The curriculum for the Global Affairs major comprises 4 elements for a total of 17 courses. See the General Announcements for a detailed breakdown of major requirements.
Core Courses
- GLBL 200: Invitation to Global Affairs
- POLI 211: Introduction to International Relations
- POLI 212: Introduction to Comparative Politics
- HIST 249: Globalization in World History
Elective Courses
The more than 100 elective courses for the Global Affairs major are organized into 3 areas of specialization:
- Global Order, Peace, and Conflict
- Global Wealth and Sustainability
- Regional Communities and Identities
Students must take at least 1 course in each area of specialization and a total 8 elective courses. At least 5 elective courses must be taken at the 300-level or above. For a full list of elective courses, see the General Announcements.
Language Courses
Students complete at least 4 courses in one of the 10 modern languages taught at Rice: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Capstone Course
Students enroll in the Global Affairs Task Force course in their senior year. Students will engage directly with practitioners who will draw on their own experiences in government, industry, and advocacy. These practitioners will issue at least 2 realistic or real global policy challenges for teams of students to tackle.
We recommend that students enroll in core and language courses concurrently.