IFSA Global and Public Health
Manipal, India
Term
Fall, Spring
Language of Instruction
English, Hindi
Language Prerequisite
None
Finance Options
Scholarships, grants, financial aid, monthly payment plan, credit card payments and more!
Application Deadlines:
- Fall: May 1
- Spring: November 1
Min.
GPA for
Consideration:
3.0
Typical
Credit
Load:
15
About Global and Public Health
Five miles from the Arabian Sea lies the college town of Manipal, an ideal location from which to study India's public health challenges and rich cultural heritage. Build a strong foundation in the health sciences alongside Indian peers, and visit local clinics at the forefront of health promotion, disease prevention, and even Ayurvedic medicine.
Global and Public Health Benefits
- The Fund for Education Abroad offers semester and summer awards for study abroad in India. Click here to find out more.
- Enroll in classes at one of India's premier private universities, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, where you learn firsthand how to navigate the Indian higher education system
- Study in a similar setup to an American university – but in an Indian setting – with state-of-the-art academic, sport and exercise facilities
- Gain a 360-degree understanding of India’s health system through weekly hands-on exposure at the village, town and district level
- Boost your resume with a Directed Research project focused on a topic of interest within Ayurvedic medicine, international relations, or media and communications.
- Live in international student housing and make meaningful connections with Indian peers through campus clubs—from service orgs to dance troupes
What our students say
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A New Kind of Pride: Being LGBTQIA+ in India
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Life Goes On: Coping with Events Back Home While Abroad
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Finding, Maintaining, and Reevaluating Faith Abroad
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Finding Identity as an Indian Heritage Student
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Studying Abroad in the Motherland: Learning to Embrace my Culture in a New Light
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Race, Gender, Colonization and Vulnerability
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4 Ways to Combat Reverse Culture Shock
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The IFSA Difference
Your success is our success! Whatever your goals, our approach is carefully designed to help you achieve them.
You will experience challenging, rewarding coursework in the highest quality classes, while receiving the academic support you need.
More than a tourist in a foreign country, you will engage in the community, build competencies, and develop yourself as a citizen of the world.
Our programs and practices reflect the value we place on diverse perspectives and are designed to support a variety of learners.
Round out your classroom experience with hands-on opportunities like internships, directed research, student teaching, community-based learning or volunteering, and cultural excursions.
You will have academic and personal mentors to assist with program choice, application, travel, cultural acclimation, language acquisition, class registration, academic issues, health and safety, and everything in between.
Academics at Global and Public Health
Courses
The Global and Public Health program provides a comprehensive overview of public health in India, as well as a multi-disciplinary look at Indian culture, politics, and society. The 15-credit semester is comprised of a required core course and four electives.
REQUIRED COURSE
Contemporary Indian Culture (3 U.S. semester credit hours) This core course provides a political, historical, religious, philosophical, and social overview of contemporary Indian society and creates a shared intellectual context that promotes the integration of coursework with students' personal observations.
ELECTIVE COURSES: Some courses are designed especially for international students, while others may be integrated with Manipal Academy of Higher Education students. Not all electives may be offered in a given semester depending on enrollment and faculty availability. All are worth 3 U.S. semester credit hours.
Global and Public Health
These courses include weekly field-based practicums alongside other Manipal and international students drawn to the globally-ranked health sciences programs at one of India’s top private universities.
Indian Studies
The following courses provides a multi-disciplinary look at India's past, present, and future. The university has drawn its most talented faculty from geopolitics, philosophy, European studies, and communications to teach specially-designed courses focusing on India and South Asia.
REQUIRED COURSE
Contemporary Indian Culture (3 U.S. semester credit hours) This core course provides a political, historical, religious, philosophical, and social overview of contemporary Indian society and creates a shared intellectual context that promotes the integration of coursework with students' personal observations.
ELECTIVE COURSES: Some courses are designed especially for international students, while others may be integrated with Manipal Academy of Higher Education students. Not all electives may be offered in a given semester depending on enrollment and faculty availability. All are worth 3 U.S. semester credit hours.
Global and Public Health
These courses include weekly field-based practicums alongside other Manipal and international students drawn to the globally-ranked health sciences programs at one of India’s top private universities.
- Ayurveda and Indian Traditions of Healing; Through both practical sessions and classroom lectures and discussions, this course will introduce students to the theory and practice of Ayurveda, a traditional Indian system of healthcare that has practical treatment sessions that make up this course offer an introduction to Ayurveda that is well-rounded, comprehensive and useful for students in their own day-to-day living.
- Environment and Occupational Health (fall semester only): This course examines the importance of ecological conditions in promoting health and preventing disease. Students will develop a greater understanding of the concepts of hygiene and sanitation, the purpose of environmental health and ergonomics and legislation related to occupational health.
- Maternal and Child Health: In any community, mothers and children constitute a priority group, one that comprises approximately 71.14% of the population of the developing countries. By virtue of their numbers, mothers and children are the major consumers of health services. In this course students will be given an overview of preventative pediatrics in developing countries.
