In this track students are exposed to the politics, economics, and cultures of other industrialized countries.  The underlying thematic areas will focus either on economic issues (international trade and finance, industrial policy, global economics) or on international-global relations (diplomacy, international politics/organizations and foreign policy).

In this track, the focus is largely on non-Western societies, exposing students to the problems of international economic and political development. Students will analyze the causes for lacking development as well as come to understand the complexity and fascination of non-Western cultures.

This track offers students the option of designing their own program of study based on their specific interests and career direction.  Ideally, students will pursue an issue specialization or cross-regional expertise, focusing for example on human rights, democratization, international environmental problems, international women’s issues, etc.  On occasion, students will choose language training as their theme and develop high-level competency in two or maybe three languages. Since there is considerable latitude under this option, the sequence of courses will have to be pre-approved after close consultation with the IS director. In preparation for this, the student will need to develop a well-defined, clearly stated objective followed by a program of study that can credibly meet that objective. That program will consist of a set of internally coherent courses at the introductory and advanced level.  The student will also have to demonstrate his or her mastery of specific tools necessary to achieve the stated objective.