About the Institute

The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey is an academic community committed to preparing students for professional roles in cross-cultural, multilingual environments.

Middlebury Institute faculty discuss the importance of degrees that prepare students for today's professional careers. Play

The Institute Pedagogy: Actively Learning Together

The Middlebury Institute is a professional graduate school. So our commitment to our students is of a high level of rigor. We struggle with big problems like ocean degradation, and climate change, and global poverty, and approaches to solving it. These are not easy problems, so they require people who have a creative and practical approach.

I can’t imagine any other program which is as comprehensive in terms of the range of courses offered but also in the material that is covered. That is a testament to the degree to which we really offer such an in-depth education to students.

It is a very practical environment. We prepare the students for the professional world, so I play the role of a facilitator in the classroom, encouraging them to lead and to make the class time theirs.

What I really want students to be able to do is to take something that they haven’t seen and be able to come up with a workflow to go through that project.

For me it’s a big reveal to see what decisions they’ve made, and in many cases had to learn things that I haven’t taught them.

I don’t want to look at my students just as a student. I wanna look at them as a human being. And I wanna get away from those roles as much as possible.

Because they already have experience, students hope to contribute, so what I try to do is I invite them to share their experience in the classroom. We learn from each other and we become friends, I mean, we become colleagues.

We don’t take anyone for granted, we don’t take our class sessions for granted. We expect students to challenge us with uncomfortable questions, so we are constantly on our toes. Which is great for us, because it makes us better teachers, better researchers.

There’s a lot of students here who you see take on PhD level investment in what they’re doing. And they go out and they take part in projects and apply their skills in ways they’re not required to, but they want to. And I know this happens in other institutions, but it happens a whole lot here.

Our students are drawn here because of our mission, because they are looking to engage with the world and solve problems. So it’s exciting, it’s exciting because I feel like I, too, am being pressed regularly to figure out what to do, and how to approach these big problems of the world.

Our students are emerging leaders capable of bridging cultural, organizational, and language divides to produce sustainable, equitable solutions to a variety of global challenges. As part of our close-knit and supportive international community of students and faculty, you will learn to make a meaningful impact in your chosen field through exciting and relevant degree programs with intentional focus on key skills.

Fast Facts

  • 476 students
  • From 53 countries
  • Speaking 45 native languages
  • 69% female, 31% male
  • 39% international students
  • 4 years average professional experience
  • 5:1 student to faculty ratio
  • 12 master’s degrees
  • 4 fully online, asynchronous master’s degrees
  • 6 joint master’s degrees
  • 2 joint BA/MA degrees
Professor Arrocha in discussion with two students outside at a table.

Academic Programs

Centers and Initiatives