Question about Science Po PSIA

in short, the PSIA masters are very pragmatic, 'professionalising' as they like to say, has a very wide variety of courses, many of which are taught by professionals working in the relevant field. the aim of the masters is to get you in a job/position of responsibility as quickly as possible. and it's quite good at doing that. it has well balanced mix of theory and practice, and very wide range of courses/specialisations available.

the doctoral school masters generally prepares you for a PhD and an acedemic/research career. i don't know much more about how the masters is.

Of course, you can quit academics and find a non-academic job after the doctoral school masters, in the same way that you can do research and a PhD after a PSIA masters, but it'll just be harder then the other way around. working in a think tank would be the half way house.

(for reference, I'm in the PSIA international security masters)

Oh thank you so much for your reply!
Actually I was interested in international security program in PSIA so I'm so glad that you are a current student there.

My further question is, do you think it's possible to pursue the half way house between professional/practical thing and academical one at PSIA? What I heard from other people is that I can write a thesis paper on the third semester. Once my paper is accepted, I can find out internship for field experience. Since I wanna work at international organizations or think-tanks, I'm a bit confused if it's the right choice to apply for PSIA.

Hey,
yes you can do the half way house, PSIA is very much built so that you can tailor what you do. It almost feels like being on a giant market where you pick and choose what you do. you can write a thesis paper - only 10-15% of students do that (most prefer to do an internship instead), but if i had the option I'd do a thesis.

i would recommend that you do a shorter internship over the summer before writing the thesis in third semester though, to make sure your CV doesn't lose out against candidates who have more professional experience (probably the most important thing on a CV at the moment).

PSIA is definitely the right place to go if you want to work in international organisations. you'll also be in a good place to work for a think tank, especially given how specialised you can become through the variety of courses PSIA offers.

I have been interested in Science po PSIA international security program but I found that Science po has doctoral school and it provides master's programs for political science. Among those, I found the master of international relations. My question is,what's the difference between the Science po doctoral school(master's program) and Science po PSIA? It sounds like the former one is more academic, whereas the latter one, PSIA, is more practical. Any ideas?