Everyone who knows me probably knows one big thing about me – I’m a huge nerd for my degree, international politics, and I love university. If I ever get the chance to make knowledge my career, I’ll take it in a heartbeat. But, a lot of the time, I don’t actually think people know what it is I do day to day, or what it’s actually like. Politics degrees come with a big cloud hanging over peoples’ heads, even students’ heads. In addition, it’s hard to imagine what university is like more generally if you’ve never done it, or if you come from a different education system. People have been asking me a lot lately if I’m going to write a blog post soon, and I’ve also been asking myself that question. So, I thought as an easy way back into writing, I’d bust some myths about (my experience of) university as an international politics student. Myths are collected from assumptions I once had, and assumptions given by real people who don’t study this, or don’t study at all.
Assumption 1: Small town universities are boring.
I’m probably doxxing myself here with the combination of my degree and admitting I go to a small town university. Whatever, it’s far enough away from civilisation to where I don’t think anyone’s making the journey to kill me or whatever. I am a lifelong defender of going to a small town university. It’s infinitely easier to make friends when no one is rushing around in the hustle and bustle of city life. It feels so much warmer and more friendly. There’s more to do in a small town than you’d think if you’ve got a good circle of friends around you. There’s nothing I love more than a chill day at home followed by a bonfire on the beach with friends and a trip to the pub; it beats a dinner out and a night in the club by many, many miles. Also, small town unis do tend to be, well, smaller. This is great for connections – your professors usually know you by name. Does wonders for academic references if someone actually knows you and your strengths. University is just so much more enjoyable when it feels personal and less like you’re one of many fish in a very cold sea.
Assumption 2: Humanities degrees are easy because there’s no maths.
Oh you poor soul. I’m about to break your heart. Sure, in a lot of humanities and social science degrees, there’s no maths. I haven’t used maths in my degree once (though there are social sciences degrees which involve maths, statistics, coding, ICT skills, etc.). I would say the main thing that makes a humanities degree difficult is the fact that you aren’t graded on if you are correct, because there is no such thing most of the time as “correct.” In a maths degree, for example, if you’re solving equations, there is a right answer – if you get all the equations right, you get 100%. In the humanities though, at least in the UK, you’re graded against published academics and their research, even as an undergraduate. This is why people celebrate a 70% and that grade is considered exceptionally good. It basically means you are 70% as good as a celebrated and published academic. It’s extremely difficult to reach that level, obviously. It involves – according to my university’s rubric – extremely impressive critical thinking, advanced nuance, a perfectly flowing argument, and very impressive location and use of sources. If, somehow, that comes naturally to you, then yes, you will have an easier time. But, I don’t know a single person who has reached that level without extensive practice in academics.
Assumption 3: Politics degrees are a bunch of white conservatives.
Okay, I’ll admit, this one probably depends on which university you go to. Obviously, if you go to Oxford or Cambridge, you’re going to be around deeply privileged people who have mostly had the silver spoon treatment all throughout their education, and their experiences may meld into their politics (but not always! There are plenty of “normal” people at schools like Oxbridge.). But, in my experience of staff and students, there is a huge range of views and backgrounds. I’ve met south-eastern English, upper class conservatives, American democrats, European middle class liberals, champagne socialists, and full-blown communists. Academics, generally, tend to be centre to left leaning, simply because they’ve had years upon years of experience studying just how wrong the right usually is. The thing I love about my degree is it doesn’t matter what you argue, so long as you do it well and evidence it properly. Just yesterday, my very Marxist lecturer was telling me about how he recently gave an essay supporting capitalism a 72, all because it was well-sourced and the argument flowed nicely for an undergraduate. I’ve also received a 75 in a NATO class run by a NATO fanatic being deeply critical of NATO activity in the Balkans. You can go into a politics degree from any background and viewpoint and do well sticking to your guns.
Assumption 4: Politics degrees involve studying current events.
No, and thank God for that. I’d die if I had to study the different goings-on of governments around the world. The easiest way I can explain what a politics degree actually entails studying is by giving some examples of classes I’ve taken and assignments I’ve written. In my first year, I took a history class running from the long 19th century to the present day, and wrote an essay on the coloniality of technology and medicine for my final. I also in that module assessed whether the cold war was a war of ideology or not. In that same year, I took a media studies class, critically assessing the accuracy and validity of political media and how it’s influenced by nationalism, populism, foreign interference, and more. In my second year, I took an international relations theory class where we used current events to better understand theory – for example, we did a realist, post-colonial, and neoliberal analysis of the ownership of Greenland. Also in my second year, I took a class on women and gender in the global south. For that class, I chose to focus on issues of teleology (seeing some cultures as forwards/backwards and the implications of this), and 1990s forced sterilisation of Indigenous Peruvian women. In my third year, I’m taking a class that goes into the politics of geology, and this year I’ll also be writing my dissertation on the social construction of refugees in Poland since 2015. So, yes, current affairs are relevant, and what goes on in the world does determine the case studies we use to advance our learning of theory. But, most of it is theory and history.
Assumption 5: Politics degrees are just debating.
I actually don’t think I’ve ever been in an unstructured debate in a class for my entire degree. Sometimes we’re assigned into different groups of political theorists and asked to debate a policy, but these aren’t natural, real debates. Again, this degree is mostly theory and critical thinking.
Assumption 6: Everyone who studies politics will/wants to be a politician.
Again, no, and thank God. I wouldn’t trust half of these people to organise a piss-up in a brewery. Politics is a good foundational degree, even if you can’t do too much with a bachelor's degree alone. You’re set for any social sciences postgraduate qualification, you’re set to go into the civil service, you’re set to get teaching qualifications, you’re set to go into journalism with some extra study, and so on. Personally, I want to either be an academic in sociological politics, or change courses and go on to be a librarian or archivist. I actually don’t know anyone who wants to be a parliamentary politician. I know future teachers, future international organisation workers, future NGO workers, future academics, and more.
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