Why Having a Degree in International Relations Is Not for Everyone
Studying International Relations is definitely fun. You can learn a lot about world politics and how the world works in general. Understanding those stuff gives you a lot of perspectives on how to analyze things that happen in your life, whether it’s correlated with politics or not. International Relations forced you to see the world in various views and think critically and these could be really useful in daily life.
The problem is, no one really hire you.
I live in Indonesia, the country is growing rapidly, everyone is hiring anyone. Sadly, International Relations degree rarely mentioned in those recruitment pamphlets. If such thing even exist, the competition is bigger than ever since such a huge population are chasing the same rare vacancy. Granted, the problem is not endemically for International Relations but also applied to any Social Sciences or any Theoretical Sciences degree and probably also happened to many country out there.
Our “native” professions are usually for working in NGOs, foreign services in the country, the government, and academics. Those are the dream jobs for the degree holders, yet only a small percentage of the population can experience working in such places. Most of the time, we work on other places in any hiring industries, usually to become a marketing or managerial position.
Sure, the world is not perfect no one’s going to have their dream job. These degree cannot guarantee you anything but knowledge on your subject. These Bachelor’s degree is also intentionally not designed so you can look for better jobs. It’s for science, academics, and stuff. And what you learn in the university is also not useless at all, admittedly not for your usual daily business. The soft skills you’ve learned is what the hiring market is looking for, but you really lack of hard skills.
If you’re a student International Relations, you really need to learn more. If you’re really confident on your competency in the subject, go for it, but you really need to give more to compete with the other. But if you’re just an-average-student, you really need to look for another practical skills. Learn how to code, how to fix stuff and be handy, how to design, how to write, how to do public speaking, how to advertise stuff, anything practical that can help you to look for job.