Academics
The comparative advantage held by Minnesota Ph.D.s in the academic job market comes largely from this program’s reputation for very rigorous graduate training conjoined with a broad exposure to the discipline. Students take at least four seminars in each of two subfields of specialization chosen from American, Comparative, International Relations, Methods, and Theory, in addition to a small set of courses about the methods, core bodies of work, and profession of Political Science. They complete their prelims (one in each of their two chosen subfields) no later than the third year of their program, and then move directly to dissertation research. Dissertations at Minnesota are very frequently published as books at the top university presses.