Bachelor's degree in Global Studies
4 academic years
70 → 40 Students from European Union educational systems + 30 Students from educational systems of states not members of the European Union which have not signed international agreements.
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Acces and admission Global Studies (Pathway exclusive to students from outside the EU that hold an upper secondary education qualification)
- Admission
- Ponderacions matèries de Batxillerat (Generalitat de Catalunya)
Social and Legal Sciences
This is a full-time study programme due to the high volume of practical work involved. In the first and second year are scheduled in the morning whereas in the third year lectures are scheduled in the morning or in the afternoon depending on the subjects.
From September to June
240 ECTS
The language of instruction during the first two years will be in English. The optional subjects in the third and fourth year can be taken in English, Spanish, or Catalan, according to the courses offered by the faculties involved. It is advisable to have a B2 level of English at the beginning of the studies.
Language training includes three compulsory subjects in one foreign language, with a choice between Chinese, Arabic, Russian, French, or Spanish (only for international students) and taking a maximum of 18 credits.
Faculty and Department Humanities
Presentation
The Degree in Global Studies is designed for students from all over the world who want to understand the cultural, economic, legal, environmental, political, social and technological phenomena that currently affect us regardless of our territorial location.
In this program these phenomena are studied from a transdisciplinary perspective and with a global vision of the human being because:
- such phenomena increase the challenges of universal scope that can only be managed and solved effectively if the local, national, regional and global levels are considered altogether,
- the dimension and depth of these challenges have helped to crystallize, for the first time, a true global society,
- only transdisciplinarity allows us to describe, explain, analyze and understand the complexity of these phenomena; other studies echo globalization but adopt a limited interdisciplinarity, or focus on only one of the dimensions (e.g. political, economic or cultural) of this new global reality,
- the resolution of these challenges involves understanding and reconciling mentalities, ideologies and visions of the world with local ones; for this reason, the studies include, as a singularity, the use and learning of languages, understood as a form of communication and approach to cultures.
Objectives and competences
The aim of the studies is to train specialists in the phenomena that characterize the era of globalization in which we live, with a comprehensive and transdisciplinary vision from the social sciences, beyond exclusively economic, political or cultural perspectives. Global studies go beyond the study of relations between international actors (such as states and supra-state organizations) because these studies address the analysis of global challenges that affect humankind as a whole (e.g. climate change, migration, intellectual artificial intelligence, economic crises, war and violence, poverty, pandemics, structures of domination and injustice, racism, or gender discrimination).
We understand that the training of such specialists must be transversal, open and flexible, so that they are able to anticipate and adapt to global changes and challenges that cannot yet be foreseen. We also believe that their training must take into account the local (and, therefore, cultural and particular) values and points of view through which each community explains the how and why of those challenges. Only with this perspective will these specialists be able to contribute to explaining and solving these global challenges and to collaborating in the design and transformation of humankind.
Specific competences
• To describe the global phenomena that affect the entire world population, from a transdisciplinary perspective.
• To analyze global phenomena from the local - global dialectic
• To build a holistic vision based on knowledge of the conceptual and methodological foundations of the different disciplines that constitute global knowledge.
• To reflect critically on globalization and its challenges, paying attention to ethical, cultural, environmental, human rights, gender and social justice considerations.
• To recognize cultural, religious and value diversity for the understanding, management and resolution of conflicts and global problems.
• To pose and solve global problems through different methodologies specific to the disciplines that make up the Degree.
• To design, plan and manage programs and strategies of global scope in public institutions, non-governmental organizations, companies and large international corporations.
• To demonstrate ability to understand and intervene in contemporary problems.
Transversal competences
To communicate effectively in English and other languages other than the mother tongue.
Basic and general competences
• To apply your knowledge to your work or vocation in a professional way
• To elaborate and defend arguments and solve problems within your area of study.
• To gather and interpret relevant data so as to issue judgments reflecting on relevant social, scientific or ethical issues.
• To convey information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialist and non-specialist audiences.
• To develop the learning skills necessary to undertake further studies with a high degree of autonomy.
• To communicate ideas, content and knowledge clearly and accurately using the most appropriate expression and discourse for each audience and context.
• To show knowledge about the implications of the new ideological, political, economic and technological forms that act in contemporary global society from a globalized and cosmopolitan perspective.
• To develop attitudes and skills that facilitate internationalization and one’s own training as authentic citizens that are sensitive to the values of peace and equality and able to understand, manage and administer knowledge in a global community.
Student profile
We recommend that the students who wish to access the degree in Global Studies have a minimum knowledge of mathematics, history, and geography, as well as a flair for written and oral communication and an ability to analyse, discuss, and dialogue. An interest in learning foreign languages is equally important, as well as creativity, imagination, innovation, and a passion for continuous learning.
The presence of national and international students in the same degree offers a special opoortunity for coexistence and intercultural training, turning the classroom into a forum for mutual knowledge and global dialogue, based on the points of view of students from diverse backgrounds, united in the aim of contribuiting to the understanding and resolution of the challenges of today's world.
Syllabus
Syllabus of Bachelor's degree in Global Studies-240 ECTS (for students starting the degree course from the academic year 2024/25). Contents of subjects 745.
Syllabus of Bachelor's degree in Global Studies-180 ECTS (for students who started their degree before 2024/25). Contents of subjects 599.
