Learning Goals: International Trade
The MA in International Trade trains professionals to work productively in the complex global marketplace.
This program builds a strong intellectual foundation, professional capabilities, and the technical skills critical to successfully practice in the diverse, demanding, and dynamic arenas of international trade, economics, business, and public policy. Graduates will be prepared as professionals, ready to perform at a high level in international trade, economics, business and finance, quantitative methods, international institutions and law, economic diplomacy, and multicultural negotiation. Program graduates also will gain the leadership, writing, communication, and team-building skills necessary to excel as professionals in the broad and rapidly changing world of global economic policy.
The program learning goals align with the mission and vision of the Middlebury Institute and the larger Middlebury Strategic Framework to prepare graduates to drive change in pursuit of a more just world. The goals below and their corresponding outcomes represent the focus of our program and are designed to instill a commitment to lifelong learning and development in this complex and evolving field.
Fundamental competencies
Integrated into most courses:
- Communicating in written and oral forms with different audiences
- Higher-level thinking, problem solving, and evidence-based decision making using an ethical compass
- Engaging in collaborations at interpersonal, team, organizational, and inter-organizational levels
- Work with and support others appropriately and effectively in socially, culturally, and linguistically diverse environments.
Program-specific competencies
Delivered mostly via core courses:
- Use methods of rigorous inquiry and evidence-based decision-making, including collecting, analyzing, visualizing, and synthesizing data and drawing practical actionable inferences.
- Learn the making of trade policy and institutions, domestic trade politics and its impact on the global economy, development, and international relations
- Understand and apply economic principles and models in an international trade context.
- Develop proficiency in international trade law and dispute settlement.
- Learn how to engage in international economic negotiations and commercial diplomacy.