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Graduate Students

Placement Service

The Department of Political Science operates an academic placement service for its advanced graduate students. The goal is to mail out complete placement packets to prospective employers at the request of students in conjunction with their faculty advisors.

LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION

The first thing you should do is to approach three or four faculty members for reference letters. Almost always, these are members of your dissertation committee. Ask them to submit their letters directly to the Graduate Program Coordinator. The letters will be kept on file in the Department of Political Science. You will not have access to the contents of your file owing to the confidentiality of the recommendation letters.

DEPARTMENT MATERIALS

When you wish to begin applying to prospective academic employers, submit a completed release form to the DGS; the form requires the signature of your principal dissertation advisor, and is available in the Department office.

You will then be entitled to pick up the requisite number of materials from the Department office. The Department will provide up to 35 sheets of Political Science Department letterhead (for cover letters), 35 envelopes and 35 labels in any given academic year.

Address the labels, attach them to the envelopes and pack each one with any application materials you wish to have mailed (e.g. cover letter, CV, teaching portfolio, transcript, statement of research, writing sample, etc.).

Items with multiple pages should be paper-clipped, not stapled.

Submit the packed, unsealed envelopes to the Graduate Program Coordinator, who will add the recommendation letters to each envelope, seal them, and mail them out that day.

The Department will cover the costs of mailing the placement packet for the first thirty-five (35) applications in any given academic year.

The Department will NOT cover the photocopying costs of other materials that are typically requested by search committees: e.g.

Curriculum vitae:

Please include at the end of your CV a list of 3-4 names of faculty who will be providing letters of recommendation.

Statement of research and teaching interests:

This should be no more than two single-spaced pages in length. The goal is to provide a brief synopsis of your dissertation, to describe any other research activities in which you've been engaged recently, and to outline post-dissertation avenues of research you intend to pursue (ideally, these will be connected in some logical and interesting way(s) to your dissertation). In your statement on teaching, describe the areas you are qualified to teach, either through field exams/coursework or TAships. Be sure to mention any teaching awards you have won or courses that you have taught on your own, either at Brown or elsewhere.

Official Brown Transcript

Transcripts are available on-line, via mail, or in person from the Registrar's Office. Please click on the following link for more information: http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Registrar/transcripts.html

Ask your primary advisor to look it over with a critical eye.

WRITING SAMPLE

Writing Sample(s): Examples include conference papers, published articles, and dissertation chapters. Don't overdo it; send your best stuff, remembering that hiring committees will not take the time to plow through hundreds of pages of material.