Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies
The Interdisciplinary Studies (MAIS) program in the College of Humanities & Social Sciences consists of multiple established degree paths that exist in partnership with academic units and faculty across the University. It offers a home for students with broad academic interests who seek a master's degree that will help them to create a better world.
Individual Programs But A Shared Commitment
While their degree paths may vary dramatically, our students share a desire to address critical problems facing the world today. Some of the topics students have explored include: environmental degradation, climate change, human trafficking, social injustice, income inequality, trauma and psycho-social healing, gender-based violence, religious intolerance, international conflict, and others.
Flexible With The Freedom To Explore
Our programs are multidisciplinary in nature, allowing students considerable freedom to tailor their degrees to their unique interests and professional goals, with many encouraging experiential learning opportunities in a professional setting of the student's own choosing.
Classes are available online and on-campus. Some of our established programs offer a pathway to complete the concentration online, and we are working to add more options.
- Social Entrepreneurship
- Social Justice and Human Rights
- Women and Gender Studies
Diverse Degree Pathways
All concentrations are open to applicants from a range of backgrounds. Applicants often cross over from the humanities to the social or natural sciences, and vice versa. We welcome diversity of origin, identity, circumstance, and ideology. In addition to studying at Virginia's most diverse university, our program coursework promotes engaging with real world issues that affect diverse communities in a multitude of ways.
Study at one of the best
Multiple national college rankings have placed George Mason University among America’s top 50 public universities, top 100 among all public and private institutions, and Virginia’s No. 1 public university for social mobility.
Mason soars in national rankings
Under "Choose a Program" scroll to
"Interdisciplinary Studies" and select concentration.