Back to school, kind of

It’s early September, and for the ultra-nerd in all of us, desperately missing our “intellectual” days (undergraduate, graduate or post-graduate, as the case may be), the Center for Global Development has once again proved to be an incredible resource. In its most recent “Back to School” newsletter, CGD published five syllabi from development/poverty/globalization-related undergraduate courses. My two favorite:

1. Inequality and Development in a Globalizing World (syllabus), taught by CGD President Nancy Birdsall at Williams College, which seeks to address the following question:

What are the effects of globalization (of economic markets) on poverty and inequality around the world, and how do those effects vary within and across countries depending on developing countries’ different characteristics and policies, and on overall global conditions?

How awesome does that sound? It reminds me of a few great classes I took at Amherst and while studying abroad on IHP.

2. Global Poverty: Challenges and Hopes in the New Millennium (syllabus), taught by Anyanya Roy at UC Berkeley, which teaches the dominant paradigms of development and welfare, introduces the field of poverty action, and reflects critically on poverty and inequality.

Another great resource that fellow blogger Brett Keller flagged for me is Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Open Courseware, which makes available the materials of a select number of its courses. I personally have already taken advantage of the syllabus and materials of the Concepts in Economic Evaluation course, as I develop the methodology for my Fulbright cost-effectiveness study.

If you are geeking out right now, we should be friends.