A student majoring in political science will acquire skills of critical analysis, research and communication. Citizenship requires a broad knowledge of political institutions, trends and events and the ability and willingness to participate in fair-minded discussions of public issues. Students should be able to seek and discover knowledge about political matters, subject political institutions and issues to critical analysis, and communicate their discoveries and analyses to others in written form. One Economics course and one course in history or statistics. A separate Public Administration Major is maintained by the Department.
Curricular support includes a core sequence of three upper division courses.
A steady stream of students enters Masters in Public Administration programs after graduating. The public law curriculum includes one 200 and three 300 level courses. These courses serve Political Science majors and minors with law related interests as well as pre-law students from throughout the college. The Department provides extensive course work in international and comparative politics at the introductory, intermediate and advanced levels. It is a key resource for several of the college's international study programs, especially Asian Studies and Latin American Studies.