International relations

I want to study international relations but I'm starting sociology this September. Can anyone who studied tell me about international relations because the topic seems very interesting but I just don't know anything related to the topic in-depth. Like would it be worth it if I took a masters programme relating to international relations?

Reply 1

University of Portsmouth Student Rep

Original post

by zrvt17

Hi,

Congrats on starting sociology in Sept! Third year IR student here. I love IR because it is so diverse and complex. It literally covers all the ways in which countries and non-state actors act towards each other, be it through economics and trade deals, the internet and social media, culture, religion, politics, languages, technology, human rights, climate change, feminism, war... it's literally endless. You can even look at it from a historical perspective - how did world leaders/countries and NGOs act towards each other and avoid/cause war?

I personally have always found the idea of multinational businesses emerging as world leaders to be interesting. Anyway, as to whether or not you should take it for masters, I would say it depends on what you want to do after that. It is also worth looking at the specific course details offered by whichever uni you would go to, because some unis teach a specific part of IR rather than it in its entirety (also important to decide if you want that or not). IR gives a lot of options in terms of work seeing as you learn a lot of transferable skills for different industries. Hope that helps, all the best with everything, and anything else lmk!

Samantha, Official UoP Rep