No matter how many times I recount my college experience, my dad cannot remember the four words that compose my major. Socialization and Political Research? Society Studies and Publicity?

I stand by my choice, to him and others throughout the years. And although it always gets a jab during the RealAD show, Social Research and Public Policy is an increasingly popular major.

Iván Szelényi, former dean of social sciences, was disheartened by the limitations he noticed while working at the sociology department at UCLA and political science department at Yale. So when the opportunity to come to NYU Abu Dhabi arose over a decade ago, Szelényi decided to create something new.

“Students want to be involved in research and they would like to study topics that have some relevance to policy,” he explained. “So I went, Why don't I create a major that is not quite sociology, but is Social Research and Public Policy?”

And so, he did.

“To my surprise, NYU really did not have any objection to this and NYUAD, in fact, liked it,” Szelényi added.

Building the program from scratch was daunting, but Szelényi recruited one of his colleagues from Yale to join a year later. Hannah Brückner, interim dean of social sciences and Professor of SRPP, initially planned a one year visit, but gave up her tenured position at Yale after falling in love with the university and its students. Brückner explained how Szelényi was acutely aware — and even writing an essay about it at the time — that the roots of sociology came from application and improving lives.

“This idea that sociology is divorced from doing real things in the real world is in itself a mistaken idea,” added John O’Brien, interim program head and associate professor of SRPP. “[We found] a program that can connect those in a really exciting way.”

The new program was not without its challenges, especially in terms of recruiting high quality faculty. “The best graduates in sociology did not want to take a double risk — to leave the United States and go to Abu Dhabi and to leave sociology and go into a department that does not quite fit the usual and normal department structure,” explained Szelényi.

“We are trying to do something new and difficult,” added Eric Hamilton, lecturer of Political Science. “The old and established is always easy because it is easy to explain to people.”

Eventually, however, the program attracted a number of distinguished faculty, several of whom had experience with unconventional majors of their own. “I have always been interested in programs that are trying to do things differently,” gushed O’Brien, who majored in a multidisciplinary American Civilization major during his undergraduate years.

Similarly, Rana Tomaira, research scientist and lecturer, who studied Architectural Engineering followed by City and Regional Planning, was no stranger to unexpected combinations: “The good thing is that I am a graduate myself of a hodgepodge major, an eclectic major.”

As for the students this unconventional major attracts, Tomaira stressed that they are concerned with justice and equity: “It is because you care, you want to make a difference.”

One of these very students, for whom compassion underlay their academic journey at NYUAD, is Annalisa Galgano, Class of 2017. During her junior fall, she took Introduction to Public Policy with Sophia Kalantzakos, global distinguished professor, Environmental Studies and Public Policy. “This was the same fall that Syrian refugees coming to Greece through the Mediterranean started to make international headlines,” Galgano explained. “As a cohort of the class, we took on refugee housing as a case study for our final group project.”

Students meeting with members of the Greek Parliament in Dec. 2016. Photo courtesy of Annalisa Galgano.

Kalantzakos was so impressed with the project that she brought a few students to Greece to meet with some of her former colleagues in the Greek Parliament and discuss the feasibility of their ideas. Galgano carried this research into the next summer where she worked alongside Kalantzakos in Athens, collecting data on refugee housing that she would eventually elucidate in her capstone project, and later, in a Fulbright Study Grant. Galgano hopes to move back to Athens one day and build some roots there, a lasting connection which started all the way back in a classroom at NYUAD.

And while Introduction to Public Policy was life-altering, both personally and academically for Galgano, many SRPP majors often complain that they are missing the opportunity to take this course. “I'm applying to masters in Public Policy now ... but without having taken Introduction to Public Policy,” lamented Lucas Davidenco, Class of 2021.

This sentiment was echoed by Adam Sherif, also Class of 2021, who managed to enroll in the course during his senior fall. “I did survive without [Introduction to Public Policy], but it took a lot of personal effort — internships, research, thematic classes — to get a sense of what I want to do,” Sherif explained. “It worked out for me with a lot of personal effort, but I don't know if that would be the case for everyone.”

The course is offered occasionally, but not required, and the lack of this seemingly fundamental instruction remains a mystery for SRPP majors. However, faculty are aware of the feedback. “I don't think it is a secret that we are really really excellent at social research and that we have more work to do on the public policy side of the program,” affirmed Hamilton.

