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Program Description

Masters Program in Latin American and Caribbean Studies (MARSLAC) Home

Program Description


The interdisciplinary M.A. program in Regional Studies—Latin America and the Caribbean (MARSLAC) provides a broad social science-based approach to modern and contemporary Latin America and the Caribbean. The curriculum combines a core seminar on the region’s scholarship and research with the opportunity to take courses in different disciplines throughout Columbia University. During the first semester of the core seminar students explore approaches to Latin American studies and develop a thesis topic In the second semester, they undertake the writing of their theses in a workshop-style seminar. Students are free to pace their coursework according to their own needs and interests, although most find that they can finish in three semesters or two plus a summer session. They rely on the individual advice of the Institute’s Director of Graduate Studies, staff and affiliated faculty.

Latin American countries have developed increasingly strong ties within and beyond the region while consolidating democratic institutions and the rule of law. MARSLAC students deepen their knowledge of the political, economic, social and cultural processes shaping the region, and graduate with the expertise to be leaders in their chosen fields. Ideal for both professionals seeking regional knowledge and students intending to pursue a Ph.D., the program prepares graduates for careers in government, public policy, non-profit organizations, journalism, education, the private sector, and academia. Our students have moved on to jobs in those sectors and to prestigious Ph.D. programs.

Columbia supports MARSLAC students in a variety of specific ways. The university’s distinguished faculty in the social sciences and humanities provide instruction and supervision of individual study. It significant research resources, especially its libraries, support study and thesis preparation. MARSLAC students students participate in the various lecture series, conferences, and other activities sponsored by the Institute specifically and the university generally.

MARSLAC students benefit too from the unique synergy created between the programs of the Institute of Latin American Studies (ILAS) and various institutions in New York City. They benefit particularly from the ILAS’s associations with New York’s financial, diplomatic, corporate and cultural centers and other research universities in the area, including our partnership with the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University (CLACS), with which we form the New York City Consortium for Latin American Studies. Moreover, studying in New York, a truly multinational community with a large population from Latin America and the Caribbean, offers MARSLAC students myriad opportunities to enrich their educational experience with the metropolis’s latino transnationality..

The MARSLAC program gives students the flexibility to focus on both the disciplines and themes that interest them. Students choose one (or a few related) disciplines from which to study Latin America and the Caribbean, for example history, economics, sociology, political science, or anthropology. Through these disciplinary lenses, students explore specific topics, for example development, political transitions, or migration. Students also can focus on a specific country or region.