Harvard University homepage
HARVARD.EDU

For First-Year Students

Harvard students in class looking at their laptops

Advice for First-Year Students  

Your initial semesters at Harvard are a time for exploration and discovery, with an eye towards choosing a concentration that speaks to your passions, serves your interests, and points you toward a future career. We offer a variety of ways to explore your interest in politics: 

Attend events

One way to find out if Government is the best concentration for you is to attend events that we sponsor especially for students. If you would like to be informed of upcoming events of particular interest to concentrators or potential concentrators, please click here and we’ll add you to our list!  

Courses

There is no single course that begins a Government concentration. With limited space in your schedule, of course, you’ll want to know which courses will give you a feel for the concentration and the Department. Karen Kaletka serves as the contact for first years; please email her with questions.

Peer Concentration Counselors can be a great help 

Another resource for first-year students looking for advice about Government courses or the concentration in general is to ask one of our Peer Concentration Counselors (PCCs).  These students are Government concentrators who have volunteered to act as peer advisers.  

Recommended courses for first years 

When you register for courses, consider the following ones, which previous students have found to be good gateways into a Government concentration: 

First-Year Seminars: The following seminar offered during Fall 2025 may count toward the Government concentration elective requirement:  

  • First-Year Seminar 72X: Holding Politicians Accountable. (Julie Weaver)

(Please note that each concentrator is allowed to count only one non-letter-graded course toward the Gov elective requirement. All First-Year Seminars are graded SAT/UNSAT.) 

General Education Courses: The following Gen Ed courses offered during AY 2025-26 can count as a Government concentration elective or for the American politics subfield requirement. They can also count toward the secondary field in Government:  

  • Gen Ed 1022: Unity and Division (Ryan Enos) (spring)
  • Gen Ed 1032: What is a Republic? (Daniel Carpenter) (spring)
  • Gen Ed 1052: Race in a Polarized America (Jennifer Hochschild) (fall)
  • Gen Ed 1092: American Society and Public Policy (Theda Skocpol & Mary Waters) (fall) 

Foundational Courses: These introductory courses in the Government department provide an overview of the different subfields in political science: 

  • Gov 10: Foundations of Political Thought  (fall)
  • Gov 20: Foundations of Comparative Politics (fall)
  • Gov 30: American Government: A New Perspective  (fall)
  • Gov 40: International Conflict and Cooperation in the Modern World  (fall)
  • Gov 50: Data Science for the Social Sciences (fall)

We recommend that those planning to concentrate in Government take Gov 50 or another course in statistical methods before the end of the sophomore year. Gov 50 introduces basic statistical techniques used in quantitative political methodology. Topics covered include descriptive statistics, sampling, estimation, hypothesis tests, and applied linear and logistic regression. Gov 50 is meant to help you achieve “literacy” in political science, so that you can understand what many political scientists are saying and how they verify their claims. At least one course in statistics is required of all concentrators.

1000-level Courses: Finally, if you already have specific interests that you want to explore, many of the 1000-level courses in the Government department have no prerequisites and are appropriate for first-year students, including the following:  

  • Gov 1008: Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (Kanglin Chen) (fall)
  • Gov 1041: Justice by Means of Democracy (Danielle Allen) (spring)
  • Gov 1171: The Making of Modern Politics (Peter Hall) (fall)
  • Gov 1248: Gender and Politics (Sarah Hummel (spring)
  • Gov 1249: Authoritarianism (Sarah Hummel) (fall)  
  • Gov 1295: Comparative Politics in Latin America (Steve Levitsky) (spring)
  • Gov 1314: Race in American Society (Marcel Roman) (spring)
  • Gov 1433: Tech Science: From Democracy to Technocracy and Back (Latanya Sweeney) (fall)  
  • Gov 1560: Latinx Politics (Marcel Roman) (spring)
  • Gov 1722: Politics of the Environment and Climate Change (Stephen Ansolabehere) (spring)
  • Gov 1759: Behavioral Insights & Public Policy: Nudging for Good (Michael Hiscox) (spring)

Intensive Summer Language Programs: Many government students want to focus on studying the politics and society of specific regions of the world (usually done through the comparative politics subfield). We strongly encourage these students to become proficient in the language of that region, which is a valuable skill for research and for seeking jobs in that region after graduation. 

Harvard Summer School runs a variety of intensive summer language programs that help students learn languages more quickly than is possible during a regular semester. In years’ past, the following programs have been offered:  

  • Arabic: Aix-en-Provence, France 
  • Chinese: Beijing 
  • Czech: Prague 
  • French: Aix-en-Provence 
  • German: Vienna & Berlin 
  • Korean: Seoul 
  • Italian: Calabria 
  • Russian: Tblisi, Georgia 
  • Spanish: Buenos Aires 

Financial aid is available for many of these programs through the Office of Career Services.