Prianka’s Annotated Curriculum

Although only three of this year’s Student Stories writers are second-year students, a total of four will graduate on Sunday.  Prianka has completed the requirements for the one-year LLM program and will join Adi, Mariya, and Pulkit at Commencement.  Here is Prianka’s Annotated Curriculum for her year at Fletcher.

Pre-Fletcher Experience
Senior Associate, Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan Attorneys, New Delhi, India
Consultant, Ernst & Young LLP, New Delhi, India

Capstone Topic
Enforceability of Transparency Requriements Relating to Trade Remedy Measures

Curriculum Overview

LLM students are required to complete five credits within the International Law and Organization (ILO) division, one from Diplomacy, History and Politics (DHP), and one from Economics and International Business (EIB).  The course requirements are definitely a lot more straightforward than they are for the MALD or MIB program, but it is a rigorous nine months completing eight classes and a capstone.

Semester One

Public International Law
Actors in Global Governance
Legal and Institutional Aspects of International Trade
Process of International Negotiation
Microeconomics (audit)

A challenge in selecting your courses as an LLM student is being fairly certain in the first semester of the courses that you will take in the next semester, too.  Particularly for EIB and ILO, a number of the courses require an introductory course as a prerequisite, meaning that you either take the introductory course in the fall semester with the aim of taking the higher-level course in the spring semester, or you won’t be able to take the higher-level course at all.  With that in mind, I audited an introductory course in economics to be able to take a higher-level course in the spring semester.  Auditing the class also helped me understand whether I would be able to handle the higher-level course.

International law and international trade were two areas of law that I was keen on studying coming into Fletcher.  The course on global governance was a good mix of international relations and law, which was important for me as I had not taken an international relations course during my undergraduate degree.  Looking back, the first semester was definitely a good initiation to being back in school.  I was also involved with The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs as their Legal Staff Editor.

Semester Two

International Treaty Behavior: A Perspective on Globalization
International Investment Law
International Trade and Investment
International Intellectual Property (January term at Harvard Law School)

The second semester was definitely a lot more challenging than my first.  Added to the academic rigor, the fact that the temperature dipped to -18 degrees Celsius (converting it to Fahrenheit makes it seem warmer in my head) made it hard to get out of bed on most mornings!

My second semester started a bit early as I took a January term course on intellectual property at the Harvard Law School.  Two main reasons for taking the course were, first, to reduce my course load during the rest of semester, as the January term starts and ends before the spring semester begins.  Second, the professor who taught the course at Harvard was a well-renowned expert in the field.

International Trade and Investment was my first economics class in over six years, but I’m happy to report that I have officially gotten over my phobia of economics!  Just as my law classes at Fletcher have brought in aspects from other fields, International Trade and Investment was a course on economics against the backdrop of law and policy.

An interesting aspect of the other two law courses that I took in the second semester, was that simulations were part of the curriculum.  In the course on International Investment Law, the class was divided into teams to negotiate an investment treaty.  Similarly, in the course on International Treaty Behavior, we had a simulation in which students were given roles as various countries and organizations with the aim of negotiating a treaty.  This definitely brought an interesting perspective to both classes.

In addition to continuing my role as an editor at The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, I was the team leader for a project with the Harvard Law and International Development Society.  With completing the capstone and coming to terms with the fact that I would soon be done with grad school, it was definitely a jam-packed semester.