MS course work (24 credit hours): 8 courses
MS thesis: 6 credit hours. Students who wish to not opt for writing thesis can replace it with a MS Project (3 units) and an additional course of 3 credit hours.
Program Duration: 2 Years
Maximum Time Allowed: 4 Years
| Course Category | Number of Courses | Credit Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Core Courses | 4 | 12 |
| Elective Courses | 4 | 12 |
| MS Thesis | 1 | 6 |
| Total | 9 | 30 |
| Course Category | List of Courses |
|---|---|
| Core Courses | DEV533 Theories and Critical Approaches in Development |
| DEV534 Anthropology & Development | |
| DEV535 Policy Analysis: Theory & Practice | |
| DEV536 Research Methods in Development | |
| Elective Courses | Elective I, II, III, IV |
| MS Thesis | DEV699 MS Thesis |
Note: The grade on MS thesis and MS research project would be pass/fail and will not be counted in the CGPA.
| Semester 1 - Fall | DEV533 Theories and Critical Approaches in Development | DEV533 Theories and Critical Approaches in Development |
| DEV536 Research Methods in Development | DEV536 Research Methods in Development | |
| Elective I | DEV531 Analytical Tools in Development | |
| Elective II | DEV532 Theories and Concepts in Economics | |
| Semester 2 - Spring | DEV535 Policy Analysis: Theory & Practice | DEV535 Policy Analysis: Theory & Practice |
| DEV534 Anthropology & Development | DEV534 Anthropology & Development | |
| Elective III | Elective I | |
| Elective IV | Elective II | |
| End of Year 1 – Summer |
- Students will choose an area of interest, broad research topic & a potential supervisor for their research and must have it approved from the relevant department before the start of the next Fall semester. - Applied field study module (zero credit hours but compulsory). |
|
| Semester 3 - Fall | MS Thesis | |
| Semester 4 - Spring | ||
| End of Year 2 – Summer | Thesis must be completed by end of summer for eligibility towards graduation. | |
| Course Category | List of Elective Courses |
|---|---|
| Physical resources | DEV551 Conflict Studies |
| DEV552 Agrarian Development, Food Policy & Rural Poverty | |
| DEV553 Environment, Climate Change and Sustainability | |
| DEV554 Cities & Urban Development | |
| DEV555 Data Science and Development | |
| DEV556 Entrepreneurship in Development | |
| Human resources | DEV561 Gender Studies |
| DEV562 Migration and Mobility | |
| DEV563 Poverty and Inequality | |
| DEV564 Population Studies | |
| DEV565 Health & Development | |
| DEV566 Labor and Social Movements | |
| DEV567 Political Ecology | |
| DEV568 Leadership in Development | |
| Society & Economy | DEV571 Public Financial Management |
| DEV572 Aid & Development | |
| DEV573 Technology, Culture and Development | |
| DEV574 Communication and Social Change | |
| DEV575 Decolonizing methods | |
| DEV576 Nature of Inquiry and Survey Design | |
| DEV577 Media, Communication and Development |
1. Analytical Tools in Development:
The aim of this introductory module is to provide students with the essential mathematical and statistical background needed in the context of development.
2. Theory and Concepts in Economics
This course is subsequently designed to make students familiar with key concepts of Economics i.e. Microeconomics and Macroeconomics.
3. Theories and Critical Approaches in Development
This module provides students with a critical understanding of development from an interdisciplinary perspective.
4. Anthropology & Development
This course provides an introduction into the discipline of Cultural Anthropology: the study of human culture.
5. Policy Analysis: Theory & Practice
As many graduates in public policy and administration go on to work in organizations that produce or consume policy advice, this module will look at how policy advice is produced and used.
6. Research Methods in Development
The module will offer an overview of the main research designs and techniques used in development research. It will put emphasis on both the use of secondary sources (text, numbers, images, audio, etc.) and the process of collecting primary empirical material for analysis.
7. Conflict Studies
This module provides a grounding in analytical approaches to understanding how violence, conflict and development are related. The course discusses empirical trends, difficulties of data collection and the importance of categorization and boundaries in contexts of violent conflict.
