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The CQ Press Career
Guide for American
Politics Students
The CQ Press Career
Guide for American
Politics Students

Peter Ubertaccio
Stonehill College, USA
FOR INFORMATION: Copyright © 2019 by CQ Press, an Imprint of SAGE Publications,
Inc. CQ Press is a registered trademark of Congressional
CQ Press Quarterly Inc.
An Imprint of SAGE Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
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Description: Washington, D.C. : CQ Press, a division of
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Identifiers: LCCN 2018028753 | ISBN 9781544327303

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Subjects: LCSH: Political science—Vocational guidance—

United States.

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This book is printed on acid-free paper.

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CONTENTS

Preface vii

Acknowledgments ix

About the Author xi

CHAPTER 1 • Introduction and Getting Started 1

Chapter Objectives 1
What does it mean to study American politics? 3
The B.A. in Politics 5
Career Outcomes in American Politics 5
Conclusion 6

CHAPTER 2 • Coursework and Internships 9

Chapter Objectives 9
What is your curriculum? 10
The Double Major or Minor: Useful to postgraduate
outcomes or not? 13
Elective Choices 14
What is a co-curriculum? 15
What about internships and experiential opportunities? 16
Conclusion 19

CHAPTER 3 • Staff Work on and off the Hill 23

Chapter Objectives 23
What does a staffer do? 24
Legislative Correspondent 24
Legislative Assistant 26
Legislative Director 26
Press Secretary 26
Scheduler 26
District Director 26
Chief of Staff 26
Do I need to live in the state of a member or belong
to a member’s political party to get a job? 27
What’s the difference between staff work on Capitol Hill
and your state capital? 28
Your State Capital 28
 What about working in my city or town? 29
What if I’m not interested in working for an elected official? 30
Administrative Agencies 30
State Government 30
Public Relations and Communications 36
Conclusion 37

CHAPTER 4 • Political Campaigns 41

Chapter Objectives 41
Where should you focus your campaign energy? 42
National Campaigns 42
Congressional Campaigns 44
State and Local Elections 44
Ballot Questions 44
Advocacy Campaigns 45
What do you do on political campaigns? 45
Field Work: Canvassing and Visibility 46
Data Entry and Media Scrubs 46
Media Contact 46
Fundraising 47
Conclusion: Why work on a campaign? 47

CHAPTER 5 • Other Pursuits 51

Chapter Objectives 51
What is graduate school? 52
A Doctoral or a Master’s Degree 54
What is professional school? 54
A Law Degree 55
A Business Degree 55
A Journalism Degree 56
An Education Degree 56
A Degree in Public Health 56
Should you go right into the job market? 57
Nonprofit Work 58
Think Tanks 58
Advocacy 58
Service 58
Corporate 58
Conclusion 59

CHAPTER 6 • Conclusion 61
Let’s Review 61
What else can I do to make myself competitive? 62
Conclusion 64
PREFACE

INTRODUCTION
The best part of being a professor at a college dedicated to a core liberal arts cur-
riculum is the opportunity it affords to teach and learn both in and out of the
classroom. What I have noticed over the years, however, is a growing disconnect
between the activities in my classroom and the kinds of questions and concerns
students have about the job market or next steps they might take upon graduation.
It was as if the study of politics was somehow unrelated to the demands of an ever-
changing job market.
The response to this trend is the guide. The data from employers and their own
observations of the job market make it clear they want students who have strong
analytical and critical thinking skills, public-speaking and writing skills, and the abil-
ity to process complex issues and data points. They want creative thinkers who can
work in teams, who are capable of research, and who understand the world in which
we live. These are the skills one develops by a rigorous study of politics.
I imagine this guide as a companion piece along with an introductory or upper-
level textbook in courses in American politics. It aims to be a powerful introduction
to the job market in the field and to the variety of options that exist for the student
who is interested in and passionate about politics. Many students, those who major
in political science and those who simply have a passing interest in the subject, wish
to learn more about career paths in the field. It is particularly difficult for them to
navigate job opportunities in the field because the market is diffuse and open to so
many pathways.
Making that first step is difficult. Indeed, launching a career in politics can be
frustrating because of the peculiarities of this particular job market. There’s not
going to be a table at job fair that reads, “American Politics.”
This book is designed to help alleviate some of the frustrations undergraduate
students encounter by encouraging them to take the important first few steps into
this world with a full understanding of how to develop a trajectory in politics and
government that can yield important results later in their careers.

PLAN OF THE BOOK

My hope is this guide will appeal to any student with an interest in the subject.
Students find themselves in courses in this field because of their interest in politics,
government, campaigns and elections, and current events. Very few choose to go

vii
directly into a Ph.D. program. Indeed, interim steps between undergraduate work
and graduate school are often a requirement for some of the best Ph.D. programs
in the field.
The book begins by encouraging students to think about their own stories and
the problems in this world they hope to solve. It encourages them to think about
this before worrying about an older question, “What do you want to be?” Students
redirected away from this narrow question are much better prepared for many other
questions this book will help them consider, for example:

•• What can you do with your interest?

•• How can you leverage your interests and academic work for employment
after college?
•• What steps should you be taking now to ensure your professional
readiness after graduation?

