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Advice for Faculty Advisors to Interdisciplinary M.A. Students with an Emphasis in International Studies

Students may wish to provide copies of this section to potential mentors before asking them to serve on their committee.

International Programs is deeply grateful to the many faculty members across campus who have expressed willingness to serve as advisory committee members to our International Studies M.A. students. To avoid overburdening faculty members, we also want to clarify what being a faculty advisor for the International Studies M.A. involves.

  • We value your time and encourage you to limit your commitment to no more than 2 graduate advisees in International Studies in one semester.
  • We ask that you be available to meet with M.A. advisees during your office hours or during appointments the two of you schedule at mutually convenient times.
  • We hope that you will also be willing to meet with your advisee once or twice a semester to discuss courses that would be useful to the student’s own particular objectives, international research options, internships, future graduate or professional training, and career opportunities.
  • We also hope that you will be willing to write your students letters of recommendation when necessary.

One of the pleasures of the mentoring relationship is the opportunity to welcome new students into one’s own discipline. Whether in discussions of your field or as a member of an advisory committee, we encourage you to help students:

  • Form provocative research questions
  • Plan strategies to make the required 8 weeks of international research most productive
  • Learn the process for conducting interdisciplinary research related to your field (for example, standard reference works, bibliographies, major journals and web resources, key concepts and thinkers, methodologies)
  • Learn useful steps in developing a research or creative project by sharing your own steps in generating an idea, conducting research, developing an argument, using and documenting sources, and revising your work
  • Understand the criteria for evaluating projects in your field.