International Relations Majors in a Nutshell

Like most internet memes, this one has disseminated and evolved with incredible speed. The trend is to pick a career path, subculture, or activity and half-jokingly depict how its seen from different vantage points. After much expectation, there’s finally one for international relations majors like myself:

The best (or worst) part is that it’s not too far from the truth. Whatever the intended career or objective, IR is underpinned by extensive reading. Any study of diplomacy and global politics requires a pretty wide background in history, philosophy, political science, current events, and anthropology. I myself often had to dabble in science, sociology, and psychology as well. The relations between societies necessarily cover a lot of areas.

But that’s what made IR great for me, and probably why I was drawn to it from the very beginning. Its hard to tell which came first – my interest in world and human affairs, or my love of reading – but each one fed heavily on the other, and a virtuous cycle ensured. My prodigious consumption of books helped get me through college, while the far-reaching scope of IR allowed me to broaden my intellectual faculties considerably. I may be biased, but few other majors could offer that.

So even if poring over books is the ultimate fate of every internationalist, I don’t think I’d have it any other way.