[MUSIC PLAYING] - Well, I can have a start on that one. Even though, obviously, we're covering all the theory of international public policy, it's also-- it's very practical as well. It's very practical into how policy making works. So even though I don't actually work currently in the field of public policy, I do write policies with my own job.
And so there are skills that you learn in the course that are transferable in that respect to other kinds of jobs. But of course, there is also potential opportunities for myself if I did want to have a career change, or as I said, really incorporating what I've learned into my current career.
- I suppose I can split my response to this question in two. One, there is, of course, a group of people who perhaps work for a large organization that also happens to have a small subset of employees or a department even that deals with more international facing aspects. And so we have had students who have wanted perhaps a background in international relations or international public policy because they felt that it would give them the theoretical grounding for some of those career choices.
If they were moving over to work more with international clients or international partners or stakeholders, that's the content side, I suppose, of my response. Obviously, for anybody who might be interested in working at the international level, for an international organization, for an aid and development organization, in international finance, the connection with these two programs is obvious.
But there is also a lot to be said for the transferable skills that one attains in post-graduate work and especially at a Russell Group University where, for example, a dissertation is required. And I'm sure that if you have questions about the dissertation, I know that Dawn is almost-- is currently working on hers and might have a few things to say about this as well.
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I think that the distance learning programs, especially at Queen Mary, were designed specifically with this question in mind. So when I say that the content between our on-campus master's degree programs and our distance learning degree programs are the same, I do mean that. They were often designed by many of the same colleagues and experts in the field, but then they were tailored specifically to fit an online environment knowing full well that we have students who are currently in work, are mid-level professionals, or are thinking about changing their careers.
And so we try to design activities that mirror many of the conversations and interactions that you might have if you are an on-campus student, but obviously, not in as condensed a way that you would find on campus. Go on campus, you tend to take more classes at once. The distance learning program is spread out over two years. And if anything, it gives a better opportunity to many of our students to continue to nurture and foster the relationships that they make with many of the students in their classes.
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- Diego says I'm doing my dissertation, and, yes, I've got about another five weeks of pain to hand in, but it is actually on a subject matter that's relevant to my job. So you have a lot of flexibility with what you choose to write about, what you're interested in. In my job, I deal with a lot of public policies, and I mean, obviously, I've got an international facing role, and so really, all of my essays-- most of them-- have been absolutely geared to what I'm interested in, and it's relevant to my work. So I think there's lots of opportunities to apply what you're actually learning to your job at the time as well, absolutely.
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- At the moment, we are at a tipping point, at a crisis moment in terms of climate and what we're meant to do moving forward in the next very short amount of time. So international agreements around climate change, COP26, COP27, the policy processes involved in this are clearly at the front of people's minds. But in addition to that, there are also other important trends that we're paying attention to.
Everybody, I'm sure, here attending is familiar already with ChatGPT, the ideas around generative artificial intelligence, the ethics involved between different states, what it is that we're meant to do with this new technology that will obviously carry us forward leaps and bounds in the coming years.
And then for those who are most interested in international relations, strictly speaking, obviously, the conflict in Ukraine is an ongoing issue but so too is the potential for conflict around Taiwan and between the two major superpowers of the moment, the United States and China. Issues around international security, around warfare in the 21st century, the use of technology, and artificial intelligence in warfare. These are the sorts of topics that we are quite interested in
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