Georgetown SFS-Q Adds 10 New Courses

Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar (SFS-Q) is delighted to announce that, in addition to the already diverse selection of classes open to students, it will be offering at least 10 new courses for the Spring 2013 semester never before available on the Doha campus.

James MacGregor, Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs, SFS-Q commented, “We’re extremely excited to offer such a large number of new classes, which now make up some of the sixty plus on offer for next semester, and will certainly make our students’ registration choices more interesting and exciting. Our students have their own research interests and that requires us to be innovative and responsive in the program we offer.”

With SFS-Q currently expanding at a record pace, having just accepted the largest incoming freshman class to-date, the university wants to reflect this growth in the depth and diversity of its curriculum. In doing so, this will fuel SFS-Q’s long term plan to further strengthen its research environment in order that students and faculty are involved in cutting-edge research pertinent to both Qatar and the region.

The new courses reflect and support this ambition being both highly topical and relevant to MENA. These include; “International Relations of the Middle East”, examining the causes and consequences of international developments in the Middle East since the end of World War II; “Iran Foreign Policy since ’41”, explaining and analysing the international behaviour of Iran from a historical perspective; “Comparing Electoral Systems in MENA”, in which students will learn why the MENA region experienced a rapid wave of change towards democratization starting with the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011, and why this did not happen before; “Money and Banking – including Islamic Finance”, a course which aims to introduce students not only to financial markets and central banking, but also to the history, principles, and development of Islamic finance with the goal of showing them the similarities and differences between conventional and Islamic banks.

The increase in classes is also being supported by the hiring of more faculty members. This year alone, SFS-Q is looking for at least 12 new faculty to teach everything from Arabic language and Economics, to African, South Asian, East Asian, or Middle East History.

There are many reasons students choose Georgetown’s SFS-Qatar campus and those reasons vary widely – from its outstanding mission and values, to world class facilities, co-curricular activities, and the many possibilities that are open to its students after graduation. Those reasons notwithstanding, most students choose SFS-Q because it is one of the best international affairs programs in the world. A degree from SFS-Q is widely recognized as being one of the most competitive and that’s something the university is very proud of.