Major
The Public Policy Studies Major
The Public Policy Studies (PPS) major has two components: the core curriculum and areas of concentration, plus an optional honors program for those who qualify. Students must also complete several pre-requisites to prepare them for the major. Students may not double-count any single course for both a required part of the core and for an elective. There is no Public Policy Studies minor or advanced degree at Vanderbilt.
Prerequisites
PPS majors must have earned credit for MATH 1201 or 1301 or higher; basic statistics (ECON 1500 or 1510 or both MATH 2820L and either 2810 or 2820); and introductory courses in political science and economics (PSCI 1100, ECON 1010, and ECON 1020). Those with AP credit may be varied out of some of these requirements.
The Public Policy Studies Core
The PPS core is interdisciplinary and includes rigorous coursework drawn from political science, economics, sociology, anthropology, and history. PPS students benefit from training in the politics, economics, methods, social contexts, history, and ethics of public policy.
Core Curriculum (5 courses, 15 credit hours)
- Politics of Public Policy: PSCI 2256 or PPS 2100 (3 credit hours)
- Intermediate Micro or Macroeconomics: ECON 3010, 3012, 3020, or 3022 (3 credit hours)
- Methods: ECON 3032 or 3035; SOC 3002; or HOD 2500 (3 credit hours)
- PPS 2200: Social Contexts of Public Policy and PPS 2250: History and Ethics of Public Policy (6 credit hours)
If a student cannot take both PPS 2200 and 2250, they may, with prior approval from the PPS Director or Associate Director, substitute one course from ANTH 3122, 3133, 4152; HIST 2722; PSCI 3253; or SOC 3315, 3604, 3605, 3613, 3614.
Electives and Areas of Concentration
PPS majors must take at least five elective courses: two general electives and three in a single area of concentration. The program strongly recommends that students spread their electives across at least two disciplines.
General Electives
The two required general electives may come from any of the courses listed in the areas of concentration below, or they may come from the following list:
- PSCI 2240: Political Parties
- PSCI 2245: The American Presidency
- PSCI 2253: Public Administration
- PSCI 3241: American Public Opinion / Voter Behavior
- PSCI 3244: The Legislative Process
- PPS 3160: Public Advocacy
- PPS 3100: Cities in the 21st Century
Other courses may be approved as general electives with the permission of the Director of Undergraduate Studies. The two general electives do not count toward the three electives (9 credit hours) that must be taken within a single area of concentration.
Areas of Concentration
In addition to developing core skills, PPS majors complete more intensive training within areas of concentration. The boundaries of these areas are not mutually exclusive, and together they span a wide range of policy concerns and disciplinary perspectives. Note: students pursuing the economic policy concentration must take at least two upper-division (numbered above 3000) economics electives from the list.
PPS 3200: Research Methods for Public Policy Analysis
PPS 3250 Advanced Quantitative Methods for Public Policy
ANTH 3261: Introduction to Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing
ECON 4050: Topics in Econometrics
HOD 3200: Research Methods for Public Policy Analysis
PSCI 2300: Introduction to Data Science for Politics
ECON 2150: Economic History of the United States
ECON 3150: Topics in the Economic History of the U.S.
ECON 3200: Public Finance
ECON 3230: Urban Economics
ECON 3250: Industrial Organization
ECON 3700: Economic Growth
ECON 4110: Macro Model Policy Analysis
ECON 4210: Law and Economics
ECON 4510/4510W: Seminar: Macroeconomic Policy
ECON 4530/4530W: Seminar: Microeconomic Policy
HIST 1640: HIstory of American Capitalism
HIST 1660: American Enterprise
HODE 3225: Introduction to Public Finance of Education
PSCI 2223: EU Pol Econ & Econ Inst
PSCI 3252: Business & Public Policy
ECON 3100: Wages, Employment, and Labor Markets
ECON 3110: Poverty & Discrimination
ECON 3350: Economics of Health
HIST 1440: Afr Amer Hist Since 1877
HIST 1665: Readings American Hist
HIST 2690: Civil Rights Movement
HIST 2740: Immigration, the United States, and the World
HIST 2810: Women, Health, and Sexuality
HIST 3040: Health and the African American Experience
HIST 3045W: Eugenics in the U.S.
MHS 2110: American Medicine in the World
MHS 3020: U.S. Public Health Ethics and Policy
MHS 3220: Healthcare Organizations
MHS 3030: Community Health Research
MHS 3320: Introduction to U.S. Health Care Policy
SOC 3223: Schools and Society
SOC 3304: Race, Gender, and Health
SOC 3611: Women and the Law
SOC 3616: Women and Public Policy in America
SOC 3621: Criminology
SOC 3622: Delinquency and Juvenile Justice
SOC 3701: Racial Domination, Racial Progress
SOC 3711: Women, Gender, and Globalizations
ANTH 2109: Food Politics in America
ANTH 2150: Urban Ecology
ANTH 3134: Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples
ECON 2170: Environmental Economics
SOC 3311: Climate Change and Society
SOC 3312: Environment and Development
SOC 3314: Environmental Inequality and Justice
SOC 3315: Human Ecology and Society
SOC 3316: Business, Civil Society, and the Environment
SOC 3317: Energy Transitions and Society
SOC 3318: Sociology of Green Jobs
AMER 3200: Global Perspectives on the U.S.
