I'm Kathryn Pearson, an associate professor
of Political Science at the University
of Minnesota.
When I was a freshman in college, I did
not know what I want to major in.
I took a a class in political science
the second semester
my freshman year ,and I absolutely loved
it and I followed up with a couple more
political science classes,
and actually went to Washington DC, and
had an internship. At that point it it
clinched it.
A political science major give students
a lot of choices.
You can take classes in any of the four
subfields: political theory, international
relations, comparitive
politics, American politics. In the fall I
just taught a class on
US campaigns and elections. Students becomes
well-versed
in theories of campaigns and
elections, what past elections tell us,
what patterns we've found, but then we
also applied them to
what's going on in campaigns and elections. When I
teach my class on
the US Congress, I have students monitor
a piece of legislation to really better
understand
what happens in the committee process,
what happens on the House and Senate floor
and all of the ways in which the journey
of a piece of legislation
is different, than what students
learned in high school. In my Women in
Politics course,
which I tend to teach as a seminar pf about
20 students.
the students and I actually put together
a database
of all members of Congress and what we do
is compile this data set together
of all 435 members of the House, so that all the
students can then
analyze these data, for a final research
project. So students are often
stunned with some of the things that they
learn. First of all women's
under-representation,
not just at the federal level, but at the
state level. We talked about that a lot
and then really try to understand the
roots of women's under-representation,
and one of the things that I 
emphasize is that, the data show,
that when women run for office, women and
men win at
the same rates, and  the students are very
surprised by that. So then we have to go
the next step and find out okay why
is it that women are underrepresented if
it's not because
women aren't winning elections. And the answer is 
because women aren't running for office
and we spend a lot of time really unpacking
why that is. Internships are
great for all political science majors,
both, because they can act
what we're doing in the classroom with
what's going on in the world around them,
and also they help prepare you for life
after
being a political science major. Political
Science is a terrific major for many
reasons.
The skills that it teaches students,
critical thinking skills, writing skills
writings, writing is heavily emphasized.
Many of my students either are in law
school
or are law school graduates. Some have
gone on to Washington DC,
others are now on more local campaigns. Political science
isn't just a major that necessarily leads to
a career in politics, but
I think because it prepare students with so many
skills, they themselves quite well to
other jobs, and I think sometimes when
recruiters are looking for students, they
appreciate
sort of diverse interests and background of a political science major.