The current major requirements include, like all social sciences, Global Economic, Political and Social Development, Statistics for the Social Sciences, and a Social, Political and Economic Thought course. In addition to the required Introduction to the Study of Society, students must take eight other major elective courses, grouped in four different categories: Research Methods, Social Structure and Global Processes, Public Policy and Institutions and Society and Culture.

For Davidenco, it is not clear how necessary this categorization is to the learning outcomes. “They don't seem like the most common sense divisions,” he added. “There is often a lack of offerings for Society and Culture.”

Davidenco, however, praised his Research Methods courses, with similar compliments echoed by other students and faculty in the program. Despite characterizing himself as more of a qualitative person, Davidenco selected Survey Research and Data Analysis. “They have given me tangible skills that I can use in research,” he explained. Galgano also reflects on her Research Methods — Ethnographic Field Research and Data Analysis — as two of the most important classes she took during her four years, especially useful for her research and Masters in Public Administration post graduation.

As far as non-research method classes, students repeatedly highlighted a few standouts. For Davidenco, two courses that strike a balance between theory and application include Tomaira’s course on Urbanization and Women and Work in the Gulf with May Al Dabbagh, assistant professor of Social Research and Public Policy.

“With SRPP, you really need to understand the context and nuances of the social issues you are diving into,” explained Carrisa Tehputri, Class of 2018 and teaching assistant to Al Dabbagh. “I came to realize how complex SRPP is.” Both Al Dabbagh and Tomaira’s courses zoom into specific, albeit large, regions and combine theoretical academic work with case studies.

Tomaira walked through the content of her course, Social Change and Development in the Arab World: “I like to begin with the word development and development literature … We then start to look at the Arab world, how easily statistics can be manipulated.” The course goes on to examine thematic areas including oil economies, settler colonialism and occupation, gender, environment, food security and youth.

“Each of us will focus on one country and basically become an expert on this country, we dive deep into its social and economic policies,” added Sherif, who claimed he learned more about his home country Egypt during the 14-week course than his previous years of life.

Most SRPP majors also have the availability to pursue two study away semesters if they so choose, bolstering the course offerings in Abu Dhabi. “We also rely on other parts of the Global Network to provide some of those advanced electives,” Hamilton explained of the importance of study away semesters. However, students have raised the concerns that although there are policy course offerings at NYU Wagner, the scope is often limited to the U.S. context.

“There was a lot of interesting stuff, frameworks through which we develop policy, but usually the cases were very American,” Sherif described his selections in New York. “[My other course was] also very American, I felt on the outside.” Davidenco, on the other hand, did not pursue SRPP courses during his semesters away, something, in retrospect, he appreciates, given the flexibility of the major.

The idea of flexibility is often the first dimension by which SRPP is characterized. O’Brien recalled how his own major, AmCiv, was known mockingly as AmBiv — ambivalent for similar reasons — but does not want external judgements to influence the major. “In some ways it's okay to have something unfamiliar, that's not a bad thing. But at least those involved [should] have a clearer sense of what it is to them,” he stressed. “You do want students to have a sense of progress, structure and shape.”

Brückner concurred, referencing the design principle from the start: “It should be a program that is rigorous but it should be flexible enough to accomodate a diversity of visions.”

While outsiders may be critical, those who have passed through the convoluted, and often incoherent, path of SRPP have come out with clarity on the other side. “This major [gave] me a chance to be flexible, be hybrid, and to shape my experience in college the way I want to,” hailed Tehputri “I would be able to mix all these different aspects and bring into the major I get to decide for myself.”

O’Brien is cognizant, however, of the major’s limitations, student demands for more public policy courses and areas for growth. “10 years isn't that long for an institution; we need to step back and say, what is going well? What can we adjust?” he pondered. “I don’t want to cave into the sense that things should be very programmed.”

My journey with SRPP has not been without its ups and downs. I ignored the criticisms that it is not a “real” major, but nonetheless wavered towards Political Science in sophomore fall. I reveled in the flexibility to study film and French in Paris, but still longed for more concrete policy courses. Overall, I will graduate with an eclectic mixture of area knowledge, a handful of strong research skills and an unusually long major scrolled on my diploma.