The Tufts University Field Exercise in Peace and Stability Operations (FIELDEX) is a real-time peace-keeping simulation that takes students out of the classroom and into a real-life conflict simulation in which they gain experience with making decisions in high-intensity and controversial situations.
This marks the fourth year of FIELDEX, which grew out of an Experimental College course about counter-terrorism, according to co-director KonradGessler, a sophomore.
The simulation lasts a day and a half, and participants are assigned roles in a scenario that is influenced by recent social and political events. According to Gessler, this year's scenario concerns resource availability and water scarcity, based on recent fears and issues on the matter in South Asia.
"We draw from historical examples," Gessler said.
Seventy students usually participate in FIELDEX, Gessler said, including students from the United States Military Academy at West Point and the United States Naval Academy, as well as Tufts undergraduates and other non-Tufts students. Participants are assigned roles, including politicians, military, civilians and journalists, and through these roles they attempt to solve a community or regional crisis.
The initiative is led by undergraduates from Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services (ALLIES), and under the mentorship of graduate students at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
"Tufts students are inundated with guest speakers and lectures," said FIELDEX co-director AparnaRamanan, a junior. "A lot of Tufts students go on to do non-governmental organization work, and [FIELDEX] is a good experience to understand how different it is on the ground. It gives a sense of realism, combined with the complexity of it."
Along with this complexity, students in FIELDEX contend with the difficulty of decision-making, Ramanan said.
"As much as we want to simulate everything, at the end of the day, it's still acting," she said. "Sometimes students feel pressure to come out with a real product. The goal is more to shed light on realism, but we're inherently unable to do that since it's a simulation."
According to Gessler, the program primarily draws students majoring in international relations and political science, but also attracts students from other concentrations and majors.
"This year's topic may be of particular interest to environmental studies students," Gessler said.
This year's program will take place from March 30-31, and students may enroll on the FIELDEX website for a registration fee of $20 or $25, depending on their desired role.
Junior Lindsay Carpenter is a peace and justice studies major who participated in FIELDEX last spring.
"I loved it," she said. "I was a United Nations negotiator. It was a little rushed at the end to finish it, but overall a great experience."
