A second key pillar of our strategy is to cultivate professional skills alongside broad academic knowledge. In line with the IU 2030 vision for student success, we aim to produce graduates with the strong intellectual foundation needed to analyze complex real-world challenges and the concrete skills needed to make a positive difference.
Building Academic and Professional Skills
- In Our Curricula. We are adding new assignments, short courses, and micro-credentials to help students build practical skills alongside language proficiency and international affairs expertise. We are expanding our experiential learning courses to involve more students in strategic consulting projects and applied research. We are engaging seasoned practitioners to teach alongside our existing faculty experts. We are also growing programs with strong preprofessional appeal, such as our joint Master of International Affairs with the O’Neill School, while pursuing new interdisciplinary degree programs with partners such as the Media School and School of Public Health.
- In Our Co-Curricular Programs. We aim to be the clear leader in the Midwest for globally- oriented simulations and debates, addressing new regions and themes to hone student skills in policy analysis, writing and negotiation. We also aim to expose more students to policy practice and to be one of the nation’s most visible programs in international policy circles. To that end, we have begun building a program in Washington, DC to train students on U.S. foreign policy and international institutions and connect them to practitioners. We will develop professional training opportunities in other key hubs as well.
- By Launching Careers. We are working with alumni and other friends to cultivate new institutional partnerships in Indiana, the United States, and abroad to support student internships and job placements. We are bolstering our in-house capacity to support students applying for competitive jobs, fellowships, and graduate schools. Our goals are for all students seeking internships to secure them; for Hamilton Lugar students to be among the nation’s top recipients of prestigious awards such as Boren, Fulbright, Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships; and to be among the most successful at placing our graduates in top-tier graduate schools and competitive public and private sector jobs.