8. Agrarian Development, Food Policy & Rural Poverty
The aim of this module is to enable students to understand and evaluate major policy debates on the role of agriculture in development.
9. Environment, Sustainability & Development
The aim of this module will be to engage students in the debates about governing the environment at various scales, and how they interlink with dynamics of development.
10. Cities & Development
This module will explore the key academic debates on the relationship between cities and development and analyze the key factors driving the growth of cities in developing countries, from colonial times to the present along with its implications for development.
11. Data Science and Development
This course is crucial for the current era and in terms of understands the connection of data for development studies. It will ensure the training needs of development students in the data sciences field. It is aimed to provide the students with skills to analyze and understand the data through modern techniques, machine learning, data mining and cloud computing.
12. Entrepreneurship in Development
In this course the students will be exposed to required knowledge and skills necessary for the organization of entrepreneurial activities.
13. Gender Studies
The purpose of this module is to familiarize students with the main analytic debates in the field of gender and development. Four institutional domains (households, family and kinship, the market, the community and the state) through which gender relations are both defined and transformed receive special attention.
14. Migration, Mobility & Development
The module provides students with the opportunity to engage critically with the complex configurations of institutions, politics and normative claims that underpin migration-related policy with an emphasis on contemporary policy developments.
15. Poverty, Inequality and Development
The module is an interdisciplinary analysis of poverty, with attention to both the macro-level political economy of poverty and the micro-level lived experiences of the poor.
16. Population & Development
Using the demographic transition as its framework, the module examines different analytic approaches to the main interrelationships between population change and socio-economic development. It draws on a variety of theoretical and historical experiences to address and explore these interconnections.
17. Health & Development
This module seeks to provide students with an understanding of key issues and themes in global health and development, allowing students to understand the links between health, illness and poverty, explore how poverty creates particular risks and challenges for tackling disease, and assess how global and national health policies have shaped the disease and healing environment in the developing world.
18. Labor, Social Movements & Development:
Students will explore the major theoretical approaches to global labour and labour activism, including the historical patterns of labour migration and the role it has played in forming the modern world. The module also includes contemporary patterns and drivers of labour relations, the relationship between labour, migration and globalization, the institutional and political dynamics that shape global labour and the policy implications and subsequent debates that have arisen around them.
19. Political Ecology
In this course, students will learn about the core tenets of political ecology. It will particularly focus on ethnographic approaches and will introduce students to key debates in the field—such as the relationship between environment and violence, the critique of Malthusian and neo-Malthusian notions of scarcity and limits, the links between conservation and dispossession, and more.
20. Leadership in Development
This course will provide students with the key concepts in Leadership. It will cover the theoretical as well as practical concepts of leadership and will pave a way to understand the importance of these skills in Development.
21. Public Financial Management
This module analyzes the factors why many developing countries frequently lack the resources, administrative capacity and legitimacy needed to reproduce themselves and pursue their goals and the goals of society.
22. Aid & Development
The module deals with three main areas: firstly, an exploration of key ideas and themes in aid and development; secondly, an examination of how aid functions at different levels; and thirdly, aid in specific contexts.
23. Technology, Culture and Development
This course will examine the relationship between culture, technology, and development in a range of social and historical settings.
24. Communication and Social Change
This course will introduce the students to the traditions of employing communications for social change. It will allow the students to understand the factors that influence theory and practice.
25. Decolonizing methods
This course is aimed to make students familiar with decolonizing methods, the movements and ideas that accompanied decolonization in the 20th century. It will be focused on Afro Caribbean and Latin American thinkers, activists and writer as well as examining the broader concepts of decolonization Asia and Africa.
26. Media, Communication and Development
This course will address the approaches that have shaped most debates in the field of media, communications and developments since its emergence in the 1950s.
27. Nature of Inquiry and Survey Design
This module introduces theoretical and practical foundations of social science research design that are neither qualitative nor quantitative in focus, but rather concerned with core interdisciplinary principles of research design that span disciplinary and methodological traditions.