Overview
The Social Development and Policy (SDP) Program at the Habib University is the first program of its kind in Pakistan. The Program intends to nurture an inter-disciplinary and comprehensive understanding of the complex problems of development and social change. The SDP Program equips its students with a thorough theoretical understanding together with hands-on and practical training. In addition to this, recognizing the complexity of social, economic and developmental issues, the Program seeks to offer courses that address such issues from a variety of perspectives. The Program both integrates and builds upon traditional social sciences disciplines like anthropology, economics, political science and sociology.
The Habib University SDP program represents truly an innovative and dynamic approach to some of the most important issues faced by our society both locally within the communities of our cities and rural areas; domestically in Pakistan as a whole; and beyond that in the international and global community we all inhabit.
Learning Outcomes
Students who graduate with a degree in Social Development and Policy will be able to:
- Apply quantitative and/or qualitative research skills, including research design, methods, analysis, and reporting, as well as coding textual data and/or interpreting fundamental statistics for social sciences.
- Communicate clearly and concisely in a discipline-appropriate manner, in written, oral, visual and mixed media and to “produce” and “translate” development issues for varied audiences.
- Demonstrate understanding of, and the ability to document, the complex interconnections between humans and their environment, integrating multiple factors including economics, social and political organization, natural resources, and infrastructures, along with the challenges of sustainable management, considering the interdependency of human culture and the built environment with nature/ecosystems.
- Frame complex development problems, conduct needs assessments and analyses from interdisciplinary vantage points, along with the ability to design projects, and implement plans, programs, and interventions as well as monitoring/evaluation, in response to local/global problems with social development and policy implications.
- Demonstrate engagement and a comprehensive understanding of the conditions imposed by formal (policy, laws, regulations) and informal (norms, traditions, beliefs, mores) structures that regulate/organize societies and human interactions within these.
- Articulate considerations on the implications of class, race/ethnicity, gender, religion, among other axes of social differentiation, as well as assess their intersectional effects, with due considerations towards human rights, social justice, quality of life and working conditions.
- Demonstrate a critical awareness of one’s own relationship to the field and one’s work within it. Reflexive practice locates the researcher as an object within the field under study worthy of consideration itself rather than as a separate, dispassionate observer.
Requirements for the Major
All students majoring in Social Development and Policy are required to complete a total of 37 courses (129 credit hours). Students must maintain a minimum grade of C+ (2.33 GPA) in SDP major credit requirements in order to graduate with this degree.
| Course Category | Course | No. of Courses |
| University Requirements | Habib Liberal Core | 10 |
| Social Development & Policy Program Core | SDP 101 Development and Social change | 01 |
| SDP 201 Quantitative Research Methods/ Core Quantitative Reasoning | Counted in Habib Liberal Core* | |
| SDP 202 Qualitative Research Methods | 01 | |
| SDP 1xx Social Theory I | 01 | |
| SDP 2xx Social Theory II | 01 | |
| SDP 3xx Public Policy I | 01 | |
| SDP 3xx Public Policy II | 01 | |
| SDP 3xx/4xx International Political Economy Elective | 01 | |
| SDP 302 Data Analytics | 01 | |
| Program Electives | Lower-level Electives (maximum 04 courses) | 04 |
| Upper-level Electives (minimum 02 courses) | 02 | |
| Summer Practicum | FP/SDP 302 Field Practicum | 01 |
| Capstone / Research Seminar | Research Seminar + Capstone Report/Thesis Proposal | 01 |
| Thesis or Elective | Thesis Report (IS) or Upper-level Elective | 01 |
| Regional Language Requirement | Three sequential courses in a vernacular language | 03 |
| Electives | AHSS Electives (non-SDP) | 02 |
| University-wide Free Electives | 05 | |
| Overall | 37 | |
*SDP 202 Quantitative Research Methods fulfils Quantitative Reasoning Form of Thought requirement of the Habib Liberal Core.
Career Prospects
SDP graduates have found employment in:1 The requirements may be altered to enhance the learning experience.
2 One course double counted in Habib Liberal core as well as in SDP core.
3 Up to a maximum of two concentrations can be completed.
- Financial institutions
- Banks
- Research organizations
- Media companies
- Multi-national corporations
- Publishing houses
- Think tanks
- NGOs
- Software
- IT companies
- Education sector
Some students decided to launch their own start-ups and businesses. A number of our graduates decided to pursue further studies, mostly at the Masters’ level, in prestigious universities either in Pakistan or abroad. Recently, a number of SDP graduates have also been able to win the prestigious Fulbright scholarship.
