International and Public Affairs
专业介绍
The concentration in International and Public Affairs equips students with the knowledge and skills necessary to be engaged global citizens.
This concentration offers three tracks: Development, Policy & Governance, and Security. All students take a common core of five classes, beginning with a choice of thematic gateway lecture courses (ideally taken during freshman or sophomore year), and then building through a required junior seminar and a required senior seminar (eligible students may choose to write an honor’s thesis to satisfy the senior seminar requirement).
All students choose one of three tracks of substantive specialization:
- Development, in which students explore issues of human development in local and global contexts, and across both the developing world and advanced industrial settings;
- Security, which allows students to explore issues of security in both local and global contexts; and
- Policy and Governance, in which students explore the design, implementation, and evaluation of public policies to resolve societal challenges, as well as the governing structures that yield those policies.
The concentration is committed to engaging students in the classroom, enabling research opportunities with faculty and in the field, and supporting experiential learning opportunities. Advisors’ office hours and an online appointment scheduler are available on The Watson School website.
Student Goals
Students in this concentration will:
- Understand societal challenges from a multidisciplinary perspective
- Understand the relationship between inquiry and action
- Learn methodological approaches for understanding and conducting social science research
- Develop analytical and critical skills for oral and written argumentation
- Develop substantive depth in a particular domain of global challenges
- Produce original scholarly research or original policy recommendations