Chapter 1 begins the process of examining each of these questions, designed

to help students with an interest in politics align their academic and co-curricular
pursuits to skills and career readiness competencies that are in demand by employ-
ers in the field. It lays out an important checklist that students can use to begin
this process, including resume review, a social media strategy, and what networking
really means.
Chapter 2 focuses on helping students align their interests with the appropriate
coursework, internships, work experience, and co-curricular opportunities, while
Chapter 3 looks specifically at entry-level staff work and offers guidance on how
to navigate this space. Chapter 4 looks at campaign work for candidates, parties,
and issues. Chapter 5 discusses the variety of other pursuits open to the student of
politics, from graduate school to professional school to nonprofit work, education,
think tanks, and more.

viii    The CQ Press Career Guide For American Politics Students

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I ’ve had the pleasure of teaching hundreds of students at Stonehill College, and as
they move on to a variety of career and service opportunities, and graduate and
professional schools, they continue to reinforce my belief that a good, rigorous edu-
cation in politics complements the demands of the twenty-first-century job market.
My research assistant, Jenna Christiansen, helped me with some of the background
research for this book. Jenna not only took advantage of multiple opportunities
discussed here (course travel to DC, internships in DC and Boston, co-curricular
leadership on campus), but matched her experiential components with rigorous
academics and was the highest-ranking graduate in Bachelor of Arts at Stonehill
in 2018.
I am particularly grateful to Robert P. Hager, Jr, Ray Silvius, Gilbert Gagné,
Laurie Sprankle, Dave Benjamin, Rachael Vanessa Cobb, Maurice T. Cunningham,
and John Kenneth White for their helpful comments when this guide was in pro-
posal form and for encouragement I received from Monica Eckman at SAGE/CQ.

ix
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter Ubertaccio is the dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Stonehill
College in Easton, MA, an associate professor of political science, former chair
of the Department of Political Science and International Studies, and former
director of the Joseph Martin Institute for Law & Society. For more than 10 years,
he taught a travel course, Power, Politics, and Policymaking in Washington, that
brought students to DC for two weeks of academic seminars with leaders of
government, parties, think tanks, and journalism. He created Stonehill’s Hill to
Hill networking program that brings fourth-year students to Washington for
week-long networking opportunities and works with students to land their first
job on Capitol Hill or Beacon Hill. He also oversaw the Stonehill in DC pro-
gram for students wishing to intern in Washington for a semester. In addition to
Washington, he has brought groups of students to New York City, Guatemala,
Mexico City, Nigeria, and the United Kingdom. He helped establish Stonehill’s
Model UN program and supervised dozens of international internships while
on the faculty.

xi
 CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION AND GETTING STARTED

A standard career guide is a place where you simply learn how to apply for jobs.
This is not that type of book. Consider this more of a guide to your story: who
you are and what problems you hope to solve in this world. Here you will start
to tell the story of your interests, passions, and aspirations. This story—one that
is continuously changing and evolving—is the key to success once you complete
your degree. This guide will help you think about how you fill in the details of the
emerging story of who you are and where you are headed. It will help you navigate
the next few years of your college experience and provide a path for the life and
world beyond.

Chapter Objectives
• Introduce the concept of telling the story
• Discuss why this text focuses on the job market within American politics
and the universe of career options that exist
• Learn what to do with one’s interests and how to leverage such interests
and academic work for employment after college
• Develop those first few steps toward professional readiness after
graduation

You chose this course in American politics for any number of reasons.
Perhaps you’re interested in American national elections and political parties.
Maybe you’ve been moved by a social movement or how institutions of government
respond—or don’t respond—to natural disasters. You might take in current events
voraciously and want to match that interest with an academic subject. Perhaps you
wonder why the policy preferences of your friends and colleagues don’t seem to
find an appropriate outlet in your state legislature or Congress. Or you notice every

1
year how local elections in your city or town seem to draw the interests of relatively
few people.
It could be that you enter this course with plenty of questions: How do American
political institutions work? How does the United States economy impact its politics?
How can nongovernmental agencies in the United States impact poverty, illness, or
social injustice? Or, why didn’t my candidate win the last election in my state?
These are just a few questions or concerns that you might have considered
before taking an introductory course in American politics. For some of you, these
issues and your interests will grow, and you’ll major in political science and, if you
can, concentrate in American government or politics. For many others, you’ll
major in something else because of other interests, but you find this course or this
area to be fascinating. Perhaps you’ll minor or take a few more classes as electives.
Regardless of what you choose, there’s another question you might have considered:
What am I going to do with my passion for American politics?
This book will help you answer this question and will help match your interest
in politics with postgraduate outcomes.
So, what does the future hold for a student in American politics? Well, to begin
with, there are more opportunities than you might even be aware of right now. If
this area is a passion of yours, how can you make a career out of it?
The answers are here. There are many rewarding, and varied, career options
and postgraduate opportunities that await you at the completion of your degree.
This book will guide you through the remainder of your undergraduate work and
offer tips for navigating your life and the world beyond.
Your success beyond your undergraduate years begins with you and the story
about yourself you will be able to tell. Do not get bogged down with the question,
“What am I going to be?” Rather, spend some time following the advice of Google’s
Education Evangelist, Jaime Casap, and ask the question, “What problem do I want
to solve?”
When you redirect yourself away from a narrow focus (“I want to be a lawyer.”)
to a broader focus on a problem or set of problems (“I want to reduce inequality in
America.”), then you open a broader range of possibilities for the outcomes you’ll
encounter when you’re done with college. It is also reasonable to believe that you
will become a lawyer! But a broader focus on your studies will make you better
prepared for your future career path even if you come full circle.
Focusing on a problem or set of problems you wish to solve also makes sense
given the job market you will enter when college is over. Today’s job market is
continually churning with rapid advances in technology changing the basic con-
tours of our economy. Somewhere in your family history is a story of a person who
worked for one company or one entity his or her entire life and retired, perhaps
with a pension.
That world no longer exists. Your world will be one of many jobs and multiple
career paths. A rigorous and robust college education is the critical first step to navi-
gating an ever-changing job market. This guide exists, in part, to help you find the
right path. One key to successfully doing so starts in this course in American politics.

2   The CQ Press Career Guide For American Politics Students

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