Opportunities for Students in Social Sciences
Study abroad offers enormous opportunities for students who are interested in the social sciences. At UR, those departments include Anthropology, Economics, History, International Relations, Linguistics, Political Science and Psychology.
A semester or a year abroad will greatly enhance your resume and help you to identify career opportunities.
Many students believe that if they are studying the social sciences abroad, they need to first be proficient or fluent in a foreign language. This is not always the case; many English-language programs are located in the UK, Ghana, South Africa, India, Ireland, Australia or New Zealand. However, it would be a mistake to overlook extraordinary opportunities to study social sciences in English on UR-sponsored programs in Austria, Argentina, Belgium, Chile, Czech Republic, Egypt, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Taiwan.
Study abroad programs in these locations offer a far greater diversity of social science courses than can be found on an American campus. These programs are designed to immerse students in the economics, politics and anthropology of many cultures.
Hundreds of UR alumni have participated in the prestigious London Parliamentary Internship Program; there are similar opportunities in Brussels in the European Parliament and in Edinburgh in the Scottish Parliament. Business internships in finance, marketing and many other fields are not open to just economics majors; any student with an interest in international business can find a suitable course of study. Law is not an undergraduate discipline in the United States, but courses and internships in law are widely available. Psychology and Health and Society majors and minors have taken coursework abroad as well as internships in adolescent development, eating disorders and health care administration.
Tips
The Career Center strongly encourages humanities and social science students to take advantage of the flexible Rochester Curriculum to spend at least one semester abroad during their four (or five) years. For more than 20 years, the Take Five program has provided UR undergraduates majoring in the humanities, sciences and engineering the opportunity to add breadth to their work with courses from another division.
Nearly all UR-sponsored programs offer courses in the social sciences and humanities. Students may petition to use a course taken while abroad towards a cluster. For more information, see a study abroad adviser.
