 The MA International Peace and Security is not like any other programme. It blends international law, international politics and war, three things usually studied separately, but in the real world, for example at the UN Security Council, that come together and need to be understood to grasp any issue of real meaning in the world around us. We cover both international law and international relations. These two subjects have often been studied in isolation from each other. The purpose of this master's is to bring them together and to look at this complex and fascinating field of international peace and security through an informed perspective which combines law and politics. There's an emphasis on active learning. Students can set agendas, they engage in group activities, they produce reports together, they take part in workshops and they carry out simulations and scenario exercises. Core 3 is very much the interactive and applied learning part of the course. Students will participate in a variety of simulations and workshops taught by experienced international practitioners returning from the field. We did a mediation workshop in which different groups of the class took on different roles in a traditional mediation setup where we had two opposing tribes. We had NGO companies, we had a government and we had some mediation officials. My role during this was to take on the role of an African militia leader and I got to really sort of delve into the character, understand his grievances, why he was so passionate about the projects and at what levels we could negotiate on and what we would not budge on at all whatsoever. So it's very, very interesting and really hands-on approach to studying which was one of the main reasons for picking this course. In part 2 of the Core module, we look at the central theme, the key organising principle of sovereignty, the tensions between that and other key principles of global order, for example territorial integrity and non-intervention. All the professors and lecturers actually take a personal interest in you. You don't feel like a cognitive machine and you're also encouraged to explore any areas that you feel that you really enjoy. So it's not massively prescribed and I think that's really important at MA level that you have that freedom to really explore your sort of intellectual capabilities and interests. Because we're quite contained up here in the Department of War Studies and it's been nice to, you really do get to know each other properly rather than just another person. You know, there's only four people in our class. And students are able to work in small groups conducting their own research, engaging in class debates and they finally work together on one big debate on the motion. The United Nations, irrelevant or indispensable. We had a very international year on international peace and security which just made it even more wonderful for debate, etc. We've got sort of people working in international risk analysis, we've got people working for international NGOs, international lawyers. It just shows how multi-disciplinary the course is and the skills that it gives you are applicable just in any sort of field that you want to go into. The options are everywhere. We're getting internship options all of the time from places like Chatham House, NGOs, think tanks. They're always looking for interns straight off the bat. But then a lot of people are also looking towards, well for myself it would be the Department of Foreign Affairs or people are looking at MOD, Civil Service Fast Track. Our students come from a variety of professional and academic backgrounds, politics, law, social sciences, some even from the natural sciences. They're thoroughly international. They have interests of all different kinds but what we want most of all are people who are really going to engage and who are really going to enjoy the experience that we offer. I would enrol for international peace and security because it not only gives you a very solid academic understanding of the world that we live in today but it also gives you amazing practical skills that you can go on to utilise in any future career.