About the Major

• CAPS Major Recommended Sequence of Coursework
• CAPS major gives students experience both on- and off-campus, including three years at Ithaca, one semester in Washington, D.C, and one semester in Beijing.
• In Ithaca, CAPS majors study China’s history, politics, society, and foreign relations (especially with the United States), and they take Chinese language courses either in the regular curriculum or in FALCON (the Full-year Asian Language CONcentration) – the only language program in the United States that allows students to study Chinese all day, every day, year round. View Courses and link with FALCON
• In Washington, D.C., CAPS majors are in residence at Cornell in Washington (whose building near Dupont Circle is owned by Cornell), and their core courses are a seminar on U.S.-China relations and a seminar on American public policy (or alternately, a seminar on American experience). In it they have discussions with Americans who have worked in China in diplomacy, business, law, journalism, education, and other fields.

• In Beijing, CAPS majors live on the campus of China’s preeminent institution of higher learning, Peking University, and they take CAPS 3010 with an English speaking visiting U.S. professor and CAPS 3020, a course taught partly in Chinese and partly in English by a Peking University professor.
• In both Washington, D.C., and Beijing, CAPS majors hold China-related externships in government agencies, embassies, newspapers, television networks, businesses, law firms, NGOs, and other organizations.
• Back in Ithaca for their final semester, CAPS majors bring their studies to a culmination in a senior seminar.