>>Dr. Lynnette Noblitt: My name is Professor
Lynnette Noblitt.
I'm chair here at Eastern Kentucky University
of the Department of Government and Economics.
Political Science is the study of how groups
make decisions.
These can be small groups like families or
workplaces to large groups like local, state,
or federal government.
Studying how groups make decisions allows
one to affect how decisions are made.
It's important to understand politics, how
groups make these decisions, how power is
distributed in society, how resources are
distributed in society,
and to make good informed decisions.
What's great about teaching political science
is the headlines basically write your course.
We are constantly changing our courses to
respond to politics as it exists at the moment
the course is being taught.
I mean obviously we have syllabi, we have
textbooks, students read certain things.
We want you to have the basic fundamental
concepts and things of that nature, but ultimately
things come out in the headlines every day
and we need to talk about them.
So I often have faculty who are downstairs
literally minutes before their classes are
about to run photocopying the latest thing
from the Supreme Court or the latest statements
from the legislature, looking at congressional
hearing tapes.
We have to respond constantly.
That's just the nature of our science.
>>Dr. Sara Zeigler: My name is Sara Zeigler
and I'm the Dean of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences.
Our faculty who teach online are engaged,
they're active, they're responsive, and they're
really passionate about educating students.
They know that online students need to have
the same level of interaction that we would
have in the classroom.
It's a different kind of interaction, but
it's equally intense and equally important.
So they respond to communications quickly.
They're engaged in their discussion boards.
They're always giving feedback and you get
a really strong relationship with the faculty
in the Political Science program.
>> Dr. Noblitt: I think what students
have really found they've liked is how much
our faculty seem to care about their learning
and actually how much interaction they have
with faculty.
When they discover there are video lectures,
there's online learning modules, there's interactive
documents online, the fact that they hear
from their faculty member two, three times
a day on a discussion board.
I think a lot of times students are sort of
amazed with the amount of interaction that
we have with faculty.
>>Dr. Zeigler: EKU is a wonderful place
for political science majors because we have
a terrific, engaged, active faculty.
We have all sorts of opportunities to pursue
interest in different areas.
So if you're really fascinated by elections,
there's a lot of course work that you can
do on that.
If you are more interested in leadership and
the presidency and gubernatorial leadership,
there's coursework in that.
There's coursework in public administration.
So anything from elections to budgeting, we
can cover in this program in addition to building
all of those communication skills, writing
skills, analytical skills that you're going
to need throughout your life, no matter what
profession you go into.
The political science degree is extremely
flexible.
There are a good number of free elective hours
integrated within the degree.
So you can meet the requirements of the major
in a timely fashion but also have a lot of
opportunities to explore your interests through
electives, through interdisciplinary minors,
and through other coursework that could complement
the degree.
>>Dr. Noblitt: Political science majors
can go almost anywhere.
Obviously, there's some really classic careers
that some of our recent grads go into.
Obviously a lot of them are interested in
working in local, state, and federal governments.
We have people go into a classic bureaucratic
or administrative agency jobs.
We also have a lot of students who go and
work as things like legislative aides or as
assistants to lobbyists, both at the state
and the federal level.
From there though, I'll tell you our grads
kind of go everywhere.
In addition, if students aren't interested
in working for the government, we have a lot
of people go into the private sector.
We have a lot of people who work in businesses.
We also have a lot of students who move into
nonprofit organizations, as well.
That's a huge field that a lot of our students
here in the Appalachian region really feel
strongly about.
They've got a passion, they want to pursue
it, and political science helps them be useful
to those organizations.
At its very core, political science teaches
you to think critically and independently,
to read things critically and independently,
which is becoming more and more important
in the age of fake media.
It also teaches you to write independently
and critically, and I think those three skills
are really what you come away with.
No matter where you go, you're always going
to have that skill set.
It's going to serve you in the business world,
as a citizen, in every facet of your life.
The Value of a Political Science Degree
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