Walsh School of Foreign Service
The Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) is the school of international relations at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. It is considered to be one of the world's leading international affairs schools, granting degrees at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Notable alumni include former U.S. president Bill Clinton, former CIA director George Tenet, and King Felipe VI of Spain, as well as numerous other heads of state or government. Its faculty has also included many distinguished figures in international affairs, such as former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright, former U.S. secretary  of defense Chuck Hagel, and former president of Poland Aleksander Kwaśniewski. Founded in 1919, the School of Foreign Service is the oldest continuously operating school for international affairs in the United States, predating the U.S. Foreign Service by six years, and is known for the large number of graduates who end up working in U.S. foreign policy. Despite its reputation for producing prominent American statesmen and diplomats, the SFS is not a diplomatic academy, and its graduates go on to have careers in a diverse range of sectors, including Wall Street. The School of Foreign Service was established by Fr . Edmund A. Walsh, S.J. with the goal of preparing Americans for various international professions in the wake of expanding U.S. involvement in world affairs after the First World War. Today, the school hosts a student body of approximately 2,250 from over 100 nations each year. It offers an undergraduate program based in the liberal arts, which leads to the Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service (BSFS) degree, as well as eight interdisciplinary graduate programs. History. Originally known as the School of Foreign Service, it was named for Edmund A. Walsh in 1958. Academics. Undergraduate programs. Following completion of the core  requirements, students declare one of the following interdisciplinary majors: There is also a joint degree in Business and Global Affairs (BGA) offered in partnership with Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. Graduate programs. Graduate students can pursue eight interdisciplinary graduate degrees in the school: There are also two joint degrees offered in partnership with Georgetown's McDonough School of Business. The first is the Global Executive MBA, which is offered in collaboration with the ESADE Business School in Spain. and the INCAE Business School in Costa Rica. The second is the MA in international business and policy. SFS is  a member of The Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA), a group of public policy, public administration, and international affairs schools. Certificates. Georgetown offers a number of undergraduate certificate programs: African studies, Arab studies, Asian studies, Australian & New Zealand studies, German and European studies, international business diplomacy, international development, Muslim-Christian understanding, Jewish civilization, justice & peace studies, Latin American studies, medieval studies, Russian & East European studies, social & political thought, and women's and gender studies. Reputation and rankings. Georgetown's programs in international relations have consistently ranked among the best in the world in surveys of the field 's academics that have been published biennially since 2005 by "Foreign Policy" magazine. In 2014 and in 2018 "Foreign Policy" ranked Georgetown's master's programs first in the world and its bachelor's programs fourth. In a separate survey of makers of American foreign-policy from 2011, Georgetown ranked second overall in the quality of preparation for a career in the U.S. government, regardless of degree earned. Campuses. The School of Foreign Service main campus, which is part of the main campus of Georgetown University, is located in the Georgetown neighborhood in Northwest Washington, D.C. In 2005, it opened  another campus, the School of Foreign Service in Qatar (also known as SFS-Q or GU-Q), in Qatar Foundation's Education City in Doha, Qatar. Many SFS undergraduates spend a minimum of one semester or a summer abroad, choosing from direct matriculation programs around the globe as well as programs of other universities and those run by Georgetown, including SFS-Q and Villa Le Balze.