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Methods Concentration

The Methods concentration is designed for highly motivated students interested in fields of research relating to any PSIA Master programs.

Many reasons can make you pick the Concentration:

  • You can be thinking of undertaking a Ph.D. after PSIA
  • You may be planning to work in a sector which is based on empirical studies and/or requires solid research skills
  • You may wish to give yourself an edge as a future policy maker in an international organization or governmental body, which often look for young professionals who have acquired solid methodological skills during their graduate studies

If you plan on writing a Master thesis, we strongly recommend you to choose this concentration to access a large variety of Methods courses. Historically students who have declared methods as their Concentration have not all opted for a thesis.

The first semester offers an array of introductory courses dealing with research design, whereas subsequent semesters offer specialized courses that craft skills in various domains. We also offer inter-seasons special week-long courses that can count towards one of the two required methods courses to apply for the master thesis track. These special courses change every year and you will be informed about them in the Fall.

Programming for methods

We also have programming courses designed to help students who are going to do research with data and need to learn manipulate them in a structured manner. Python has become the most widely used programming language for data manipulation and for researchers who want access to a rich set of libraries ranging from simple descriptive statistics to machine learning. Not counting towards your methods credit, we highly advise taking both or one of these courses depending on your pre-existing command of programming.

Find more about Special Features.

The diversity of courses offered within the Methods concentration program can be found on the Thematic Concentration course offerings.