Washington Semester @ American University

The International Environment and Development (IED) semester combines the seminar in Washington, D.C. with an intensive 3-week field practicum in Galapagos Islands or Ghana. The seminar and overseas practicum, conducted in parallel with a two-day-per week internship component and a research project, provide a comprehensive experiential learning program in which students enter directly into the fields of international development and international environmental policy.

Where else, for example, can you directly interact with high level officials at the World Bank or U.S. State Department on a given morning and later that same day meet directly with advocacy groups such as Greenpeace or Jubilee USA to hear their perspectives on the same issues? You might also end up sitting in the offices of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) one morning to hear about international partnerships on HIV/AIDS programs in Africa and later that afternoon sit down with one of the Congressional representatives who helped formulate the new legislation for those same programs. Later in the semester, you may find yourself visiting a project in Ghana or the Galapagos Islands that was funded through these initiatives that you learned about in D.C.

In the IED semester, students learn about global actors, institutions, and dynamics; national and community-level issues, challenges, and peoples; and the linkages between the global and local levels.

Travel Components:

Galapagos Islands and Ecuador (Fall Semester)

Ghana (Spring Semester)