Global Affairs is a multidisciplinary major within the Social Sciences, focused on global issues and global solutions. The goal of the Global Affairs major is to help students understand how our increasingly interconnected world works and how it could work better. The major equips students with the social science research skills, multi-perspectival and big-picture thinking, and knowledge of the international system needed to understand and address today’s transboundary challenges. The Global Affairs major provides an academic programme that is not constrained by a single disciplinary lens. Instead, it seeks to ground students’ training in both international relations and international development, recognising that political, economic, and social actors in the Global South and Global North are tightly intertwined in today’s globalised world.
Global Affairs at Yale-NUS
Global Affairs is the natural choice for students interested in understanding contemporary global issues and challenges, and who seek careers that span national borders. Students in Global Affairs explore the causes and consequences of globalisation, international migration, international development, security and conflict, ethnic politics, human rights violations, and global governance. Through their coursework, students are taught how to critically engage with and interrogate both qualitative and quantitative research on global issues.
What sets Global Affairs students apart from the rest?
In Global Affairs, we strive to understand the underlying causes and consequences of transnational socio-economic, political, and development challenges. Our curriculum prepares students with important skill sets that enable them to thrive in the private and public sectors after Yale-NUS. Most notably, Global Affairs majors are critical thinkers who are equipped with competencies in linking theory to practice and who understand their role as responsible, global citizens.
Chin-Hao Huang, Head of Studies of Global Affairs
Global Affairs Careers
The strength and versatility of Global Affairs draw from its unique, multidisciplinary nature. Our recent graduates have secured successful job placements in the public and private sectors in Singapore and globally. We have Global Affairs graduates working in government, think-tanks and foreign policy research institutes, consulting, mass media and communications. The Global Affairs major is designed to allow students to follow a career path that spans national borders. In general, Global Affairs students are well prepared to go on to a wide range of careers, including but not limited to: policy, diplomacy, international business and finance, development, journalism, or humanitarian work, and work at intergovernmental organisations (IGOs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs), public sector organisations, or multinational firms. The first two cohorts of Yale-NUS students enjoyed the following spread of post-graduation career outcomes:
- 21% were accepted into graduate programmes (all Master’s programmes)
- 16% are employed in the financial sector
- 16% are employed in the technology sector or in start-ups
- 11% are employed in communications, consulting, social impact/international development sectors each
- 11% are employed in the public sector
Listed below are just some of the organisations our Global Affairs alumni have joined after graduation:
- Visa
- Economic Intelligence Unit
- Thomson Reuters
- OCBC Bank
- Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- Singapore Ministry of Defence
- Singapore Ministry of Finance
- Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry
- Oliver Wyman
- INSEAD Asia
- Salesforce
- Amazon Web Services
- Transparency International
Graduate School Placements
Global Affairs students are well-positioned to secure post-graduate fellowships to support their graduate studies. Students from Global Affairs have won prestigious and highly competitive fellowships including the Schwarzman Scholarship and the Yenching Scholarship.
A member of the inaugural Yale-NUS Class of 2017, Mollie Saltskog, a Global Affairs major, was accepted into the second class of Schwarzman Scholars, a highly competitive master’s degree programme at Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. She enrolled in the programme in August 2017, soon after completing her undergraduate degree at Yale-NUS College. Another Global Affairs major, Helena Juliette Auerswald from the Class of 2019, was the first Yale-NUS student to be selected as a Yenching Scholar, and enrolled in the interdisciplinary Master’s in China Studies programme at the Yenching Academy of Peking University. Meanwhile, Joshua Leung from the Class of 2018 received a full scholarship to pursue his PhD degree in Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California.
