The endless misconceptions you hear when studying for a politics degree at Bristol

When you start university you are always asked questions about your choice of degree.

Upon saying that you study politics you quickly become familiar with the response you almost always receive. Firstly, the winning response is “So you want to be Prime Minster?” Anyone who studies politics will undoubtedly have heard this question countless times.

When you reply “No, absolutely not” you often receive a look of confusion before being asked “Oh, so MP or Chancellor?” This often continues until you say that you don’t want to pursue a career in politics, as you try to explain that your degree offers so much more than just opening doors to Parliament.

#NotallPoliticsStudents

Another common response is “Oh wow! I can’t imagine a much more exciting time to be studying politics!” With this one you often find yourself immediately saying that politics is always interesting (believe it or not) as it is as ever changing and unpredictable.

Yes, I do have to remind myself of this whilst trying to understand political theory and questioning when I will possibly ever use it. Often what follows on from this is a quiz on your opinions on Brexit, Trump and every other contentious subject of the time.

I can’t be the only one who is fed up of people assuming that I want to discuss Trump at every opportunity?

This isn't we all talk about, honest

The misconceptions continue, another popular one being that our lectures and seminars are filled with riveting content and heated debates. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

More often than not seminars are awkwardly silent as the tutor attempts to spark some small form of discussion. We are all thankful for that person who leads the conversation, no matter how much we disagree with most of what they say.

Personally, the most exciting part of lectures is when we are all invited to vote in a poll, the more controversial the issue the better, and eagerly waiting for the result. Don’t get me wrong our lectures do sometimes live up to the subject’s reputation of being interesting.

Voting is the best part of this degree

Whilst the degree may not be always as interesting as hoped and the list of misconceptions are endless, can we imagine ourselves studying anything else? Definitely not.