kwa

To be honest with you, I don't transfering after 1 yr of a M.s. program sounds feasible, unless you have gotten prior approval from Western. I've never heard of transfering in the middle of a 2-year grad program, but that doesn't mean that it can't be done - but I wouldn't count on it. Personally, I would consider it to be a real burden to transfer after just a year anyway, and there might be implications for your student visa, although I'm not an expert on U.S. immigration law. If you pick Alaska, you should be prepared to spend two years up there. I looked at the online photo gallery for UAF, and it sure looked desolate! As you know, Alaska is far away from the rest of the U.S. (at least 2,000 miles away from the nearest major city), and it is very cold (probably below freezing five months out of the year). In the middle of winter, there are only a few hours of sunlight per day in Fairbanks. I'm not trying to scare you about the climate there, but you are talking about moving to the edge of the Arctic Circle. I should disclose that I am definitely biased towards Western though; I know three people who are doing their B.A. degrees there right now and they seem to be very happy there. Feel free to e-mail me at kylealbert@hotmail.com

I dobut that there's much of a difference between a 4th tier school and an unranked school, as moving from a MS to a PhD would probably be more about how closely your research interets match the strenghts of the school you're applying to and how well you've performed at the graduate level. To be honest, most American profs probably don't know much (if anything) about either Western or Alaska. I'm suprised to hear that Alaska is ranked at all; I wouldn't read too much into that ranking, as Alaska profs probably aren't as well connected to the academic community in the lower 48 as Western. Both programs seem very similar at first glance, and unless you feel that your specific research interests are better met by the strenghts of the faculty at Alaska, I would probably rely on location and the quality of the university as a whole (both the academic reputation and the quality of the community - a factor that many int'l students probably don't pay as much attention to as they should), for which Western seems to be the clear winner. Am I correct in assuming that you're making this decison without having visited either? I hope this helps a little, although it certainly looks like you're in a difficult situation - good luck!

I thought about going to WWU for undergrad (locals call it "western"); it's a pretty good university overall (many in the Seattle area would say it's the #2 public university in Washington). Bellingham is a really nice college town (actually more of a small city) and about 2 hours from Seattle and Vancouver, so it's not quite as far away from places where you might want to work (or finish your Ph.D.) later - I don't think that there are any Ph.D. programs in Alaska! I know that I've heard of people from Western going on to UW, and I would imagine that some go on to Canadian schools as well. Western has small grad programs from what I understand, so I would imagine that you would get quite a bit of attention there. I've only briefly browsed through their Poli Sci program brochure though. As for International students, my guess is that Western has more than UAF, although I believe that their figures for international students may not be showing that the majority are probably from just across the border. Western would probably be less of a "culture shock" than Alaska and you probably wouldn't feel as out of place, but I'll be the first to admit that I wouldn't really know (and I would imagine that both would be a bit less international-friendly compared to a larger research school).

Oops, for some reason I accidentally posted twice before I was even finished! Anyway, psychology and economics are the two most competitive social sciences simply because there are jobs for psychologists and economists in non-university settings.

From what I understand, the fields in which there are good non-academic career prospects for Ph.D. students attract the most applicants. From what I've read, about 1,000 econ ph.d.'s are granted in the U.S. every year, compared to 600-700 in the second-most popular field (Poli Sci). Judging by GRE scores, it looks like Psych programs are also quite competeive, a

From what I understand, the fields in which there are good non-academic career prospects for Ph.D. students attract the most applicants. From what I've read, about 1,000 econ ph.d.'s are granted in the U.S. every year, compared to 600-700 in the second-most popular field (Poli Sci). Judging by GRE scores, it looks like Psych programs are also quite

I agree with the posts above that a Econ Ph.D. would probably be most useful if you want to be an economist focusing on int'l development. However, there are many career paths that relate to international development for which a public policy (or other social science) degree would be just as useful - especially with organizations that don't focus exclusively on economic policy (e.g. UN, State Dept.). (Also, a Master's level degree is probably equally useful as a Ph.D.) I would assume that an Econ degree would only be useful if you really want a math-intensive career - if you're more qualitatively oriented, then you probably should go for a less quantitative field that would lead to a more qualitatively-oriented career.

There are basically two patterns that the academic calendars of nearly all research universities fall into (although some liberal arts colleges and small schools have been experimenting with different calendars): 1. The traditional semester system, in which there are two 15-week terms, a Fall Semester that begins in September and runs through January and Spring Semester that runs from late Jan or early Feb through June. (There is also a increasingly popular modification of this system, in which fall semester begins earlier and ends before Christmas break, and spring semester begins in early Jan and ends in May). 3. The quarter system, with a fall quarter (typically last week in September through Christmas break), winter quarter (first week in Jan through Spring Break), and spring quarter (spring break through the first week in June). Each quarter is about 10 weeks long. There is plenty of debate over which is best, and which system is used is the decision of each individual college. The old semester system was popular at state colleges in rural areas a long time ago to give students more time to work harvesting crops in the late summer, and many of these schools have been slow to change. The fall term is significant in that it is usually considered the beginning of the academic year and most grad students are admitted for fall. As for summer terms, these are typically shorter than normal quarters or semesters and enrollment in the summer is usually a fraction of that during the normal school year - generally grad students are not expected to attend summer sessions (if graduate courses are even available), although grad students often do independent research in the summer or teach undergraduates while all the professors are on vacation.

You mean that some colleges out there will let you TA for real courses as an undergrad? Not just freshman orientation or peer tutoring in lab sections, but real TA work? I didn't realize that there were such opportunities in the U.S.

Have you been following the new interdisciplinary Global Health initiative at UW? It certainly seems like it would be an exciting time to be doing research there if your research interests are internationally focused. Just out of curiosity, what sort of a background do you have that led you to pursue a health policy Ph.D.?

This might be a good question to post in the graduate admissions forum as well... There's no website out there that lists all of the programs out there for every disicipline that don't require a GRE. You really have to browse through all the websites for programs in your disiclipline that don't require a GRE score, which could take a long time. For example, in a search for Political Science programs after looking through about 50 hits I noticed that the University of Hawaii doesn't require the GRE (for Poli Sci, at least). You might also find that more M.A.-only programs are more likely to disregard the GRE than Ph.D. programs. It all depends on what you want to study.

Hi Everyone I've been looking at this site for a few months now, and I just felt like I should finally contribute something. I'm an undergraduate planning to double-major in Political Science and Sociology, although I feel like I would like studying any of the social sciences. I was planning to apply for grad school this fall, but right now I'm thinking about doing another year of undergrad to figure out what I really want to study and prepare more for the GRE. It looks like social science people are a bit underrepresented here, but I'll try to jump in where I can.