Besides the department's own courses and tutorials, students can take advantage of the University's other rich resources. Chicago is one of the world's great centers for social science, and the department encourages interdisciplinary work. Indeed, several of our faculty hold joint appointments in related disciplines. Just within the Social Sciences Division, the University has world class departments in sociology, economics, anthropology, and history. It has outstanding professional schools in business, public policy, and law. The John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought, with its faculty of philosophers and social theorists, is unique among American universities. Nearly all our students take advantage of these opportunities and take courses outside the department. For example, students with a special interest in methodology can easily supplement the department's offerings with additional courses in econometrics, statistics, game theory, or model-building in other social science departments. Students interested in policy issues can draw on resources at the Chicago Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies. An extraordinary variety of foreign languages is taught, and the University is known for its interdisciplinary centers on South Asia, East Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. All these opportunities enrich a strong program in political science.
Such broad training ultimately produces young scholars with solid grounding in the social sciences and a genuinely original perspective on larger questions. Fostering such originality, and matching it with well developed research skills, is the central aim of graduate education at Chicago.
