in public policy or public management. The distinction between a graduate program in political science on the one hand and a school of international affairs (or public policy or management) on the other hand is sharp. Graduate programs in political science are designed to provide academic training: the required coursework and research are aimed at preparing students to become professors of political science. International affairs schools, by contrast, provide professional training. Much as law schools teach their students the practical knowledge needed for a career in law, and business schools teach their students the practical knowledge required for a career in business, schools of international affairs aim to teach the management, communications, economics, statistics, and foreign language skills needed in a professional career involving international affairs. The precise name of the degree offered by these schools varies from place to place: Master's of Public Policy, Master's of Public Affairs, Master's of Public and International Affairs, Master's of International Affairs, and so forth.Originally, some of these schools were designed to produce candidates for the Foreign Service. Since so few applicants are accepted into the Foreign Service and since admission is now by examination, these schools have altered their focus and now try to prepare students to work for other government agencies and for international businesses as well.In general, the curricula at these schools stress international politics, history, and economics. There are; however, substantial differences in emphasis between various schools of international affairs. Some put relatively more stress on management skills and economic and statistical training, seeking to train generalists who can comfortably move into a variety of jobs or fields. Others put relatively more stress on language or area skills, or on specialized training in a particular policy problem (for example, international trade or arms control), in an effort to prepare students for a more narrowly-defined career track. In addition, different schools offer different geographic or policy specializations. If considering this educational route, students should write to particular schools for their catalogs and compare the curricula offered.These schools take placement seriously, an important point to consider. Typically they require (and help arrange) an appropriate internship in the summer between the two years of the program. The older and better established schools also have a considerable alumni network upon which to call. If interested in working for the government in international affairs, one of these schools may be the best bet. To varying degrees these schools also provide training that is useful (and is seen by potential employers as useful) in the business world, particularly in the world of international banking and finance. Certainly many graduates of international affairs schools get jobs with major corporations. It is less clear; however, whether this training is optimal for a business career and whether or not graduates of international affairs schools may have to go back to business school later on.There are relatively few schools of international affairs. All of them are competitive for admission and the best are extremely competitive. Increasingly, the top schools strongly prefer admission candidates who have already had some relevant career experience -- for example, who have worked in Washington for a few years, have been in the Peace Corps, or have worked with an international charity or PVO. Financial aid varies substantially from school to school typically and is based on merit rather than need. Presently, the most prestigious of these schools are the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton and the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard, both of which stress management and do not specialize exclusively in international affairs but consider domestic concerns as well. Other top, very competitive programs include the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University; the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University; the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University; the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University; the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California at San Diego; and the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh. Somewhere in here is the International Relations Program at Yale, which is much smaller than the others and allows students essentially to custom tailor their educations. The international affairs schools at the University of Maryland, George Washington University, The University of Southern California, the University of Denver, the University of Kentucky, and American University, as well as a new program at Georgia Tech., are somewhat easier to gain admission into. Many of these schools also offer combined international affairs/law degrees with selected law schools; admission to combined programs requires separate admission to both the school of international affairs and the law school.Public Policy SchoolsIn addition to the schools of international relations discussed immediately above, there are a number of other schools that are very similar except that they do not have a clear international relations focus. That is, they offer professional training in public policy or policy management designed to prepare students for a career in government or dealing with government but do not offer as much specialization in the particular problems of international affairs. As with the schools of international affairs discussed above, many of these are highly competitive and, again, there are curricular variations between schools so students should read their catalogs carefully. Like the international affairs schools, the Master's programs at these schools are typically two years long with an internship in the intervening summer. These schools, too, tend to take placement very seriously. If interested in a career in government and interested in domestic policy issues as well as international ones, this may be the right educational track.Beyond the schools of international affairs discussed above, some of the most prestigious schools of public policy include: the Institute of Policy and Public Affairs, Duke University; the Institute of Public Policy Studies, University of Michigan; the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota; the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, and the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas.Preparing for Careers while at LehighUnlike medical school, none of these different types of schools has a very specific set of undergraduate requirements. In fact students can quite reasonably apply to all of them at the same time with the same set of undergraduate courses, although they will wind up taking many of different standardized tests. This in turn means that students do not have to make any drastic choices until their senior year. For any of these tracks, a general liberal arts background is an adequate preparation. A pre-professional degree such as business may make a students somewhat less attractive but will not be a major obstacle if they do well on their standardized tests.Within liberal arts, majors are not really very important. Students should major in the subject they like the most because they will do better in it and learn more. The critical thing is to get experience in a number of different areas and be able to read, write, and think well. A student seriously interested in international relations should develop a curriculum which includes the following as a minimum: (1) proficiency in writing English by consistently taking courses that require paper writing; (2) mathematical skills, preferably through calculus; (3) introductory and advanced history courses; (4) relevant courses in international relations and political science; (5) economics at least through international economics (which will include micro and macro), preferably through international trade and finance; and (6) mastery of at least one foreign language, through 300 level language and literature courses.The point of a major is to provide an intellectual focus for a number of courses. At most universities, students interested in international relations find that difficult to achieve. They must piece together the courses they want by majoring in one discipline and minoring in a related one; political science-history and economics-political science are common combinations. Or they may choose a program that provides an in-depth knowledge of a particular geographic area, such as Russian, Asian, or Latin American Studies. In general a diverse curriculum is more likely to be useful in the future than narrow specialization; students can specialize later if they so choose, but at the undergraduate level it is very difficult to get any single topic in great depth. Disciplines like sociology, geography, comparative literature, classics, art history, philosophy, religion, and the various foreign language and literatures should not be overlooked, and people who are competent in science and international affairs are also at a premium.Lehigh students have an option available to students at few other universities, a separate Department of International Relations. This offers several advantages over a program of study that combines a major in one department with a variety of other courses pulled together from different departments. First, students are not required to take courses outside of international relations to fulfill major requirements, such as those in American politics that usually comprise half the curriculum in political science. Second, all the courses relate to one another better than when courses are taken from different departments, each of which is principally oriented toward its program. Third, the depth and range of courses in international relations offerred by Lehigh's Department of International Relations are considerably greater than in most universities.For further career guidance, do not be afraid to ask questions of the faculty and other professionals such as the people at Career Services. The International Relations Commons Room (Maginnes Hall 203) has many additional sources of information.Suggestions For Further ReadingGuide to Careers in World Affairs. Foreign Policy Association, New York.Kocher, Eric, International Jobs: Where They Are and How to Get Them . Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.Phillips, David Atlee, Careers in Secret Intelligence.Rossman, Marlene L., The International Businesswoman . Greenwood Press.Volunteer! The Comprehensive Guide to Voluntary Service Abroad . Council on International Educational Exchange, New York.Win, David, International Careers. Williamson Publishing Company.Wise, David, "Campus Recruiting and the CIA," New York Times Magazine , June 8, 1986.Work, Study, Travel Abroad: The Whole World Handbook . Council on International Educational Exchange, New York)