Hey, I'm going to share my life story for anyone who wants to hear me about the danger of studying this.

Stats: 31 M- started degree in 2012 graduated in 2016.

Son of a factory worker and a teacher, first person in my family to ever reach college and graduate. Come from a third world country.

My dream was to become a diplomat, that was the only thing I ever wanted to do, serve the country with the utmost reverence. So I prepared for the exam of the foreign ministry every year. The only job I managed to get was as a line cook in a crime-ridden area with colleagues who stole my things while I was on my break.

2017: rejected during the psych exam, I didn't fit the profile.

2018: same

2019: same

2020: Allowed to take it, was 35 th out of 30 (200 candidates)

2021: same as 2019

2022: same

2023: my last attempt.

During my last attempt, the HR lady took me aside and told me "This isn't for you I'm sorry, you do not fit the psych profile, also..you've always been poor, how would you react if you had to wear a suit?"

If I was european or american I'd try at least the following:

-if you're american , try the YPP(The United States is underrepresented)

-Peace Corps

-CIA(you need a military clearance, enlist with a commission)

-NATO

-Go to Brussels or Washington, you studied international relations, you have to move around. I live in a crappy third world country and If I tried to cross illegaly into the U.S I'd most likely get shot or have my visa denied.

-Various IGO's

So yeah, I'm stuck in my shithole of a country, can't move, my country does not apply to the UN quota thing . I 've been thinking about renaming the degree something like "Internal anal relations " and just film while I stick it up my ass.

Hey I just graduated with a first-class degree in international relations from KCL. I am planning on applying for a masters at LSE but honestly I have no clue what I want to do after. I am playing with the idea of a PhD as the idea of being an academic is really appealing. However I am also aware of the academic job market and need to prepare myself with other career paths for security. So I was curious on what kind of jobs people have gone into - not necessarily directly IR related jobs but just want to know what the prospects are like.

There's an IR professor at my school (a fairly prestigious school too) who has no degree. He was initially a journalist. He then served as the ambassador of a small country to several other small countries for 25 years, and he eventually became the head of the mission of that small country to NATO. How common is this?

Hi everyone, I am an Italian guy, 29 years old, pursuing a career in the IR sector, mainly in the defence/strategy/security dimension. Bachelor's and master's both obtained in a public Italian university (but the master's degree was a double degree with the russian MGIMO), followed by a one-year post-graduate master's offered by the Italian Ministry of defence and another Italian university.

My main job experience are an internship as a security analyst at the WFP (a dream experience, which however di not transformed into a contract) and a position as journalist/editor/analyst in a well-known italian magazine. However, I am feeling extremly stressed and unsatisfied by my current situation, and I want to come back on the right track.

During last month I worked over a research proposal for a PhD about transformation dynamics in the revisionist powers armed forces (a topic I really enjoy, and over which I focused my academic career and partially the working one), applying to a university whenever a funded vacancy opened up. At the same time, though, I am thinking about undertaking another master's degree at an important university.

Yes, funding is obviously a limit, but I prefer to get a loan than to remain where I am now. Do you have any kind of suggestion?

Hello! I am currently doing research on either the alignment or shift in a nation’s foreign policy objectives to a regional framework’s objectives/provisions. However, I am having a hard time looking through theoretical frameworks that may apply to my study. My professor says to keep it simple and rejected neofunctionalism due to certain components that is not fit to the variables of my study. Send help please!

Given recent developments with Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, and Egypt; I’m looking for anything that I could read to get a better understanding of those developments.

For context: I am a 22 year old male from the Netherlands. This year am finishing my history bachelor in which I have chosen multiple courses connected to IR and have focussed a lot of the history of conflict.

My ultimate dream is to become a diplomat and work on conflict resolution, but if that doesn't work out I would also love to work in another capacity for an embassy or go in to politics.

I however do not want to waste 2 years of my life, so I would love to get some opinions. Is this a valuable masters to do? And what things should I take into consideration?

I'm 8 months in my first job after finishing my undergrad last year. I'm planning to work for around a little over a year and a half more and apply for graduate programs in the US/Europe. However I've been seeing that a lot of programs say that current students had at least 3-4 years of experience before applying, and the most successful applicants worked these number of years. I plan to apply after only two years of working, since I want to go back to school and change careers to diplomacy/international relations (I studied business in university). I think I can grow and learn so much more doing a master's degree rather than sticking to my current job for two more years (I'm working at a non-profit, not enjoying it at all).

[Complaints; feel free to skip]

Currently in an IR post-grad program, and I kind of hate it. I enrolled in this program because I was looking for something to do after my bachelors in Philosophy and I enjoy politics and learning about how the world works. But ever since classes began, I've felt like I made a huge mistake. It's probably not the disicpline as a whole that is a problem, but my specific program. The classes are incredibly boring, not stimualting, overly theoretical instead of practical, and entirely focused on the research aspect of the course.

I am aware that my predicament is entirely my fault, and one aspect I totally overlooked is that IR is a social science. As someone with a humanities background, social science research simply does not interest me at all; I find it soul-draining, too methodical, robotic, and ultimately useless. The way writing is done for research in social sciences is nothing like in philosophy, or in books written by the likes of Hayek, Friedman, or Chomsky where their method of analysis is vastly intringuing and thought-provoking.

What motivated me to post this is that I actually have an assignment coming up where we basically have to offer a template for a research project, which has also had me thinking about my overall research project for the degree. The biggest issue I am encountering, is that research topics have to be so specific. Generally, I am more of a 'big-picture' type of person and care more about the overall structure of the international system and its flaws, than certain parts of the system or events occuring within the system. I just do not care to do a whole research project on a specific issue that affects only a particular country/population/actor in a certain way at a certain time, that fills a gap in the literature.

[Advice Needed]

But! I am stuck here and have to go through it either way, so I am looking for some advice on research questions. I simply have no experience in doing any of this, no formal experience in IR/politics, and I never know if the topics and questions I come up with are any good at all. I'd say I'm interested in investigating topics like the UNSC veto power, anti-communist and anti-China sentiment in the U.S., and the insignificance of the ICC and ICJ. More generally though, topics pertaining to capitalism (for example, fighting climate change under a capitalist world economy), Western hypocrisy and double standards, US imperialism, corporate interests having precedence over literally everything, propaganda, and cases like Julian Assange and Steven Donzinger (I don't know how to classify that) interest me. I just don't know how to apply these to specific areas that will matter to me and fill gaps in the literature. It also probably does not help that I have extreme difficulty with making decisions to the point where it's most likely clinical.

I'm preparing for a MUN, about Cyberterrorism, I will be delegate of R.P. China.

Hi, I've a bachelor in International Management and now I'm thinking of doing my master in IR or similar because of my end goal of entering the UN or other similar organizations. I'm not sure tho if I should stick to a master in business or as aforementioned in IR. What are your thoughts?

I have a midterm in my Texas Government college class. I am an online student, and the midterm will be over a webcam. The professor allows us to have one page of notes for the exam, which will be divided into two modules, including Chapters 1, 2, and 3. So far, All my midterms have been in essay format, so I am unsure how to study for this one or what to put on the page of notes that would be helpful. Are there any good tips or tricks you would like to share?