- Global Health Problems (spring semester only): India faces a wide range of public health problems in the areas of communicable and non-communicable diseases and issues on maternal and child health. This course will consider India's dual burden of diseases and address the issues relating to global health perspectives.
- Surveillance of Infectious Diseases: Surveillance is intended to detect early warning signals of impending outbreaks and help initiate an effective response in urban and rural areas. Students will learn the components of surveillance activity, including collection of data, analysis and interpretation and feedback and also the different approaches to surveillance of different diseases and conditions.
- Public Health System and National Health Policies, Systems and Programs (fall semester only): An understanding of health system and policy issues is vital for both public health practice and research. This course gives an overview of the national health programmes of India, why they are needed, the human resources involved and the different components of the programmes including monitoring and supervision.
- Basic Epidemiology: Epidemiology forms the core science of Public Health. The basic epidemiology course is designed to enable students to gain foundational knowledge of methods in epidemiology with a focuse on basic models for disease occurrence, study designs and an introduction to the challenges related to causal research including bias.
Indian Studies
The following courses provides a multi-disciplinary look at India's past, present, and future. The university has drawn its most talented faculty from geopolitics, philosophy, European studies, and communications to teach specially-designed courses focusing on India and South Asia.
- Indian Classical Dance: This course focuses on basic disciplines and performance of Bharatanatyam, which originated many centuries ago in the temples of Tamil Nadu. Known for its strong lines and signature turn-out position, Bharatanatyam is embellished with intricately expressive hand gestures and elaborate facial expressions that lend to the story-telling aspect of this style.
- Directed Research: Students may conduct research with local organizations in the areas of international relations, Ayurvedic medicine, media and communications, and the humanities. Guided readings and one-on-one meetings with faculty guides provide instruction pertaining to the development of articulate and comprehensive research that remains respectful to the sensitivities of local culture. The course culminates in a specific pilot study in the field.
- Evolution of Cinema in India (fall semester only): Best known through the powerhouses of Bollywood, Indian films are produced in over 17 languages with a wide and diverse range of subjects and genres. Students become familiar with the basic elements of cinema and film appreciation, the origins of Indian cinema, influential Indian film directors, and the corporatization of the film industry.
- Beginning Hindi: With a focus on practical application of Hindi language, this course emphasizes speaking proficiency and listening comprehension, as well as elementary reading and writing of the Devanagari script.
- Regional Security Scenario in South Asia: In today's world, the strategic implications and inter-related security issues involved with current problems of communications and information must be dealt with in a holistic sense. Students examine the salient features and relevance of the complex issues affecting regional security in South Asia.
- Strategy and Practice of Indian Foreign Policy (fall semester only): The history and changing nature of India's foreign policy continues to inform the strategy and choices that India weighs while formulating its policies in dealing with foreign nations. This course is geared toward students who have a limited background in the strategy and practice of foreign policy in the Indian context.
- India's World View (fall semester only): This course addresses the views of the world on India and the reciprocal Indian view of the world. The uniqueness of conceptualizing and constructing a world view of India is essential in the context of India's rising power and how the traditional and stagnant views of India have been transforming and reconstructed in the light of India's rise.
- Environment and Development Communication: The course hopes to introduce students to the basics of environmentalism, ecosystem, threats to biodiversity and resources, international legal framework, movements and issues such as climate change and ozone layer depletion. Later, the course seeks to connect it with development models such as dominant and alternative paradigms. The students are introduce to different forms of media communication with reference to environment and development in the global context.
- Exploring Community & Culture in a Global Context: Through a creative asynchronous online format, this course facilitates active engagement with your host community, exploration of cultural identity and examination of diversity in the context of political, economic and sociocultural structures. Students cover topics such as intercultural communication skills, intercultural learning theories, tools for intercultural analysis and the development of personal strategies for engaging with differences of any kind following the study abroad experience. This course is ideal for students seeking transferable skills and specific competencies for success in the global marketplace. Depending on your chosen IFSA program, this course may be taken as a part of or in addition to your full credit load. Home institution approval is required for enrollment.
Experiential Learning
FIELD VISITS
Every Friday, a public health professor from Manipal Academy of Higher Education leads IFSA students on field visits that are directly linked to the curriculum. This hands-on exposure to India's system at the village, town, and district level helps them gain a 360-degree understanding of the successes and challenges of global public health.
DIRECTED RESEARCH
Students who choose to pursue directed research as an elective are paired with a faculty member appropriate to their academic area of interest, such as international relations, Ayurvedic medicine, media and communications, or the humanities and are expected to produce a formal research paper. Research students have regular meetings with faculty guides in their subject area to discuss the formation and execution of their research plans. All directed research projects are subject to the interest and availability of faculty and may require prior relevant coursework. For more information, consult the Directed Research syllabus above and contact your Program Advisor to discuss your interests.
