Development Studies

This course is designed for students wishing to clarify and advance their career goals through an 8-week internship in Thailand. It provides a structured learning environment to help students make the most of their internship experience. While there are no regularly scheduled class meetings, internships are conducted under the close academic supervision of the School of Global Studies at Thammasat University. An assigned internship coordinator provides oversight and guidance for the duration of the internship. The course requires a minimum of 288 total work hours. 

This course covers the history, theories, institutions, and policies of economic development. It begins by considering development from classical Western perspectives (liberalism, neoliberalism, and the Washington Consensus), burgeoning Eastern perspectives (the “East Asian model,” the Beijing Consensus), as well as various heterodox traditions (postcolonialism, Marxism). The course then explores the doers of development in today's global economy and international system: the Bretton Woods and multilateral institutions, the private sector and private philanthropists, as well as individual countries such as the United States and China. Finally, the course dives deep into the particular problems and policies that define global development in low-income countries today: how they meet their domestic energy needs and attain a clean energy transition; how they meet their domestic food needs and maximize their agricultural export revenues; how they build the infrastructure they require for their rapidly growing populations and economies; and how they attract or create good jobs and high wages to ensure stable and equitable growth.

This course provides an overview of the level and changes of socio-economic conditions (income, poverty, education, health) in the global south. These conditions are put in perspective in presentations and discussions of the major trends in classical and contemporary thinking about economic development. General textbook material and selected articles on the subject form the core of the readings. The range of topics covered include theories of development, micro- and macroeconomic issues, economic analysis, as well as key policy issues and recommendations.

This course examines issues of environment and uneven development through the historical geography of empire. The course educates students on: 1) interdisciplinary theoretical approaches to empire in the social sciences and humanities, 2) the study of empire and environment (especially natural resources) within the subfields of political geography, historical geography, development geography, and political ecology, and 3) the complex natures, spatialities, and identities produced in the wake of European empires in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Specific topics include the spatiality of sovereignty, racialized labor regimes (including slavery, coolies, and peasants), imperial modes of water and forest development, imperial systems of food and agriculture, state responses to disease and disaster, and the contradictory political geographies of settlement, incorporation, exploitation, and decolonization. The course concludes with a reflection on struggles to ‘decolonize’ imperial knowledge systems, political economies, and social relations in the contemporary era.

The course is designed to prepare students for leadership in a globally interdependent and culturally diverse workforce. Throughout the course, students are challenged to question, think, and respond thoughtfully to the issues they observe and encounter in the internship setting, and the designated city in general. Students have the opportunity to cultivate the leadership skills as defined by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), such as critical thinking, teamwork, and diversity. Assignments focus on building a portfolio that highlights those competencies and their application to workplace skills. The hybrid nature of the course allows students to develop their skills in a self-paced environment with face-to-face meetings and check-ins to frame their intercultural internship experience. Students complete 45 hours of in-person and asynchronous online learning activities and 225-300 hours at their internship placement.

This course has been designed to help English-speaking students apply the knowledge acquired in the Pre-Professional Healthcare Issues course through community service focused on primary care. Students will make an Analysis of Health Status (ASIS) followed by a project with the purpose of improving those health problems identified in the community. The course is based on the practical application of priority healthcare programs, addressed to rural and urban areas, and it will be performed under the Primary Health Care strategy, emphasizing
health promotion. These programs include prenatal care, health care to children and adolescents, extended vaccination program, chronic diseases, prevention of uterine-cervical and breast cancer, sexually transmitted diseases, birth control, prevention and treatment of tuberculosis and endemic diseases (Malaria, Dengue, Chikungunya, Cholera, among others). The course offers training on the appropriate educational techniques that allow students to get involved in community health care promotion and prevention. Moreover, the course will engage students in the application of the most useful health care tools, such as family records, diagrams, and identification badges for pregnant women, chronic patients´ records, and children´s identification card, among others. In order to comply with the course requirements, students will be visiting First Level Health Care Centers in their communities during the first five (5) weeks. Visits during this period will be held three (3) days a week for three (3) hours (45 field hours). The last three (3) weeks will comprise a rural stay (45 field hours), an urban stay (15 field hours), and final research and presentations (30 research hours).