Development Studies

This is a special studies course involving an internship with a corporate, public, governmental, or private organization, arranged with the Study Center Director of Liaison Officer. Specific internships vary each term and are described on a special study project form for each student. A substantial paper or series of reports is required. Units vary depending on the contact hours and method of assessment. Graded P/NP only.

This course has been designed to introduce English-speaking students to social health, public health, and primary health care emphasizing particular characteristics of the Caribbean region, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti. The course follows an integrated and multidisciplinary approach to individual and community health by means of social and medical science concepts that allow for critical and logical analysis of health determinants and their impact on people's health, health system's organization and functions, and the health-illness scheme that contextualizes health based on cultural characteristics.

This course introduces students to the concept of community health and primary health care as it is delivered in Ghana.  The course provides students an opportunities to learn about diseases of public health importance and selected endemic diseases specific to Ghana as well as their epidemiology and control in Ghana.  The course looks at the emerging non-communicable diseases in Ghana such as HIV/AIDS, hypertension, and breast and cervical cancers.  Students have first-hand learning opportunities on the psychosocial and social aspects of living with HIV, class discussions, and assigned readings with presentations. Students examine the importance of sexual reproductive health with a special emphasis on the needs of adolescents. Students learn the causes, symptoms, and treatment of hypertension and examine sanitation and food security as keys to community health.  

This course provides a geographical and critical perspective to global development, with a focus on energy transition processes in and in relation to the global South. It provides a fundamental understanding of the challenges related to sustainable development from the perspective of the global South by focusing on energy transitions. The course looks at historical transitions to fossil energies as well as the discussions on transitions away from fossil energies. It discusses how the systems and conditions for energy transitions are shaped by historical and uneven relations between the Global South and North. Core issues of energy and development and energy transitions are addressed from the perspective of the global South and placed in the context of global sustainability. The awareness of a spatial perspective to development problems and processes enable students to identify and understand the impact of regional and global processes on people’s lives in specific places.

This course focuses on the changes in Singapore's urban landscape. It places these changes within a framework that considers Singapore's efforts to globalize and examines how policies are formulated with the idea of sustaining an economy that has integral links sub-regionally with Southeast Asia while developing new spatial linkages that will strengthen its position in the global network. Emphasis is also given to recent discussions about how diversity and difference in the perception and use of space pose a challenge to the utilitarian and functional definition adopted by the state.