Programme Overview:
- Duration:
- 1 Years / 2 Years
- Attendance:
- Full Time / Part Time
- Mode of Delivery:
- Face-to-Face
- Next Intake:
- 2024/2025 September
- Contact Name:
- Spire Graduate
- Contact Number:
- Please click 'Ask a Question'
- Fees:
- Fee Information
The MSc Politics degree was developed for those who wish to understand the role of politics in shaping the great issues of our day including power and conflict, distribution and inequality, relations between nations, and the new challenges of globalisation, financial crisis, national security, and climate change.
Graduates work with a wide variety of international private-sector employers, government agencies and Non-Governmental Organisations, in roles that include:
Recent graduates of UCD School of Politics & International Relations now work in:
Curricular information is subject to change
The vision of this programme is to transform students into specialists in the field of politics at the levels of both theory and practice and to allow them participate effectively in both theoretical and practical debates in that field
The MSc Politics is a 90-credit programme. Full time students must take three 10-credit modules in the autumn trimester, and three 10-credit modules in the spring trimester. Students must also submit a thesis worth 30 credits that will be written during the summer trimester.
SPIRe part time programmes run for 2 years and students normally do 1 - 2 modules per semester. The final 30-credit module is completed during the second year of the programme.
Please note that our part-time programmes run during the day and are not timetabled in the evenings or at weekends.
Core and Option Modules for MSc Politics
These are the current modules for 2023/24 but are subject to change. Each of the following modules carries 10 credits unless otherwise specified.
Core Modules
Option Modules
Autumn
Spring
Summer Trimester Core Module
POL42310 Thesis (30 credits)
MSc Politics (W233) Full Time
EU fee per year - € 10100
nonEU fee per year - € 22600
MSc Politics (W234) Part Time
EU fee per year - € 6420
nonEU fee per year - € 11300
***Fees are subject to change
Tuition fee information is available on the UCD Fees website. Please note that UCD offers a number of graduate scholarships for full-time, self-funding international students, holding an offer of a place on a UCD graduate degree programme. For further information please see International Scholarships.
SPIRe operates a Graduate Scholarship programme, which opens on May 1st. To access details, see SPIRe Graduate Scholarship Scheme. Please note that not all programmes are eligible for this Scholarship, please check the T&C's carefully when they become available.
A primary degree with at least Second Class Honours Grade 1 (2H1) in a relevant subject such as political science, international relations, social science, sociology, history, geography, economics, global studies, public policy, development studies, EU studies, law. 2H1 is equivalent to 60 per cent, B minus or 3.08 GPA - in American system: B or 3.00 GPA.
Coral Richardson
Hello, my name is Coral and I am originally from California in the US. When looking at potential programs, the UCD Politics program stood out because it offered unique elective options and featured faculty members with expertise and current research in fields that interested me.
Starting a degree in a new field was daunting at first, however, the faculty, peers, and courses have overwhelming highlights of my time at UCD and I feel more than adequately prepared for future work in research and academia. I have had the chance to work with several faculty members in my own courses and as a tutor through the Master’s Graduate Scholarship program. Each professor has been engaging and passionate about their research as well as willing to help me narrow my academic interests.
In addition to the uplifting academic environment, I have met so many new friends from Europe and abroad that have introduced me to new customs and ideas that have expanded my worldview and made my time in Dublin even more enjoyable. Academically speaking, this course offered a balance of elective and required courses that simultaneously improved my research abilities and general understanding of modern politics without restricting opportunities to further my research interests in more specific subfields such as development politics. The optional elective courses are diverse and can accommodate most research interests with focuses on major political subfields: international relations, comparative politics, and political theory while the required courses were engaging and invaluable to building my confidence in research methods.