Standards of Decision-Making Across Cultures (SDAC) at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU)

About

Standards of Decision-Making Across Cultures (SDAC) is an interdisciplinary study programme in cultural studies with an emphasis on East Asian societies. It allows the students to acquire profound academic and methodological knowledge as well as additional key skills regarding decision-making processes in East Asia. The MA degree programmeÂ requires a BA degree that can be from various disciplines. This non-consecutive Masterâ€™s programme draws from the fields of anthropology, philosophy, political science, economics, history, and Chinese studies. In addition to core courses, students have the possibility to further shape their curriculum around linguistic-cultural, comparative-philosophical, or economical & political academic foci. Students acquire valuable academic and methodological knowledge as well as additional key skills regarding decision-making processes in East Asia and beyond. Over the course of the degree programme, students receive insight into the processes of decision-making in cultural, political, and entrepreneurial settings. They develop a new cross-cultural perspective on decision-making processes, utilise their knowledge in an interdisciplinary context, learn to approach research questions from an academic perspective, and cultivate their independent thinking skills. These qualities eventually enable them to develop intercultural sensitivities and to facilitate cross-cultural decision-making processes. The acquired knowledge from the disciplines of anthropology, philosophy, political science, economics, history, and Chinese studies will enable students to gain skills in the fields of communication and critical thinking. It will also permit them to work in an independent, solution-oriented, critical, and analytical manner in various professional circumstances requiring expertise from humanities, area studies, and social sciences. As a non-consecutive programme, the SDAC opens perspectives that lead to both academic and non-academic professions. For example, outstanding students can receive support from faculty members to apply for a PhD programme in related fields. The proximity of our programme to the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities (IKGF) offers a favourable environment for academic networking and research. Depending on their backgrounds and interests, students may also qualify for internships and job positions in a variety of fields related to their chosen orientation in the programme. In particular, they would be eligible to work in an international environment where they could apply their intercultural sensitivity, interdisciplinary academic expertise, and communication proficiency.