Colin Slaggert is a 2013 Political Science graduate.
1. What opportunity are you pursuing after graduation?
-"After graduation, I will be working for Bain & Company, a management consulting firm, in Chicago. As an AssociateConsultant, I will work with clients to analyze data and help find solutions to business problems. This position attracted me because of the diversity of the daily work as well as the infinite opportunities to learn on the job."
2. How has your PoliSci degree prepared you for the job after graduation?
-"My Political Science degree helped prepare me for this position by teaching me to think critically about a wide range of societal problems. Consulting, in many ways, is a job of analysis and problem solving. In Political Science, you try to answer the world’s toughest questions: is humanitarian intervention a good thing? how should we deal with inequality? what should we do about rogue nuclear states? If you can think critically and write convincingly about these tough issues, then you can really work to solve any problem in the “real world.”"
3. Where do you plan on going in the future?
-"To be quite honest, I have no firm “5-year-plan.” The beauty of consulting is both its breadth and its depth: it exposes you to a variety of different industries while also teaching you high-level, analytical tools. Thus, it prepares you to do almost anything. I hope to use this freedom and training to emerge with a stronger conviction about what I’m meant to do in the world down the road."
4. What advice would you give to someone considering a Poli Sci major?
-"Students should pursue a degree in Political Science because it allows them to chart their own course in college and beyond. The Political Science curriculum is one that enables students to have agency in their education, to make choices about what subjects they want to study and what skills they want to pick up along the way. My strongest advice for any new Political Science student would be to enroll in classes, both inside the department and out, which expose them to analytical techniques and make them comfortable thinking with numbers."