The idea that 2-4 core classes is too much to ask is so ludicrous to me -- engineers only get to take a handful of elective classes because there's such a robust slate of fundamentals that they're expected to know, and government can at least be held to a shadow of such a standard! I preferred pursuing a Public Policy Studies degree to a Political Science one specifically because it was so much more structured, but in retrospect, an even more fleshed-out curriculum on governmental mechanics would have been preferable. ("Politics of Public Policy" and 2 "Economics of the Public Sector" courses were part of the PPS core requirements and those included a fair bit of govmech. We also took an introductory class that taught techniques like Cost-Benefit Analysis, as well as an Ethics course, and afaik our PoliSci majors had 0 such requirements. Most of my elective courses were cross-listed with PoliSci; I cringe at how much more lost I'd have been trying to make sense of politics or government at large without the core classes teaching me how things actually work rather than just lobbing disconnected highfalutin theories at me with no organizing framework or technical details.)
This fits with the picture I'm getting: public policy degrees have the most govmech (although still not a ton), followed by law school, and various other programs sort of tie law school or get third place.
"and government can at least be held to a shadow of such a standard!" yesss. Ideally some people even get full-blown govmech degrees and know government as well as engineers know their field.
The idea that 2-4 core classes is too much to ask is so ludicrous to me -- engineers only get to take a handful of elective classes because there's such a robust slate of fundamentals that they're expected to know, and government can at least be held to a shadow of such a standard! I preferred pursuing a Public Policy Studies degree to a Political Science one specifically because it was so much more structured, but in retrospect, an even more fleshed-out curriculum on governmental mechanics would have been preferable. ("Politics of Public Policy" and 2 "Economics of the Public Sector" courses were part of the PPS core requirements and those included a fair bit of govmech. We also took an introductory class that taught techniques like Cost-Benefit Analysis, as well as an Ethics course, and afaik our PoliSci majors had 0 such requirements. Most of my elective courses were cross-listed with PoliSci; I cringe at how much more lost I'd have been trying to make sense of politics or government at large without the core classes teaching me how things actually work rather than just lobbing disconnected highfalutin theories at me with no organizing framework or technical details.)
This fits with the picture I'm getting: public policy degrees have the most govmech (although still not a ton), followed by law school, and various other programs sort of tie law school or get third place.
"and government can at least be held to a shadow of such a standard!" yesss. Ideally some people even get full-blown govmech degrees and know government as well as engineers know their field.
Did you get a PPS undergrad, or masters?