Multidisciplinary academic programs begin application review
As of Oct. 29, applications for multidisciplinary programs including Energy Studies, Education Studies and Human Rights Studies were due, and acceptances will be announced in the spring.
Yasmine Halmane, Staff Photographer
Applications for multidisciplinary academic programs including Education Studies, Energy Studies and Human Rights Studies were due on Friday.
Yale has four multidisciplinary academic programs that operate outside of specific departments or majors. These programs are open to mostly sophomores, although some accept select amounts of juniors. Education Studies, Energy Studies and Human Rights Studies all shared the same late-October deadline, while Global Health Studies will receive applications until Nov. 29. On Nov. 19, applicants for the three already due will hear back about interviews, and final admission decisions are released on Dec. 8.
Education Studies
The Education Studies program was founded in 2013. According to its website, the program includes a cohort of 25 scholars each year, and 90 percent of Education Studies Scholars go on to work in education.
Executive Director of Education Studies Mira Debs told the News that the Scholars program is a “selective cohort program” in which students take a series of three courses and work together on a capstone project. Students in the Scholars program also work in year-long or summer field experiences which most students did online last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Education Studies program recently added a new certificate program in addition to its Education Studies Scholars program. The certificate program is coursework based, and it is open to all students who have taken “Foundations in Education Studies” and does not require an application. It also only requires five courses, as opposed to the Scholars Program. The Scholars Program requires six course credits, including “Foundations in Education Studies,” “Colloquium: Readings in Education Studies,” one elective in each of the “Social Contexts & Policy” and “Individuals in Society” categories, and a two-semester senior capstone.
The certificate program was created last year, and there are now about 50 students participating, which Debs said is more than she anticipated. Debs added that some of the students who signed up for the certificate are applying to Scholars, so that number may change.
Debs teaches “Foundations in Education Studies,” the prerequisite for the certificate and scholars program, and she said there are currently 101 students enrolled, which is an all-time high for the course.
Debs attributes the growth of Education Studies to increased awareness of the program, but also the prevalence of education issues in the past year.
“Education has been really forefront in news reporting during the pandemic because of its centrality in a lot of the political discourse right now, especially with the controversy over critical race theory,” Debs said. “So I think that coverage as well is registering for Yale students and driving additional interest in the program.”
However, Debs said that this growth is difficult to support because Education Studies is a multidisciplinary academic program that is not funded like a department. Debs explained that the budgetary resources for the program are always “uncertain” and that uncertainty “has not been resolved in a dramatic way.” According to Debs, half of the program’s funding comes from Yale, while the other half comes from donations.
Energy Studies
Applications for the Energy Studies program were also due Oct. 29, and the program has similar requirements of six classes and a capstone project. Students must take two courses in each of the three tracks: “Energy Science and Technology,” “Energy and the Environment” and “Energy and Society.” Two-hundred Energy Studies Scholars have graduated since the program was founded in the 2013-14 school year.
“It’s different from majoring in separate majors as it gives you a holistic perspective of the
energy world,” Liam Muldoon ’22 wrote to the News, “Learning about energy is not just about the science, for example, but it’s also about technological and societal impacts too.”
Muldoon wrote that he has loved his experience in the program, and that Michael Oristaglio, the director of Energy Studies, has been very helpful as he has navigated the program. Muldoon added that he recommends the program because he believes it is important to learn about energy in today’s world.
According to Eliza Poggi ’23, the application for Energy Studies is usually only open to sophomores, but this year juniors were able to apply because the 2023 Energy Studies cohort is smaller than usual, most likely due to the application process happening last fall when students were learning remotely.
Poggi said that the Energy Studies program is not selective and has resources to accept anyone interested.
Human Rights Studies
The Human Rights Studies program was founded in 2014, and it also accepts applicants in the fall of their sophomore year. It requires “Theories, Practices, and Politics of Human Rights” as a gateway course, and students must additionally take four electives and a capstone seminar, which includes a capstone project.
According to Maddy Batt ’19, a former Human Rights Scholar who now serves as a program administrator and as a community human rights fellow at Yale Law School, the program accepts 15 students per year, and there are currently 29 students in the program. Most students who are accepted are sophomores, but they consider juniors in the “rare exception” that a spot opens up in their junior cohort or if the junior applicant has already taken the gateway course. Batt wrote in an email to the News that the program does not have any open junior spots this year.
According to Batt, the program received about half a dozen more applications this year than last year, which she thinks may be due to the number of students who took time off last year. Batt added that they want to keep the cohorts small, so the application process ends up being competitive because of the volume of students interested in human rights.
“That’s not at all to say that we only admit students with the shiniest resumes,” Batt wrote in an email. “Ultimately, we are trying to find a group of students who are committed to genuinely engaging with human rights in a shared intellectual space. I also always encourage students interested in human rights to remember that [Human Rights Studies] is just one of myriad ways to get involved with human rights on campus.”
The Schell Center, which is the Law School organization that includes Human Rights Studies, also has opportunities to engage with human rights issues outside of the academic program.
Batt added that the main change in the program this year is being able to hold in-person events.
“I was surprised and inspired by how meaningfully the Human Rights Scholars engaged with the Program as a community while we were virtual,” Batt wrote to the News. “But it still makes a big difference to be back in person.”
However, Batt noted that the Program is still keeping virtual elements by allowing students to Zoom into cohort dinners if they are not feeling well, and one of the Program’s founders is co-teaching the Capstone course virtually from a different state.
The Global Health Studies program, which has applications due Nov. 29, accepts approximately 20 students each year.