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Peace and Conflict Studies student Rachel Stern

PACS Student Rachel Stern

How did you find out about the minor, and what made you pursue it?

I found out about the minor after becoming interested in the relationship between environment, development, conflict, and peace and looking for ways to learn more about it. My coursework so far had discussed ideas of environment and development, but I needed a way to develop the conflict aspect of my concentration. While taking the Introduction to Peace and Conflict Studies class with Elisabeth King, I declared the minor because I knew that it would be crucial to my concentration, and was an informative, fascinating, and engaging minor.

How did the minor complement your major(s)? Did you feel that you were able to balance both?

I’m at Gallatin, and when I found the minor, my concentration was Environmental Studies and Human Rights. The minor has been wonderful as it has allowed my concentration to evolve to be Environment, Conflict, and Human Rights. It’s perfectly complemented my coursework in environmental studies, development, geography, and history, and has allowed me to specifically study ideas of environmental conflict and environmental peace building. The balance came naturally as it provided a chance to study things related to peace and conflict that I wanted to study, and allowed me to see my previous and current coursework in other areas in a new light.

What were some of the greatest takeaways from the minor (things you learned, networks you gained)?

One of my biggest takeaways was gaining the framework to analyze issues of peace and conflict, as well as a very comprehensive overview of the field of peace and conflict studies.
We also had a wonderful number of guest speakers in the intro course, which allowed me to learn directly from key people in the field, and have an introduction to their work.
The faculty in the minor are wonderful and circulate resources, meet with you, and generally offer advice. Elisabeth King, the Director of the Minor, is outstanding, both as a teacher and a mentor, and has been so kind, helpful, and knowledgeable. The students in the minor are also all doing really fascinating different things and it’s a really great opportunity to build a network both with other students and professors in the field.

How will the minor help you after college in terms of your professional or future academic life?

The minor has already helped me to get a volunteership at the Environmental Law Institute’s Environmental Peacebuilding program. Understanding the history of studies about peace and conflict, and the different authors who have written about topics has been hugely useful in terms of helping me to work on research projects and be confident in speaking about those topics. The minor is really a perfect balance between preparation for employment in fields related to peace and conflict studies, and intellectual study and thought about the topics.

A bit more about the internship: I began working as a Research Intern for the Environmental Law Institute’s Environmental Peacebuilding program in March, and since have started working as the co-Coordinator, which means I help to coordinate volunteers within the program, help coordinate additions to environmentalpeacebuilding.org in the areas of reports, journal articles, jobs, blogs, and upcoming events. These are also published in the bi-weekly Environmental Peacebuilding Update. There is a newly-launched Environmental Peacebuilding Association, which I have been helping to facilitate in various ways. I’ve also been interviewing practitioners and academics in the field of environmental peacebuilding for a section of the Update where we profile a different member of the Association every two weeks. I’ve also had the opportunity to work on various research projects, and generally learn about the field of environmental peacebuilding, which is the field I hope to go into.

I will be continuing my role with this project in these capacities for the foreseeable future. It’s been a wonderful experience, and I only had the confidence to apply for the position after becoming a part of the PACS minor because I felt that I had enough understanding of the field to be a valuable team member. I really credit the PACS minor and courses with helping me to focus and develop my interests in peace and conflict, and get involved with the wonderful Environmental Peacebuilding program!

Any advice for a student that is considering the minor, but still unsure?
Try taking the Introduction to Peace and Conflict Studies class and see what you think! It’s a minor with a lot of flexibility and ability to tailor it to your interests, and I would absolutely recommend taking the intro course and declaring it if it interests you. If you’re interested in any topics related to conflict, peace, peace building, justice, and human rights, this minor will add a lot to your time at NYU!