The University of California, Los Angeles, or UCLA for short, offers a bachelor degree in International Development Studies. In the International Development Studies program, students are given the analytical and theoretical tools to assess regional or global trends in development. Specific courses detail the impact development has with immigration, the environment, urbanization, human rights, gender and identity rights, and war. Because the department is an interdisciplinary department, students must apply to become majors in the program to conserve academic resources.
The Watson Institute at Brown University studies international economic development. The Development Studies program is open for both undergraduates and graduate students. In undergraduate studies, the undergraduate student must enroll in the introductory course, Development 1000 at Brown, before he can declare development studies as a major. The student must then coordinate his academic plan of study with an academic coordinator at the Watson Institute. The coordinator will help the student find the best academic route to take, as the Development Studies program incorporates interdisciplinary courses to create the program. For example, students in this program will enroll in classes that are listed in the economics or anthropology departments at Brown.
The University of California, Berkeley, offers an interdisciplinary bachelor degree program in development studies. The focus of the program is to train and educate students on the issues of the Global South, a term used to describe countries that have not met the definition of "properly developed." Students must enroll in Development Studies 10, an introductory course, before declaring development studies as their major. Other requirements after the student declares this major is taking introductory courses in economics, anthropology, world history and statistics. In their junior year, students must declare a specific geographic of the world where they will focus on their studies, such as Southeast Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa. In a student's senior year, she must take courses that reflect on this geographic concentration.
At the University of Virginia, students can enroll in the Global Development Studies program. In this program, students must take several courses outside the Global Development Studies department, such as economics and politics; however, the Global Development Studies program offers several core courses that must be taken by students. Some of the courses inform the students on the methodology of measuring development or involves detailed studies in case examples of globally developed countries. In the student's senior year, the student must complete a research paper that focuses on a specific research topic on the student's choosing. The research paper can be of any topic in global development, such as a case study, a critical analysis of development literature or improvements to current development measurements.