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I am currently a second-year computer-science student. However, I am interested in pursuing social science after I am done with my bachelor's degree. To be more specific, I am interested in the fields of Philosophy, Anthropology, and Political Science. To be able to do that, I have started practicing and improving my writing skills. Since I do not want to continue studying CS, I will not be looking for internships or any research experience in the field.

In the summer, I want to do things that would help me getting accepted in social science. But I do not know what I can/should do. In engineering, it is pretty straightforward: It is usually an internship in a company or doing research with a prof. What are the equivalent summer positions for social science students?

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    1.) What area of social science? Social science is extremely broad. 2.) I feel that the link does not contribute to your question.
    – Melanie Palen
    Feb 11, 2019 at 6:26
  • I corrected it. But why the downvotes?
    – Huzo
    Feb 11, 2019 at 6:31
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    Because the link that you had (not anymore) could make some people think you were spamming us.
    – Nobody
    Feb 11, 2019 at 6:45
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    Also, you still did not include your new field of choice.
    – Wrzlprmft ♦
    Feb 11, 2019 at 6:56
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    How would that be spanning when I just want to show what my fields of interests are via things I like to write about? I guess this is a bad place for consultation
    – Huzo
    Feb 11, 2019 at 7:29

2 Answers 2

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My recommendation, if you really want to go into these areas and be standout, complete your computer science degree. There is a real shortage of individuals with strong computational and programming skills in the social sciences. You will likely have potential advisers salivating at the idea of having a doc student who is competent with R, especially so if you are a whiz at the ggplot2 package or tidyverse.

Learn to accentuate your skill set with a strong statistics background and you will be golden.

A strong letter of interest coupled with a strong GRE quant score and a skillset demonstrating competency in programming and statistics...this is an application that many social science faculty dream of having.

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  • Thank you a lot for your insightful answer. But I am now curious, what would the degree that I am pursuing be in Masters, in this case? Or are you suggesting to directly get in contact with a professor and do phd?
    – Huzo
    Feb 12, 2019 at 14:05
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    @huzo Its probably reasonable to go straight into a PhD. Getting a masters in statistics would be a great asset for the future. Quite a few universities offer 5 year masters/bachelor's for statistics. Its a strong option if you wish to pursue academia. That said, it is not necessary.
    – JWH2006
    Feb 12, 2019 at 14:45
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In case you want to reconsider getting out of your field, there exists a "field" called complex systems (in some places), where you can combine what you know about Computer Science with social sciences, such as Economics, Anthropology and Biology.

In fact, I am an engineer who pursued a Master's degree in Applied Mathematics and I am now doing my PhD in Social Complexity, where I study social systems using ideas from anthropology.

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