Political Science/ International Development

Tulane offers its students one-of-a-kind learning experiences inside and outside of the classroom. Tulane graduates are uniquely prepared for the challenges of the real world.

Like many colleges, Tulane requires its first-year students to take a freshman seminar. But we want our students to get off campus and explore their new home here in New Orleans through TIDES. Capped at just 15 students, the small size really allows you to get to know everyone, including the professor. TIDES is way more than just a core class; it’s a way to meet new people and make a name for yourself — both on campus and off.

Since 1894, Tulane’s campus has been located in our current location in Uptown New Orleans, on historic St. Charles Avenue, across the street from the beautiful Audubon Park. Since then, our campus has grown to occupy 110 acres stretching 1.5 miles from the beginning of campus on St. Charles Avenue to the end on South Claiborne Avenue. Mature Live Oaks, Crape Myrtles, and Bald Cypress trees line our campus providing beauty and a subtle reminder that our campus was once marshland before its development over 100 years ago. Our campus features over 110 buildings, including 50 buildings dedicated to housing our 70 plus majors from our 5 undergraduate schools. A number of our graduate programs, including the Tulane Law School, are also housed on our Uptown campus. While Tulane is bounded by our physical location in New Orleans, we maintain a global campus with our emphasis on cultivating an international and multicultural climate on campus and engaging the global community through our study abroad programs. More than 30% of Tulane students study abroad as undergraduate through one of our partner programs in another country or through the Independent Scholar Program.

We set our graduates up for success through several undergraduate resources.

•The Career Services Center and its website HireTulaneGrads.com, which houses information and job postings for more than 1,600 companies

•A 1-credit Career Development Course: “Majors, Internships, and Jobs,” that teaches skills in résumé building, interview preparation, and professional social media

•Access to an internship database shared by an elite group of universities including Duke, Brown, Harvard, Vanderbilt, Emory, and Princeton

•Pre-Professional Advising for application and admission to law, medical, dental, physical therapy, and veterinary schools

•Accelerated graduate programs in Architecture, Business, or Public Health

•Earn an advanced degree in less time and at a significantly reduced tuition rate through one of 18 different 4+1 Master’s programs in the Liberal Arts and Science & Engineering

•Early entrance and guaranteed admission programs to Tulane Medicine and Tulane Law

Tulane was the first private research university in the nation to institute a public service requirement for graduation. Sure, we’re proud of this stat, but we’re even more proud of the fact that at Tulane, public service is qualitative instead of quantitative. It’s not about how many hours you spend volunteering. It’s about what you are doing and who you are helping.

Founded in 1834 as the Medical College of Louisiana with the goal of combating tropical diseases, Tulane University has long been a hub of innovation and collaboration. As the only private national research university in the Gulf South, Tulane embraces the region’s distinctive culture, creativity and social challenges as inspiration for its research, teaching and public service.  A major research institution, and one of just 62 members of the prestigious Association of American Universities, Tulane operates on multiple campuses and schools, but is also a university with small class sizes and one-on-one mentor relationships between students and faculty. The top researchers, bestselling authors, leading scholars and world-renowned artists who populate its faculty know their students by name. Tulane’s size and structure is critical to its mission — it is small enough to be flexible and responsive and large enough to create a dynamic and diverse community. 

Tulane brings together scholars, scientists and students who are committed to crossing, combining and redefining the boundaries that have separated fields and often thwarted true innovation. This interdisciplinary focus enables Tulane to find real-world solutions to real-world problems, whether in business, engineering, medicine, law, or public health.  Tulane’s mission extends far beyond its campuses, bringing positive change to the community and the world. It is a university on the front lines, addressing global challenges like infectious diseases, coastal erosion and the preservation and promotion of indigenous culture, music, art and language.

In July 2014, President Michael Fitts was named the 15th President of Tulane. President Fitts has ushered in a new era at Tulane focused on creating the most meaningful student experience anywhere and greatly increasing and deepening the university’s level of interdisciplinary teaching and research. His efforts are quickly establishing Tulane as a place where the best minds from the widest array of fields seek solutions to the world's most pressing problems through cross-disciplinary collaboration and innovation.