Every Friday, a public health professor from Manipal Academy of Higher Education leads IFSA students on field visits that are directly linked to the curriculum. This hands-on exposure to India's system at the village, town, and district level helps them gain a 360-degree understanding of the successes and challenges of global public health.
- Seeing firsthand the issues of the Maternal and Child Healthcare at the Anganwadi in Malpe, a public health initiative which combines education and a nutritional program for children ages 3-6 years old.
- Learning about India's national Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme at the Udupi District Surveillance Unit, where infectious diseases are monitored.
- Comprehending the complexities of Tuberculosis treatment in India at the DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment, Short-Course) Center at Udupi.
- Visiting a Leprosy Hospital and its associated leprosy colony to meet with some of the last people affected by this disease.
- Observing the process that milk goes through from cow to lassi at a milk pasteurization plant.
DIRECTED RESEARCH
Students who choose to pursue directed research as an elective are paired with a faculty member appropriate to their academic area of interest, such as international relations, Ayurvedic medicine, media and communications, or the humanities and are expected to produce a formal research paper. Research students have regular meetings with faculty guides in their subject area to discuss the formation and execution of their research plans. All directed research projects are subject to the interest and availability of faculty and may require prior relevant coursework. For more information, consult the Directed Research syllabus above and contact your Program Advisor to discuss your interests.
Faculty
Public Health
- Dr. Sanjay M. Pattanshetty – MPH Program Coordinator, Department of Public Health
- Dr. Shah Hossain / Dr. Navya Vyas (Global Health Problems)
- Dr. Rajesh Kamath (Surveillance of Infectious Diseases)
- Dr. Arati Rao / Dr. Navya Vyas (Maternal and Child Health)
- Dr. Kumar Sumit (Public Health Systems and National Health Policies, Systems and Programs)
- Dr. Kumar Sumit / Dr. Prakash Narayanan Vasudevan Potty (Basic Epidemiology)
- Dr. Kumar Sumit (Environment and Occupational Health)
- Dr. K. J. Malagi – Head, Department of Ayurveda
- Dr. Anupama Nayak (Ayurveda and Indian Traditions of Healing)
- Dr. Nanda Kishor (Contemporary Indian Culture)
- Dr. Arvind Kumar (Directed Research)
- Prof. Thiru Jeevarathinam (Beginning Hindi)
Transcripts
After you return to the U.S., IFSA will send an official Butler University transcript to your home university with your coursework converted to the U.S. credit system. You will also have access to an unofficial transcript in your IFSA Student Portal. The transcript reflects courses taken, credits attempted, and grades earned during your term abroad. This service is included in your study abroad program at no additional cost.
Subjects offered at Global and Public Health
Agriculture
Asian Studies
Business
Civil Engineering
Communication Science/Disorders
Community Studies
Computer/Software Engineering
Cultural Studies
Dance
Early Childhood Education
Earth Science
Ecology
Economics
Elementary Education
Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Environmental Engineering
Environmental Health
Environmental Health
Environmental Science/Studies
Environmental Science/Studies
Film/Cinema Studies
Finance
Fine Arts
Health Administration/Management
Health Education
Health Studies
Herbal Medicine/Naturopathy
Hindi
Human Rights
Human and Child Development
Immunology
Information Technology
Intelligence/Security Studies
International Business
International Studies/Affairs/Relations
Kinesiology/Exercise Science
Management
Management Information Systems
Media/Multimedia Studies
Medicine, Pre-Medical
Music
Nursing
Occupational Therapy
Policy Studies/Public Policy
Political Science
Population Studies/Demography
Psychology
Public/Global Health
Social Policy
Sociology
Statistics
Translation
Urban Studies
Women and Gender Studies
Housing & Meals
Housing Type
Residence Hall/Dormitory
Meals
Details
Students live in single rooms at the international student hostel on campus. All meals are provided in the campus canteens alongside Indian students.
The IFSA Team
IFSA has a dedicated team who are here to help you prepare to achieve your goals. Feel free to reach out. We are happy to answer your questions!
Program Advisor
Resident Director
Academic Affairs Director
Dates and Fees
Spring 2021
Program Dates
Program Start Date
Mid-January 2021
Program End Date
Early May 2021
Program Fees
Insurance
Included
Total Program Fee
Coming Soon
Estimated Costs
Airfare
$1,480
Meals
$490
Local Transportation
$120
Visa
$265
Personal Expenses
$610
Total Estimated Costs
$2,965
Fall 2020
Program Dates
Program Start Date
August 11, 2020
Program End Date
December 5, 2020
Program Fees
Tuition
$14,650
Housing
$2,250
Insurance
Included
Total Program Fee
$16,900
Estimated Costs
Airfare
$1,520
Meals
$490
Local Transportation
$120
Visa
$265
Personal Expenses
$570
Total Estimated Costs
$2,965