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Global Studies majors are strongly urged to gain experiential knowledge of the countries or thematic concerns they are studying through participation in an approved Study Abroad program appropriate to their concentration. Every effort will be made by the curriculum to fully integrate study abroad courses into the major. Students should seek guidance from the Study Abroad office as well as major and college advisers in planning their study abroad program. Once they have done this, they must receive course approval from the Director of Undergraduate Studies of the major prior to departure for a program abroad. Students should not assume that they will receive any major credit unless programs are pre-approved. Contact Dr. Jonathan Weiler, Director of Undergraduate Studies, for more information.

Beginning with Spring 2021, study abroad has a new process for approving courses. You will still need pre-approval from Dr. Weiler to ensure that courses you take abroad can count toward the major. However, the steps to have courses approved by study abroad for university credit, and then routed to Dr. Weiler for major credit, are more involved. Please click the link here and follow the instructions carefully. If you are unsure of how to proceed, be sure to follow up with the study abroad office.

Students may receive FL credit while they are abroad. However, they must receive approval from the home language department. So, if you want approval for Italian, French, Spanish or Portuguese courses, for example, you must receive approval from the Romance Languages department. For Chinese, or Japanese, from Asian Studies. And so on. GLBL cannot approve language courses. We defer to the judgment of the relevant language department.

Students may receive credit for up to three courses toward the major from any one UNC-approved semester abroad program. Courses taken abroad can only be used in the theme/area concentration portion of the major. These restrictions do not apply to programs led directly by UNC faculty.

Students may not receive credit for core courses while abroad. Students should also not expect to receive major credit for their geographic area, if they study abroad outside of their area. For example, if your area of focus is Africa, and you study abroad in China, you may not receive Africa area credit, even if you take an Africa-related class while studying in China. With the approval of the Director of Undergraduate Studies, a student who completes more than one semester abroad may receive credit for up to four courses toward the major in one academic year, or a maximum of five courses toward the major if studying abroad more than one academic year. All requirements that apply to courses taken in residence at UNC also apply to study abroad courses.

If you are a Global Studies major, you may be eligible to apply for the Global Studies Summer Experience Awards, awarded each Spring. This very limited funding can be used for globally oriented experiences. Awards are approximately $1000 (and may be less) based on student need and available funding. Applications will be due February/March. Click here for more information.