Internships
Some of the companies and institutions where the students of the Degree in Global Studies have done internships are:
- ACCIÓ Agència per a la competitivitat de l'empresa (Generalitat de Catalunya)
- Advisum RRHH
- Ajuntament de Terrassa
- Associació Barcelona Global
- B. LINK BARCELONA STRATEGIC PROJECTS
- Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona
- CIDOB
- Consulado General del Uruguay
- Creu Roja a Catalunya
- Departament d'Acció Exterior i Unió Europea (Generalitat de Catalunya)
- Departament d'Igualtat i Feminismes (Generalitat de Catalunya)
- Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya
- GlovoApp23 S.L.
- Hispaania Maja (Tallinn, Estònia)
- I2 Social Impact Investing, S.L.
- Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Unión Europea y Cooperación
- Observatori del Deute en la Globalització
- Parlament Europeu
- S2m-group Data Services & Software Holding
- Saga Ventures, GmbH (Suissa)
- Sateliot
- SciTech DiploHub
- ServiZurich
- Social Innovation Program (Ciudadanía Práctica, Política y Social) de mobilitat solidària, del Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, Chiapas, México
- Sostre Cívic
- Tandem Social, SCCL
- University of Twente (Paisos Baixos)
Periods abroad
Compulsory Mobility:
In the third or fourth year of the Degree in Global Studies, students must do a compulsory stay abroad and take the equivalent of a minimum of 20 ECTS. You can expand the information on stays abroad and the UPF's general international mobility program on this website: https://www.upf.edu/web/estudiarfora/
All mobile students have a tutor who monitors their stay and advises them when enrolling in subjects. For more information you can contact the Mobility Coordinator of the Faculty of Humanities ([email protected])
Double degree Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) - Degree in Global Studies UPF
Within the framework of UPF internationalization, the Faculty of Humanities has consolidated an agreement with the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Australia whereby the students of UPF’s Degree in Global Studies and RMIT’s Bachelor of Arts in International Studies can obtain a double degree by completing study abroad in their final academic year.
UPF Bachelor of Global Studies students who are nominated for mobility within this specific program will be able to complete the third year of their
studies at RMIT and, at the end of the mobility, obtain the Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from RMIT, in addition to the UPF Grau en Global
Studies. In Melbourne, UPF students will have to pass the subjects Working and Managing in Global Careers and Global Professional Practice, in addition to several optional subjects, a Global Internship and a Global Research Project that will also serve as Treball de Fi de Grau at UPF, thanks to the coordination between the two faculties. In the last two academic years several UPF students have enjoyed their study abroad within this program.
RMIT Bachelor of Arts in International Studies students who are nominated for mobility within this specific program will also be able to complete
the third year of their studies at the UPF and, at the end of the mobility, obtain UPF’s Diploma d'estudi propi en Estudis Internacionals en Context Europeu (i.e. Diploma in International Studies in European Context), in addition to the Bachelor degree from RMIT. At the UPF, RMIT students will have to pass several compulsory and optional subjects from the Degree in Global Studies, in addition to the Final Study Project, according to the agreement between institutions and the Diploma study plan. In the last two academic years several RMIT students have enjoyed their mobility within this program.
To participate, UPF students must apply for this specific program within the general international mobility program. For more information, you may contact
the Mobility Coordinator of UPF’s Faculty of Humanities.
You may find information on the different stays abroad on this website: https://www.upf.edu/estudiarfora/
Languages in programme
Language learning and use in the bachelor’s degree course
The Degree in Global Studies is conceived as a space for the use and learning of several languages and multilingual training is a key element in the training of future graduates.
The language of teaching during the first two years is English. Therefore, it is highly recommended to have a B2 level at the beginning of the studies. In addition, the student will be able to choose third and fourth year elective subjects taught in English, Spanish or Catalan, according to the academic offer for each academic year.
The training includes three compulsory subjects of a foreign language --Chinese, Arabic, Russian, French or Spanish-- until completing 18 ECTS. Starting from a zero level (except in Spanish), students must achieve an A2.1 level or higher in Chinese, Arabic, Russian or French and a B2.1 level in Spanish. The chosen language may not coincide with the language of the student’s secondary or higher education. The offer is completed with extracurricular Catalan language classes promoted at a special price, currently already offered to exchange students at UPF.
The stay abroad means a reinforcement in learning the foreign language chosen in the degree, in the same way that the stay in Barcelona for foreign students means they learn Spanish and Catalan by immersion in everyday life, which can be reinforced with courses at UPF Languages and with the UPF’s Voluntariat Lingüístic.
Benchmarks
The launching of degree and post-graduate programmes in Global Studies dates back to the end of the Twentieth Century and finds its epicentre in the Anglophone academic context (especially the United States), though this tendency has been spreading fast to other regions. Thus, after just a little over a decade, today there are degree courses in Global Studies available in over 240 universities and higher education institutions in the United States (including, among others, Yale University, UCLA, Indiana University, University of California-Santa Barbara, Texas State University, University of the Pacific, University of Illinois, University of Denver, University of Pittsburgh, and Warren Wilson College) and in over 25 universities in other North American countries (Wilfrid Laurier University or Vancouver Island University), Latin American countries (Nahual Institute for Global Studies), African countries (The American University in Cairo), Asian countries (Shanghai University, National University of Singapore, The University of Hong Kong, Hitotsubashi University, Akita International University, or Doshisha University), or in Oceania (Monash University, The University of Sydney, or University of Technology Sydney).
The European continent has not been an exception to this gradual expansion of programmes in Global Studies and we can identify at least thirty post-graduate options in prestigious universities (Humboldt University, University of Freiburg, Ghent University, University of London-SOAS, Moscow State University, The London School of Economics and Political Science, University of Vienna, or the Norwegian University of Science and Technology). As indicated in the previous section, in the Spanish university context it is difficult to find degree or post-graduate examples for the degree in Global Studies proposed here.
