International Institutions: responding to global threats
During this past spring semester (Spring 2016) I had the opportunity to take a Political Science honors seminar entitled International Institutions: Responding to Global Threats. In this class, we read about, discussed, and even visited various international institutions, such as different bodies of the European Union and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Throughout the course of the semester, we talked about various cases of issues and threats and how these organizations responded to those situations, most often in terms of policy decisions or enforcements. For example, we had readings and a response assignment that dealt with the World Health Organization and the Ebola outbreak and maybe how things could have been organized or developed differently.
After learning about these institutions all semester, our class spent ten days abroad in Europe visiting the offices and headquarters of some of these organizations. After a quick stop in Paris at the Eiffel Tower, we continued on to Brussels, Belgium where we visited all three main bodies of the European Union, The European Parliament (pictured above), the European Commission, and the European Council, in addition to the US Mission to the European Union, which is a US Foreign Affairs office that houses many US state agencies. After our time in Brussels, we moved onto The Hague, Netherlands where we visited the International Criminal Court, the ICTY, and the Peace Palace which was built and is maintained by the Carnegie Foundation and houses the International Court of Justice among other offices. I think we all really enjoyed the trip, and the class in general, as it was not only a chance to travel but to also learn about important international political bodies and how they handle things in the world today. For me especially, as an engineer, it was a refreshing change of pace to have the chance to learn about these organizations and travel to visit them. Below is a link to a presentation that a group of us put together as part of the class in order to showcase the trip that we took and some of the things that we learned throughout the class.
The presentation contains many photos and so is too large to upload to Weebly, so it is shared as a Google Slides presentation:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17IPqPv4K5f6oDKYQXFntOfadLsD8YS1wFXCB8EYwMZA/edit?usp=sharing
After learning about these institutions all semester, our class spent ten days abroad in Europe visiting the offices and headquarters of some of these organizations. After a quick stop in Paris at the Eiffel Tower, we continued on to Brussels, Belgium where we visited all three main bodies of the European Union, The European Parliament (pictured above), the European Commission, and the European Council, in addition to the US Mission to the European Union, which is a US Foreign Affairs office that houses many US state agencies. After our time in Brussels, we moved onto The Hague, Netherlands where we visited the International Criminal Court, the ICTY, and the Peace Palace which was built and is maintained by the Carnegie Foundation and houses the International Court of Justice among other offices. I think we all really enjoyed the trip, and the class in general, as it was not only a chance to travel but to also learn about important international political bodies and how they handle things in the world today. For me especially, as an engineer, it was a refreshing change of pace to have the chance to learn about these organizations and travel to visit them. Below is a link to a presentation that a group of us put together as part of the class in order to showcase the trip that we took and some of the things that we learned throughout the class.
The presentation contains many photos and so is too large to upload to Weebly, so it is shared as a Google Slides presentation:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17IPqPv4K5f6oDKYQXFntOfadLsD8YS1wFXCB8EYwMZA/edit?usp=sharing