Our Students.  Monday is the last day of class for the 2018-19 academic year, and final exams begin next Thursday. As the semester draws to a close – and it has been a demanding and stressful semester for many of us, with some reflection I nonetheless realize how very lucky I am to have had such outstanding students in my courses and in capstone work. Our Department is graduating a very impressive set of senior POSC majors, with strong academic records, fascinating capstone topics, and interesting plans post-BA. Many of our graduating seniors (and most of our rising seniors) have double majors; this year’s class includes POSC majors who also are majoring in Anthropology, Biochemistry, Chemistry, Economics, International Studies, Japanese, Philosophy, Sociology, Spanish, and Theatre. Many of our seniors also have minor fields of study in Biology, Chemistry, Pre-Health, Pre-Law, Public Policy, and languages, including Chinese, French, and Spanish.

Our excellent students – who are doing so many things and so well – are part of what makes meeting prospective students and their parents at Admission Open Houses so rewarding. I can say so many positive things, and give so many strong examples, that it’s a real pleasure to be able to talk in detail with prospective students about what we do in the Department of Political Science and the outstanding students we encourage and produce.

Congratulations!  Speaking of our outstanding POSC majors, I was so pleased to learn that POSC major and rising senior Marin Exler has been elected as the next President of Undergraduate Student Government. I am so pleased for Marin, and wish her all the best as she leads USG next year. I also want to note that Marin had the opportunity of participating in ElectHer, a program organized by Beth Embrescia and held at CWRU’s Flora Stone Mather Center for Women. Congratulations, Marin!

Career Opportunities.  This Newsletter, thanks to the good work of Brook Sabin and our Department’s student assistant Amanda Spangler, publicizes many opportunities for our students, including internship and volunteer opportunities, and job openings and career opportunities. One such opportunity routinely comes across my desk, but gives me some pause about my role in publicizing opportunities for our students. These are specifically those that come from large, successful, profitable corporations that are not publicizing job openings but rather asking CWRU to ask me to identify specific students, with specific credentials, who might thereafter be contacted by the firm.

Although I am happy to publicize any reputable positions to our students, I am less happy about serving as an unpaid recruiter for corporations that have the funds and staff to do their own recruiting and who could easily come to our campus and meet with interested students directly. Moreover, I am unenthusiastic about vetting our seniors, comparing them to each other, and nominating only a few for such firms’ further consideration. 

However, I recognize that some of these opportunities may be very useful to our students, and to that end, I am sharing in this Newsletter the following information from McKinsey & Company (see below); further information about a similar opportunity from Bain and Company will be forthcoming. I ask any junior and senior POSC majors interested in these specific opportunities to contact me directly, and I will nominate them. As always, such opportunities are not endorsed or sponsored by me or by the Department of Political Science; we leave it to the judgment of our students what is most useful and appropriate to them.

With all best wishes,
Karen