The Global and International Studies (G&IS) Program sponsors interdisciplinary academic programs in global studies, international studies, and area studies, and provides a coordinating center for programs related to international studies throughout the campus.
The G&IS Program administers majors in Global Studies, and Middle East Studies, and minors in Global Peace and Security Studies, Jewish Studies, and Women, Culture, and Development Studies.
The Global Studies Major is presented in detail. For informations concerning the other programs see http://www.global.ucsb.edu/index.html
Global Studies Major

Global Studies was established as an interdisciplinary undergraduate major in the College of Letters and Science at UCSB in 1998. The major is one of the first in the nation to offer a program of international studies with contemporary globalizing trends as a central organizing theme, and is distinctive in its emphasis on the transnational processes and interactions that are bringing the world together across traditional national boundaries.

The goal of the Global Studies major is to prepare students for further graduate study in international studies and world affairs, and give them a solid Liberal Arts background for positions that involve decision-making in a changing world. It seeks to instill in the student a solid knowledge of particular cultures, while also providing training in the analysis of global trends --- a way of thinking that will be consistent with the world of the 21st century. Global Studies majors are encouraged to become "global thinkers:" they learn how to relate their knowledge of a particular part of the world to the larger trends and issues that affect all societies: the transnational interactions of peoples, cultures, economies, and polities; the globalizing processes of the communications media; technological and environmental changes; the search for world order, law and human rights; and the sometimes violent political, ethnic and religious responses to what is perceived as cultural and economic homogenization on a global scale.

The major allows the student to choose one of two emphases: Global Culture and Ideology, or Global Socio-economic and Political Processes. The first emphasis involves courses largely taught in departments in the Humanities, and the other emphasis courses largely taught in the Social Sciences.

Two lower division courses have been created as introductory, gateway courses; and eight other courses have been created as the core global studies courses for the two emphases. Students must also choose one area of the world for which they must take four courses -- cultural "areas" such as East Asian studies, South Asian studies, European studies, and the like. In addition to offering its own courses, the major utilizes courses offered in twenty-two other departments.

The Global Studies Major is supervised by an interdisciplinary faculty advisory committee. The major has experienced extraordinary growth in just a few years with over 700 current majors.