For example, students in highly technical, specialized sciences such as bioengineering or environmental engineering also must have an understanding of the social and political institutions and processes that both impact and are impacted by their work. Health care is another area where this is particularly evident. Successful doctors and health care providers today must go beyond mastering the technological aspects of medicine to understanding the broad and complex socioeconomic matrix that surrounds health care. Students need the opportunity for more than just exposure to concepts from outside their discipline-they also need practice with their application. The Policy Studies major provides students with such an opportunity.
Students gain useable knowledge that provides value-added benefits in their future job performance.
This has the benefit of providing Rice students with a competitive advantage over students from other schools as they enter the job force or continue on to professional or graduate schools. The major contains eleven courses.