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Global Studies

BE CURIOUS

Get ready to really see the world.

If you’re deeply curious about the world and want to make a difference in people’s lives, Whitman’s Global Studies concentration will help prepare you to make a meaningful impact on global art, science, business or politics—anywhere your career takes you. You can add this concentration to any major—rooting your chosen course of study in a global framework. This concentration prioritizes language study, international experiences and coursework that highlights global perspectives. Global Studies will help you place your own academic interests in webs of natural, economic, cultural and social connection that defy borders.

3 Reasons to Study Global Studies at Whitman

Get On-the-Ground Experience

With the Global Studies Concentration, you’ll learn a second (or third!) language and spend time outside the U.S.—taking college courses abroad or doing an international internship. Nothing prepares you for a global career like the experience of living, studying, working and researching in another country.

Explore Your Interests From Multiple Angles

To solve global problems, you’ll need to understand the complex relationships between politics, language, culture, economics, ecology and more. The Global Studies concentration will encourage you to break out of your major bubble, explore courses in other disciplines and make meaningful connections between them. 

Learn From Each Other

Whitman attracts students and faculty from all over the world. Together, you’ll learn to engage with difference and challenge your own assumptions. Your courses will explore and highlight global ideas and events. And you’ll thrive on a culturally rich campus that celebrates diversity.

Interested in Global Studies?

We’d love to send you information, including more on academic majors and student life at our beautiful campus in Walla Walla, Washington.

Elle Palmer 25

“The Global Studies Concentration was a natural path for me to take with my fields of study because the concentration is interdisciplinary and fit well with many of the avenues I already planned to pursue in my college career: language studies, study abroad, interdisciplinary classes, etc.”

Elle P., Politics and South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies double major with a Global Studies concentration

Courses in Global Studies

See just a few of the fascinating courses you might take.

Reflect on your transformative off-campus experiences alongside other students who’ve studied or interned outside the U.S. Together, you’ll situate your international experiences within a larger liberal arts framework—and understand them through the lens of other kinds of global encounters, like colonialism, othering and cosmopolitanism.

Discover the alternative feminisms that have arisen from the unique experiences of Indigenous women in the Americas. In this class, you’ll read texts by and about women from Bolivia, Guatemala, Mexico and beyond as you explore the relationship between Indigenous feminisms and other feminist traditions. Plus, you’ll learn how Indigenous feminisms are connected to broader Indigenous resistance struggles.

What role do media narratives play in spreading ideas across physical, cultural and linguistic boundaries? How does global culture evolve and impact the world? In this course, you’ll screen television, film and other media from around the world—and investigate their impact on global art, economics, politics and more.

Global Whitman

Angela Froming sits in a window in a stone wall looking out over the sea

From First Steps to Farewell: Tag Along With Whitman Study Abroad Students

Studying abroad means stepping into the unfamiliarnew cities, new customs, new versions of yourself. These reflections of a few Whitties who did just that capture the unexpected lessons, quiet joys and surprising challenges that come from living and learning far from home.
August 06, 2025

M. Gessen

M. Gessen To Deliver The Press in Times of Peril Keynote

Թ welcomes esteemed author and opinion columnist for the New York Times M. Gessen to deliver a keynote address about Censorship, Silence and Resistance for The Press in Time of Peril series.
January 28, 2025

An illustration of a city landscape

Lyd Sci-Fi Film Screening Sparks Conversations About Global Issues

As part of its ongoing series, The Press in Times of Peril, Whitman Center for Global Studies held a screening of the 2023 sci-fi dystopian film Lyd, followed by a discussion with professors Tarik Elseewi and Lauren Osborne.
November 01, 2024