Funnily, I've spent most of my life accidentally falling into good fortune.

I did my undergraduate degree with majors in Political Science and Sociology. I wound up short of a math minor by one class due to circumstances beyond my control. I spent a large portion of my undergrad working as a research assistant and data monkey for professors at my college. Toward the end of my undergrad years I fell face first into an pretty well paying research fellowship.

Partially due to encouragement by my undergraduate faculty and partially because the job market wasn't doing hot at the time, I decided to apply to graduate school. Based on experience I already had, I knew that I wanted to study "something to do with war", but really didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted to study. I wound up getting offers with full funding from a few well ranked PhD programs.

By the end of my first year in grad school I had figured out what I wanted to write my dissertation on. By the end of my second year, I was one of the rising stars in my department, I was blowing through coursework with ease, I had several co-authored pieces with faculty and other grad students in the works, I was doing all the things that "successful" grad students do.

By the time comp exams rolled around in my third year, I already had the vast majority of my prospectus written and a large portion of the data I needed collected. I was looking at the prospect of finishing my PhD "early". It was right about then that I hit a wall. Simultaneously, I had a major change in my home-life and my work-life started to take its toll. I realized that between teaching, research, and my dissertation I wasn't enjoying myself anymore. I was tired of being poor, I was tired of being tired, I was tired of dealing with the B.S. that comes along with academic life, and I had new responsibilities at home that I hadn't planned for.

So, partially on a lark and partially as a stress reliever, I started to apply for jobs while I was still muddling through. It didn't take long people were offering to fly me out for interviews. Within a few months I had multiple job offers, for jobs both related to political science and unrelated to political science. The starting offers I was getting were substantially more than I could ever hope to make as an newly minted assistant professor. So, even though I had finished coursework and had my dissertation lined up, I decided to roll the dice and opt out with just the masters.

I've been much happier ever since. I get to work on something tangentially related to my education. I get to work with cool people. I make my own hours. I have free time. I have disposable income. I get paid to travel. I get 6 weeks of a year.

I recently decided to get back on the horse and finish my dissertation. It's really not necessary in the field I'm working in, but I want to do it for intrinsic reasons.

I don't regret any part of my education. I got to study really cool things, meet awesome people, and work on research that interests me. I maybe even make a tiny difference in the way we understand the world. Even though parts of it were rough, they helped me get a very good idea about what I do and don't want to do with my life.

For those considering political science as a major or currently working on one, here's the unsolicited advice I never got, but wish I did.

Specialize. There are hundreds and hundreds of generic political science majors out there. What makes you different from them? Ideally you'll specialize in both a subject area and a skill set. Couple your degree with a subject area that puts you in demand (public policy, bio-medical politics, development economics, counter terrorism, ecology, are all hot right now) and a skill-set that puts you in demand (e.g. GIS, statistical analysis, economic modelling, program management, various data collection methods, expert level language proficiency).

Specialize some more. You know that super-awesome job you always dreamed of? Go look up an entry level job listing for it. Do it right now. What skills do they want? What experience do they want? Do they want math skills, programming skills, foreign language, or experience with some obscure software package? OK. Now tailor your education and take coursework that includes those things.

Get experience. Relevant experience is hard to come by when you're young, but it can be beneficial. Fields related to political science and public policy make good use of slave labor interns and fellows. Any relevant experience you can get while your in school is experience you won't have to get when you first start looking for a job.

Be realistic. Let's face it. A lot of us got into political science because we were idealistic and wanted to change the world. But, I hate to break it to you, jobs in the foreign service, working for congress, working for the IMF/WTO/World Bank, and positions with NGOs and IGOs are few and far between. Everyone wants them. There are lots of cool jobs out there that are relevant to your degree, you just have to think out of the box.

Take a chance. Don't let yourself get locked into a specific track. It's alright to throw caution to the wind and completely reverse your direction. It's alright to run off to foreign lands or move across country. It's alright to take a position that you're not sure about.

I lucked into cool stuff. I wound up with a relevant subject matter expertise and a useful technical expertise at the perfect time, and it netted me a super cool job that I love. But, I can tell you a lot of my political scientist friends, including those with graduate degrees, wound up in jobs they think are lame, they don't like, or that don't pay well because they didn't have a clear idea about what they wanted to achieve or didn't take the time to plan out how to get the job they wanted. If you have realistic goals, plan accordingly, and are willing to take a risk, you're going to have a much better time.

Apologies for the long post.