About the Global Affairs major at Yale
Administered by the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, the Global Affairs major provides students with multidisciplinary training to understand and address the challenges we face as engaged citizens of the world. By their nature, these challenges require fluency in approaches and frameworks from across the social sciences and humanities, as well as the ability to translate between scholarship and practice.
Global Affairs is a truly multidisciplinary program with courses in nearly all departments at Yale. It is the fifth largest major at Yale, with approximately 250 students currently enrolled.
The major requirements have been updated and will apply only to students accepted into the major during the fall of 2025 and after; students accepted into the major before fall 2025 must fulfill the requirements that were in place at the time of their acceptance. Students can see details of the traditional major requirements (for students accepted before fall 2025) and the updated major requirements (for students accepted during or after fall 2025) on the Courses page.
Advanced Global Affairs majors have options unique to the major; in addition to a senior thesis, students may instead complete the Capstone Course, a unique policy project on behalf of an external partner, supervised by a faculty member. Students may also conduct independent research projects and have the opportunity to present their work to peers during the bi-weekly Student Academic Workshop Series. Learn more about undergraduate research opportunities.
Capstones are completed only in the fall of the senior year (or, in the case of fall graduates, in the final semester). Capstone enrollment requests and assignments into projects take place in the spring semester of students’ junior year, so students who would like to complete a capstone project must declare the major by that time.
Many Jackson undergraduates spend their summers abroad. The school provides fellowships for student projects including internships and independent research projects related to international affairs. Learn more.