Striking a Balance

Between assignments as varied as writing about industrial strength vacuums to acting on behalf of Brazil in a negotiation simulation on the international environmental impacts of organochlorines, I find myself wishing my assignments better related to each other. As wonderful as this joint M.A. International Relations and International Communication program seems, I am becoming concerned the two are not going to coincide all that well together. I wish that BU combined them better, but perhaps I am asking too much. It seems the summer semester in London may be my only answer, so I am determined to make that a reality.

In addition, due to the rigorous demands of the international relations department, I am slightly afraid that IR courses will overpower my communications courses throughout this program. That would be absolutely unacceptable. I am here, first and foremost, to further my career in communication; I just want to do it in a way I can give back and help solve today's most pressing world issues. Considering my two objectives, the program is a perfect fit. Yet, in practice, they aren't fitting all that well together. I wish that I felt like I was a part of the COM program and that COM and GRS collaborated more, but as everything is run through the IR department, I don't. COM doesn't even allow IR/COM students to be a part of their graduate activities, which doesn't seem right, considering half of our courses are taken from the school. I hope to address this issue soon with the administration, as I want this degree to be truly balanced. For the money I'm paying, or rather that loans I'm taking out to do this, I don't understand why it hasn't been the case.