Babak Moussavi

The MSc Contemporary India was a deeply rewarding nine months. The subject matter was fascinating, the teaching quality was excellent, and the overall experience was always enjoyable. I made many valuable friendships over this period. The interdisciplinary nature of the course structure ensured that students gained a strong grounding in different approaches, from economics and political science to sociology and anthropology, and acquired skills in different social science research methods. Students could decide to specialise in any of these through the dissertation component. My field was politics, and the Excel and R classes that were organised helped me hone the quantitative aspects of my research methodology.

I came to the course with a background in philosophy and international public policy, and experience of research work in New Delhi. While this was a useful basis, the course significantly expanded my knowledge of contemporary India and its mercurial political scene. I continue to pursue research in this area, and am currently working with Dr Kate Sullivan on a project on India and the UN Security Council, which we presented at the Contemporary South Asia research seminar series in early 2015. After completing the course, I began working as a research assistant at the Accenture Institute of High Performance, where the research skills developed on the course have proven invaluable.