I chose to study Political Science and
International Relations because I've
always been interested in politics, and
how politics impacts different areas of
life. Depending on where you are in the
world you can have a different impact or
a different interaction with politics. I
chose to study at the University of
Birmingham because it's a campus uni, so
everything's kind of compact and together.
You have everything you need here; the
banks, the post office, the library, which
is the most important part of campus!
But at the same time it has one of the
biggest departments in the country for
politics and international relations and
when I came and visited, I found that the
staff were really friendly and that's
what I found throughout my experience. The thing that I enjoy most about my course
is the wide range of options that are
available for module choices and also
the free thought that's encouraged. So
you're always encouraged to challenge
opinions - not just the lecturers opinions
and other opinions in the class - but also
your own. So I think hearing other
people's opinions that you might not
necessarily agree with really helps you
understand and challenge why you think
the way you do, to really help you
understand how to become an analytical
thinker. The module that I enjoyed the
most was in second year. It was called
International Political Economy and we
learnt about everything, from the banking
crisis, the financial crisis in 2008, to
taxes, to human trafficking, and
there was a massive scope of things that
we could study under that, and as part of
our project, we were given free
reign. My favorite memory from my course
is probably in my third year where I had
the opportunity to go on a year abroad to
Sweden, and during that time I did lots
of traveling, visited seven different
countries, and also managed to undertake
lots of different modules from different
disciplines which I wouldn't have had
the opportunity to do if I didn't go
abroad, and I met lots of lovely people
from all over the world and I really
think enrichment academic experience  - and
also I think it really helped me
I was playing for jobs as well because
then I had international experience too.
There are loads of job opportunities
available after studying Politics and
International Relations, mainly because
of the analytical skills that you gain
from the course. So lots of people have
gone into politics, people have gone into
finance, marketing,
there really isn't kind of any avenue
that you can't go down with with this
course.
