The undergraduate major in Asian studies is a rigorous but flexible interdisciplinary program. It is designed to offer students access to the rich course offerings in the Asian field campus-wide in ways that are not available through individual departments. Each student's program is structured to assure deeper knowledge of one East Asian culture and language, and also to explore the “big picture” through a broad range of inter-area and interdisciplinary perspectives. Students concentrate on either China or Japan and study at least two years of the appropriate language. Course plans are customized based on a student’s area of interest and for this reason, no two programs are alike.
Read more: http://ieas.berkeley.edu/gas
Development Studies (DS) is the study of social transformation or change. The problems of social transformation are urgent, massive, complex, and often transcend the boundaries of conventional academic disciplines. DS examines the problems, processes, and prospects for the development of human and material resources in what are generally thought to be the less developed areas of the world. To study comparative development effectively, one must draw upon many disciplines and construct a balanced understanding of historical and contemporary processes. Thus, studying development as a social transformation requires a blending of knowledge and perspectives from political science, economics, sociology, psychology, anthropology, geography, history, and environmental science. Development Studies majors are required to take core courses in development theory and build upon this core with course work focusing on (1) a discipline, (2) a geographic concentration, and (3) methodological skills appropriate to the student's primary disciplinary interest.
The Latin American Studies program trains students in the interdisciplinary study of an important world-region: Latin America. The program is appropriate for students who seek a deep understanding of Latin American history, culture and society. It provides a broader perspective of the area than is usually available through a single department. The program draws together faculty from many different departments in the social sciences, humanities, and the natural sciences and collaborates closely with the Center for Latin American Studies, which provides a unique working community of Latin Americanist faculty, students and other researchers from the United States and Latin America. The University of California at Berkeley was among the first universities in the nation to develop a specialized interdisciplinary program of training and research focused on Latin America, With this legacy dating from the early 1930s, students throughtout the years have been able gain a solid foundation in Latin American languages and history, and to develop a focused approach to the study of Latin America. Spanish and Portuguese are required for the major. Students must gain an intermediate level of proficiency in one language and an elementary knowledge of the other. In addition, students pursue a multidisciplinary course of study that includes the history and literature of Latin America.
Since 1981, the interdisciplinary major in Middle Eastern Studies (MES) has provided Berkeley students with the opportunity to study a region of great historical and cultural importance whose political, economic, and social development is closely linked to that of our own society. The MES major covers the Arab world, Turkey, Iran, and Israel, intertwining history and culture, geography and ecology, politics and economics, with an emphasis on the modern and contemporary Middle East. Its broad and balanced program of study draws on a wide variety of Middle East-related courses offered by faculty from more than 20 different departments and schools in the University. All students in the MES major write senior theses and also learn at least one of the major Middle Eastern languages of today: Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, or Turkish.
Peace and Conflict Studies ( PACS)
Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) has been an undergraduate major at the University of California, Berkeley since 1985. The program also offers a minor. The founding premise of PACS is that war and other forms of violence, despite their omnipresence, can be mitigated and transformed through the application of knowledge. To this end, the major introduces students to critical analyses of the social, economic, political, and ecological structures of conflict, power, and processes of change. Given the complex and multifaceted nature of violence and its causes, students are expected to approach their studies from a number of interdisciplinary perspectives. PACS majors are encouraged to develop an integrative understanding of peace theory, research, and practice, taking advantage of internship opportunities in both local and global settings.
The PACS curriculum is designed to provide students both breadth and depth in their study of peace and conflict. Breadth is accomplished by the survey fields and depth through the area of concentration. Students, in consultation with an academic advisor, choose the courses that will fulfill these requirements. Areas of concentration include Human Security, Global Governance, Culture and Identity, Human Rights, Conflict Resolution, and Nonviolence. Any one of these six may also be combined with a regional focus. Areas of concentration may be combined or reconstituted in special cases by petition to the program Chair. Additionally, all students are required to fulfill a common set of core courses: Introduction, Methodology, Theory, and the Senior Seminar.
Political Economy (PEIS) major examines the relationship between politics and economics in modern societies, focusing special attention on problems of both domestic and international policy. The curriculum is both multi- and interdisciplinary in scope and is based on the assumption that the political-economic relationship is affected by society, culture, geography, and demographics.
Contemporary problems form the central focus of the major, although a strong historical perspective is emphasized. Students also study planning and problem solving, environmental issues, resource distribution, and the challenges of institutional adaptation, value innovation, and changing political systems.
Some of the questions addressed in the major include: