Junior Fellows Program
Designed to recognize outstanding students
The SPGS Junior Fellows Program is unique 3-credit course with two purposes in mind, providing undergraduate students:
- Opportunities to gain professional experience and work closely with professors as teaching or research partners
- Avenues to explore the nature and cutting edges of the discipline through a seminar
Both purposes provide students with special insight into and intimate knowledge of political science, global studies and international relations. If you are interested in undergraduate research in the majors we offer, if you are curious about what professors in our department do, why they do what they do, and how they came to do it, then it is never too early, or even too late, to think about how you can become a Junior Fellow.
How our program works
Faculty nominate up to three (and with special dispensation four or five) outstanding undergraduate political science, global studies or international relations majors or minors whom they have taught in class.
Students who meet the selection criteria (majors or minors with at least a 3.3 overall GPA and/or 3.5 in political science, global studies or international relations classes) are designated "Junior Fellows" and are accepted into the program.
Once accepted, each student arranges with their nominating professor to work either in the classroom or on a research project. We have found over the years that most student-faculty pairs work together on research, though many Junior Fellows have tutored students, read drafts of student papers, and run their own discussion sections.
Junior Fellows meet twice each month in a classroom setting. At every meeting, there will be a speaker, sometimes two, who will address topics focused on career paths and research activities of faculty or topics related to career options and preparation for graduate school, government service or law school.
At the end of the semester, each Fellow will prepare and share a brief summary of their experience.