The Student Experience: The M.A. Program Politics Concentration

Students in the Master of Arts Program's Politics Concentration are experienced journalists who want to learn to report more deeply about social and political affairs. The program is designed to add to students’ toolbox of skills by showing them the way in which social scientists approach a range of social, political, and economic problems. Unlike a program in international affairs or political science, the program is geared specifically to journalists, and all writing is journalistic. The in-depth immersion in the latest scholarship on politics produces better political journalists — ones who are comfortable drawing on expert research to produce stores of greater depth and nuance. Working with core faculty members Nicholas Lemann and Alexander Stille, Politics Concentration students sharpen their abilities to explore power and government the world over. 

What is it like to be a member of the Politics Concentration seminar? We recently talked about the student experience with Agostino Petroni, a 2020 graduate of the M.A. Politics Concentration from Italy who, since graduating from Columbia, has published stories in such outlets as National Geographic, Atlas Obscura, BBC Travel, The Counter, Yes! Magazine, and Outside Magazine. He is currently a Pulitzer Center Reporting Fellow. 

What was your experience like in the M.A. Politics Concentration core seminar? 

The thing that was most fascinating about the M.A. Politics seminar was that we were in a classroom with eighteen students, and in that class you had students from all around the world who continually shared ideas and introduced topics that I had never heard of before. We had great access to Professor Stille and Professor Lemann, who both were incredibly available to us, and who were leading us to become better journalists and to better understand the world around us. They explained to us, by the end, how society works.

Professor Stille started the seminar explaining how a nation-state is created, then how democracy is born, how democracies fail, how revolutions start - and having students jump in and tell us about their own experiences in different countries. So being in that class for three hours each session was the most interesting and intense learning experience that I’ve ever had in my life. Because knowledge was not just transmitted from the professors to us - every member of the seminar was jumping in and helping the rest of the students grow intellectually and in a journalistic way.

How would you describe the overall Master of Arts Program experience? 

The M.A. program is really unique because the classes are very small and Columbia's professors are always available for you. We have the best journalists in the world teaching at the school, and they're always ready for a chat and a coffee. And then all the classmates that you have around you bring a lot to the table. You also have the opportunity to write this very longform story - it's something I had never done before, and understanding how to structure it and how to do the reporting is very, very useful if you aim at becoming a longform journalist.
 
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Please click here to begin an application to Columbia for the 2021-22 academic year. The deadline to apply for the M.A. Program is January 6, 2021.

As you consider the possibility of furthering your career as a journalist at Columbia, please explore our website to learn more about Columbia Journalism School's faculty members, course offerings, and career development services.

At Columbia, a top-tier journalism education can be within financial reach.  Please visit our website to learn about our scholarship opportunities.  

If you would like to make an appointment to speak with an admissions counselor, please email us at apply.journalism@columbia.edu.