About once a month, I meet with prospective students who are considering studying political science at WashU. These students ask how we prepare our students for life after university. I often respond by talking about how students in art school create a portfolio of their work. They work hard in their classes as a means to create that portfolio.

This is similar to how our students can make the most of their time at WashU. If a student wants to become a journalist, they might work for the school newspaper, create their own podcast, etc. The student can then take classes that help them gain the skills and knowledge to enhance that extracurricular pursuit. For example, they might use the course on Data Science and Politics to develop skills to create figures that share the data they want to highlight. Or they might take a course that covers the substantive topic they want to write about.

I want to highlight three ways we help students build portfolios. First, we offer a lot of flexibility in the major so students can choose which courses are going to help them, and receive input from their advisor. Second, the College of Arts & Sciences is starting the Literacies for Life and Career initiative. As part of this exciting initiative, each class will identify 1-3 of the literacies that students will work in their course. So, if a student wants to work on their collaboration and leadership, the student will be able to easily identify which courses will focus on that skill (or any of the other 10 literacies). Third, students can do internship work for credit. This is an amazing chance for students to do applied work in an area of interest. Last summer we had 13 students do a range of internship opportunities. Two students worked on campaigns, 4 worked as staffers in government (1 at the city level, 1 at the state level, and 2 for members of Congress), 1 worked in a law office, and 6 worked in businesses or nonprofits (often doing analysis for them). 

Our students are creating impressive portfolios and accomplishing amazing things. If you have questions about how you can do the same as an undergraduate in Political Science, reach out and I'd be happy to answer them.