International & Comparative Policy Studies Program

What You Need to know about Majoring in ICPS

Before you proceed, you may want to think about what an ICPS program will require of you in general terms. The ICPS Program demands careful planning and much independent study with a minimal amount of faculty supervision; it is intended for students who have acquired a solid and strong academic background and who are definite as to their future goals.

Freshman and Sophomore Year

Sometimes students find they can do everything they want to do by pursuing a regular program in sociology, political science, economics or history. You should speak with your adviser and possibly the chair of your home department about what your options are. It is important early on to picture the different possibilities available in your final two years at Reed and decide what is best for you. By choosing a traditional major, you will have regular supervision. You will also be required to take a broad range of courses in a particular discipline. By electing to be an ICPS major, you sacrifice breadth in a particular discipline for more depth in departments outside your major. This often means that your path through your home department major will be constricted, with fewer course choices in that major. It also means a greater burden falls to you to synthesize the variety of courses you plan to take outside your department. And whereas students writing a thesis in a department can take a lot for granted in terms of literature and problems, ICPS students need to think about how and why their thesis is interdisciplinary.

That is why, when you become an ICPS major, we require an explicit petition including a justification for your proposed course of study. We highly recommend submitting a draft of your petition to your adviser in your proposed home discipline as well as other faculty members in your proposed home discipline, on the ICPS committee, and in the departments you expect to make an important contribution to your proposed ICPS program.  Be sure to get the draft out in time for faculty to read it and give you feedback, to think about the comments and suggestions you receive, and to use them to revise and improve your petition before turning it in for committee review.

Your petition must be submitted to the ICPS Committee no later than the first semester of your junior year (i.e., the semester immediately preceding the semester in which you would attempt the junior qualifying examination) prior to the Committee's deadline for considering new proposals (Friday of the fourth week of classes, usually sometime in September for the fall semester and sometime in February for the spring semester). However, you may petition earlier if you feel ready, and certainly you should be engaged in discussions with faculty representatives of your home department as well as the ICPS committee well in advance of your petition submission. Members of the Committee may then interview you briefly to clarify your goals and the means you have chosen to achieve them. Acceptance is not automatic. The Committee may feel that your goals might be better served through a regular major and may strongly advise you to pursue that course of action. This point reinforces the importance of carefully thinking through your proposal.

The petition must be submitted by noon to Lois Hobbs in Vollum 112 by noon on the due date, with an electronic copy emailed to the chair of ICPS. The deadlines for petitioning students who will be in the first semester of their Junior year in Fall 2012 and Spring 2013 are September 21, 2011 and February 22, 2013 respectively. You should:

  • Describe briefly your educational goals at Reed, particularly as they pertain to your choice of major, the general area in which you expect to do your thesis research, and, if relevant, your post-graduation plans.
  • Give examples of some courses you have taken already that contribute towards these goals in concrete ways, and explain how.
  • Discuss the set of courses you plan to take during your remaining semesters at Reed, and explain how they contribute to your educational goals.
  • Be sure that a list of your courses completed and courses planned in order to meet the full set of ICPS major requirements is included in your petition.  Usually it works best to organize the list by the various ICPS requirements (core and home discipline) and to attach it at the end of your petition essay.

Junior and Senior Year

The ICPS Junior Qualifying Examination is a thesis proposal for the ICPS Committee. It is normally four to six typewritten pages. In the proposal, the student defines the thesis topic, discusses its significance, explains the methodology to be used in researching the topic, and presents a short critical bibliography of relevant secondary works and/or primary resources. Two members of the ICPS Committee read the thesis proposal and meet with the student for a half-hour oral discussion. The oral discussion will cover various subjects, including the topic’s scope, viability and significance.

Normally, students take the ICPS Qualifying Examination at the same time as they take the Junior Qualifying Examination in their home department (Friday of the second week after the break during the second semester of their Junior Year). If the candidate successfully completes the home department examination, the ICPS thesis proposal and the ICPS mini oral, then ICPS Committee admits the student to the senior year and ICPS 470 (the thesis course).

It is important to take both Qualifying Examinations seriously. If you do not pass the Qual in your home department, you cannot be admitted into the ICPS major. This is true even if the ICPS Committee accepts your thesis proposal. In this case, you must pass the Qual in some other home department in order to become an ICPS major. Likewise, you may might not pass the ICPS Qual itself. The Committee may might feel it might be more appropriate for a student to complete the thesis in the home department, and the student will become a regular major (sociology, political science, economics, history, as the case may be). The Committee might consider the proposed thesis topic not sufficiently located in the area of international or comparative policy studies. This is why it is wise to speak well in advance with ICPS faculty as to what constitutes a viable thesis topic.

The written qual must be submitted by noon to Lois Hobbs in Vollum 112 by noon on the due date, with an electronic copy emailed to the chair of ICPS. The deadlines for the ICPS thesis proposal who will be in the second semester of their Junior year in Fall 2011 and Spring 2012 are October 26, 2012 and March 29, 2013 respectively.