Political Science Professor

Thanks to the personal scandals and broken promises of Politicians, politics often seems like the work of an Artist. A con artist, that is. In reality, however, politics isn’t art. It’s science — social science, to be exact — and learning it requires the instruction of a special kind of Scientist, known as a Political Science Professor.

As a Political Science Professor, you’re employed by a college or university in its humanities department. It’s your job to teach college students about systems of government (for example, monarchies, oligarchies, democracies, theocracies, dictatorships, and republics) and branches of government (for example, the judicial, legislative, and executive branches of the U.S. government).

Your students — future Politicians, Lawyers, Lobbyists, and Public Policy Analysts — enroll in your classes with the expectation of learning the “who, what, where, when, why, and how” of government. Under your tutelage, they therefore study everything from political ideologies, political parties, and political theory to election law, public policy, and international relations in order to learn how governments get things done.

Your daily duties as a Political Science Professor include designing curriculums, developing lesson plans, writing syllabi, advising students, giving lectures, assigning homework, and giving and grading exams. As a Social Scientist, however, you might also be expected to do political research, present at political science conferences, and write scholarly articles in political science journals. You might even go so far as to become an Author of political books.

Like a Biology Professor, though, your job at the end of the day is basically all about dissecting things. Instead of animal organs, however, what you’re cutting open are legal systems and power structures!