ASIA 2560: Current Japan-U.S. Relations
ECON 2220: Latin American Development
ECON 3600: International Trade
ECON 3610: International Finance
ECON 3650: Development Economics
ECON 4520/4520W: Seminar on Globalization
HIST 1690: Sea Power in History
HIST 1691: Evolution of Warfare
HIST 1730: The U.S. and the Cold War. U.S. History, 1945-1991
HIST 1740: The U.S. and the Vietnam War
HIST 2457: Drug Trafficking and Society in Latin America
HIST 2535: Latin America and the United States
HIST 2700: The U.S. and the World
HIST 2710: The U.S. as a World Power
HIST 2721: Globalizing American History, 1870-1940
HIST 2722: Globalizing American History, 1940 2010
HIST 2735: Debating America in the World, 1890-2010
HIST 2740: Immigration, the United States, and the World
JS 2540: Power and Diplomacy in the Modern Middle East
MHS 2410: HIV/AIDS in the Global Community
MHS 2420: Economic Demography and Global Health
MHS 3110: Global Health and Social Justice
PSCI 2220: Crisis Diplomacy
PSCI 2222: American Foreign Policy
PSCI 2225: International Law and Organization
PSCI 2236: The Politics of Global Inequality
PSCI 2251: The Politics of U.S. and GLobal Immigration
PSCI 3229: Strategy and International Politics
PSCI 3272W: The War in Iraq 2003-2011
PSCI 3275: National Security
GSS 3201(formely WGS 3201): Women and Gender in Transnational Context
GSS 3281 (WGS 3281): Globalization and Policy Making
CMST 2950: Rhetoric of Mass Media
CSET 3090: Introduction to Science and Technology Policy Analysis
CSET 3100: Science Policy Bootcamp
ECON 3270: Economics of Information and Communications Technology
HIST 2780: Superhuman Civilization
HIST 3050: Innovation
HIST 3070W: Science, Technology, and Modernity
MHS 3120: Medicine, Science, and Technology
PHIL 1008/1008W: Introduction to Medical Ethics
PHIL 3608: Ethics and Medicine
SOC 3206: Creativity and Innovation in Society
Honors in Public Policy Studies
Students may apply for the honors track if they have a GPA of 3.30 or higher for all previous courses taken for credit and a GPA of 3.50 for all courses counting toward the PPS major. Students normally apply for honors during the second semester of their junior year. By the end of the junior year, honors students should have completed all the required core courses in the PPS major.
PPS honors students enroll in one three-credit-hour honor seminar (usually PPS 4980 in the fall and PPS 4999 in the spring), or in a three-credit-hour independent study with their faculty honors advisor, in both the fall and spring of their senior year. Each honors student has a faculty advisor to provide guidance on the research project and to chair the thesis committee. Successful completion of the honors program entails both the production of an original written thesis and an oral exam on the thesis project. The thesis committee evaluates both the written thesis and oral exam.
The following is a list of honors projects in PPS for Spring 2024.
Annabelle M. Abbott: Shifting Strategies: Analyzing Russian Cyber Activity in a Changing Global Landscape
Faculty Advisor: Brett Goldstein/Committee Members: Tuna Moore, Holly Tucker
Michaela Chua: America’s “Racist Roads”: A Case Study on the Impact of Representation and Political Power
Faculty Advisor: Jessica Trounstine/Committee Members: Katherine Carroll, Bill Purcell
Angela Lynn Yan: Culture and Family’s Influence on Young Asian Americans’ Pro-Abortion Views
Faculty Advisor: Sophie Bjork-James/Committee Members: Vivian Shaw, Katherine Carroll
Stanley Zhao: Overcoming Language Barriers: A Difference-in-Differences Approach to Proposition 58 and EL Education in California
Faculty Advisor: Leah Rosenstiel/Committee Members: Carolyn Heinrich, Emily House
Rohit Kumar Kataria: Assessing the Correlation Between Community College Website Quality and Transfer Student Outcomes in Idaho, Ohio, and Pennsylvania
Faculty Advisor: Adela Soliz/Committee Members: Liz Zechmeister, William Doyle
Sarah Lindsey Schwartz: Die Mauer im Kopf Wird Realität: An Exploration into Germany’s East-West Divide and Changing Political Dynamics Following the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Faculty Advisor: Mario Rewers/Committee Members: Patrick Greiner, Silke Schade
Declaring a Major in Public Policy Studies
To declare a major in Public Policy Studies fill out the Kuali major declaration form. If you have questions please contact PPS Associate Director Katherine Carroll, who serves as the advisor for all PPS majors.