Master of Arts in Communication Studies

at Arkansas State University USA

The Arkansas State University MBA Program is a professional degree program designed to prepare students of all educational and professional backgrounds for management positions in all types of organizations. As such, the program stresses the development of analytical, problem-solving and decision making competencies for the dynamic, complex global organizational and social environments.

Management Information Systems - Concentration
The MBA with Concentration in MIS program is designed to allow graduate business students the ability to select in-depth coverage of the core components of today’s IT ?eld while furthering their business administration academic career. Students will complete the 27 hours within the MBA core (which includes two graduate level MIS course) and 9 additional hours of graduate level MIS coursework.

Courses offered in philosophy are designed to provide students with the knowledge and logical skills to understand and critically evaluate the intellectual, moral, and religious choices they encounter.

The program for students majoring in philosophy seeks to provide the background necessary for those preparing for law school, seminary, and graduate school as well as for those who simply seek a liberal education as the foundation of a career in business or industry.

Classes will introduce you to some of the perennial questions we encounter: Free Will and Determinism;  What makes an action right or wrong;  Reason and Religion.

What Skills Will You Develop?
Philosophy will develop critical thinking and reasoning skills.  What is some of the evidence for this? Philosophy majors score higher on the Law School Admissions Test than any other area of the Liberal Arts.  Philosophy majors score higher than any other major on the verbal section of the Graduate Record Exam.

The Department of Art at Arkansas State University will provide an educational environment that fosters the creation and understanding of art. Students in art develop insight, sensitivity, and perception toward all aspects of nature while building individual expressive responses. Aesthetic and functional values, creative ideas, and media skills are developed through instructional guidance and applied experience in the studio and classroom.

Learning Outside the Classroom
Some of the courses may involve field trips to Memphis Brooks Museum, The Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock, or other regional art collections. Arkansas State University is an Accredited Institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design.

Why the BFA?
The Bachelor of Fine Arts degree programs are designed to prepare students for professional careers as a classroom art teacher, graphic designer, or studio artist. The BFA in Art (with emphasis in Studio Art or Art Education) is the initial professional degree, and it is the requisite degree for the student who plans to pursue a studio-oriented post-baccalaureate degree

Emphases
Students pursuing a BFA in Art choose between the following emphases:

• Studio Art
• Art Education

Prerequisites
Students enrolled in these programs must take specific courses to meet General Education requirements. Curriculum and degree requirements can be found in the most current Undergraduate Bulletin.

Management is getting work done through other people. Managers perform a wide range of workplace activities, from establishing organization goals and ensuring progress towards those goals to organizing when and how activities and resources should be grouped together. Managers are asked to solve challenging workplace problems, often with limited human and financial resources. The Management major prepares students to design rewards for improved performance, set goals that motivate workers, and build an environment to create and sustain a competitive advantage.

Emphasis
Management majors choose between three emphases of study:

• General Management
• Hospitality Management
• Human Resource Management
• International Business

The accounting major prepares students for rewarding careers as industrial accountants, cost analysts, controllers, tax accountants, members of financial regulatory teams such as the IRS or banking auditors, independent auditors in CPA firms, and internal auditors. A-State accounting graduates work for manufacturing firms, in government agencies, in banking, in not-for-profit entities, and in public accounting.

Mass Communication is the study of sharing information through media outlets to reach large population segments. The primary focus of the M.S. in Mass Communications is on the fundamentals of communication theories enabling students to acquire the ability to understand and use basic methods of communication research.

You can emphasize your studies in one of these areas:

• Journalism
• Radio/TV

The M.A. in English requires 30 semester hours of course work without a thesis or, optionally, 24 hours plus a thesis. The program gives students the opportunity to broaden their academic background and to develop expertise in specialized areas.

Our program is by and large a literature program preparing students for teaching at the community college level or for entering doctoral programs in English, although our graduates do go into many other fields.

A limited graduate enrollment assures a student-professor ratio conducive to a mutual exchange of ideas outside as well as within the classroom. Each student is assigned an adviser who makes every effort to draw the student into the scholarly community. This has proven to be one of the program's  greatest asset.

Graduate students in English are offered the opportunity to work as editorial assistants for Arkansas Review, with the possibility of moving up to editorial positions. Tasks fulfilled by editorial assistants include typing and proofreading of copy, managing business correspondence, meeting weekly with the general editor, assigning book reviews, screening manuscripts, preparing mailings, delivering copies to the post office and local bookstores, working with authors, and attending regional and statewide conferences and festivals to promote the journal. The experience gained as an editorial assistant can prepare a student for work at other scholarly journals or in the commercial magazine and other publishing areas.

The Department of health, Physical Education, and Sport Sciences currently offers two Graduate degrees. The Master of Science in Education degree with a major in Physical Education and the Master of Science degree with a major in Exercise Science. Each degree offers two programs of study options. The first program of study is a 30 credit hour program of study with a Thesis requirement and no elective course requirements. The second program of study is a 33 credit hour program of study that requires a Graduate Project and 6 credit hours of restricted electives. The Master of Science in Education degree in Physical Education is designed to provide a quality professional program in the field of Physical Education that meets standards at the graduate level, including the Professionally Emerging Teacher and the Emerging Profession.

The M.S.E. degree in Social Science is rooted in a solid core of History and Social Science, along with 9 credit hours in Education.

M.S.E. graduates find rewarding careers in teaching and administration in public and private secondary schools.

Curriculum

• Curriculum and degree requirements can be found in the most current Graduate Bulletin.