Master of Liberal Studies With Concentration in Film and Media Studies

at Kaplan Group - Arizona State University - Tempe Campus USA

Justice studies is an innovative social science and liberal arts program that examines contemporary social justice in a variety of contexts, including inequality, race, gender, citizenship, indigeneity and other significant areas.

This program provides a broad approach to understanding justice including in the legal system as well as in wider social contexts, such as in the many social justice issues that occur across countries and cultures. The BA program provides students the kind of broader perspective required in today's workforce, through a liberal arts focus and the requirement to enroll in language courses.

This program equips students with a dynamic knowledge of the world's justice systems and gives them the skills to create meaningful, real-world change.

By bringing their own unique stories to life, students pursuing a degree in film and media production develop a comprehensive and practical knowledge of digital media production, an awareness of the impact of media and entertainment on audiences and culture, and an understanding of the role of the artist in society.

Students in this degree plan have access to digital cameras, lighting and sound equipment, post-production software and facilities, and other resources --- including talented and dedicated peer and faculty colleagues who will give them multiple opportunities to produce projects of exceptional quality.

Students choose one of three upper-division tracks of study: directing, producing and screenwriting, and media technology including cinematography, post-production and sound. Each course of study is supported by the degree-wide emphasis on ethical filmmaking practices, innovative creative expression and preparation for a career as an industry professional.

The MA program in classical liberal education and leadership is an integrated, interdisciplinary course of study that is student-learning centered, employing the Socratic method of classroom dialogue. This Master of Arts degree program fosters a learning community of students and faculty oriented to the classical, holistic pursuit of knowledge.

The curriculum focuses on philosophy, politics, literature, ethics, economics and history. It combines theory and practice with ideas and application, incorporating inquiry about the good life with the practical challenge of leading others --- nations, societies and individuals --- in the pursuit of a way of life that accords with the precepts of justice and the ethos of humanity.

Intellectual, moral and civic education are understood to be component parts of a genuine liberal education; all are necessary for the flourishing of the individual and society. As Aristotle taught, there is no substitute for doing the right thing in the right way. This is true in how children are educated, neighbors are lived with, and nations are governed. The classical liberal education and leadership program aims to prepare the next generation's teachers, scholars, civic leaders and statesmen to meet the challenges ahead with foresight, integrity, prudence and imagination.

The School of Arts, Media and Engineering educates the next generation of learners and empowers them with technofluency --- its development, application and implications. The School of Arts, Media and Engineering prepares students to be socially aware, critically thinking global citizens who strive to bring about positive change in a society that will be increasingly shaped by new technologies.

The BA program in digital culture equips students with the knowledge, abilities and technical skills they need for creating computational media.

Students learn to create computational media, which is computation combined with objects, sound, video, time, space, culture and bodies; breathe behavior into media, objects or systems by programming; and think critically about how computation impacts lives and how culture makes a difference in how people experience computational media, a critical skill in this dynamic age.

Armed with skills and reasoned judgment, graduates work in cultural communication, marketing, design, social media, health, education, entertainment and creative arts, and all areas in which culture is shaped by technology and computational media. All students gain techniques to change the world and communicate using contemporary computational media, a vital power in the 21st century. Some go on to invent fresh techniques.

Digital culture --- film concentration

The digital culture program with a concentration in film is for students wishing to integrate digital aspects of film into new media. Students complement their knowledge of digital culture with discipline-specific courses in the Sidney Poitier New American Film School that focus on the foundations of filmmaking practices, historical and theoretical aspects of film, knowledge of the film industry and hands-on knowledge of digital processes in filmmaking.

The Master of Computer Science program affords an opportunity for students employed in industry to seek a breadth of advanced education in computer science.

The program reflects the dual nature of computer science as a scientific and engineering discipline by allowing emphasis on theory as well as practical applications. Students can study topics such as:

• Artificial intelligence
• Big data
• Cloud and distributed computing
• Cybersecurity
• Database management and information retrieval
• Database systems
• Data mining and machine learning
• Distributed computing and operating systems
• Imaging, graphics and visualization
• Simulation modeling and systems

Students in the creative writing concentration of the BA program in English study and practice the art of writing poetry and fiction.

Students gain practical experience through writing workshops and internship opportunities that prepare them for an ever-expanding variety of careers in writing, publishing, editing, teaching, media and public relations. The undergraduate program also prepares students to continue their studies in graduate and professional programs.

The undergraduate program features an outstanding faculty that has published more than 80 books and has garnered national and international attention and awards.

The MA program in English allows for a variety of transdisciplinary studies within five distinct tracks. Comparative literature --- Students interpret cultural productions in English and at least one other language, and they explore approaches ranging from textual criticism, critical theory and translation to cultural studies and the social sciences.

Creative writing -- Students in the accelerated BA/MA creative writing track strengthen their artistic practice by participating in intensive creative writing workshops in either fiction or poetry, alongside the study of contemporary literature and innovative creative techniques.

English studies --- Students in this track learn how to interpret and articulate complex cultural, historical, literary and language related ideas into accessible material for general audiences through a series of courses from across disciplinary areas of study.

Literature --- Students develop and hone skills in oral presentation, writing and critical thinking while exploring social, historical and cultural contexts.

Writing, rhetorics and literacies --- This program offers students a wide array of courses encompassing the history, theory and practice of rhetoric and pedagogy of writing.

Classics is the study of the literature, art, history and philosophy of the ancient Greeks and Romans --- a transdisciplinary field that fueled the Renaissance and that has continued to provide an intellectual foundation for innovative and influential people ever since.

The BA program in international letters and cultures with a concentration in classics begins with two cores: language skills in ancient Greek or Latin (or, if the student chooses, both) and knowledge of ancient history. With that basis, students build a program to meet their needs and interests. Among the variety of topics students pursue are:

• Ancient history, war, politics and economics
• Literary classics such as Homer, Sophocles, Virgil and Ovid
• The archaeology of the ancient Mediterranean world
• The art and architecture of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans
• The mythology and religious practices of the Greeks and Romans
• The thought of figures such as Plato, Aristotle and Lucretius
• The use of the classics in today's film, books and other media

In addition to the concentration in classics, ASU also offers a classical civilization concentration with a similar focus but different language requirements. Students should consult their advisor and choose the concentration that best meets their needs.

The BA program in business with a concentration in sports business is attractive to students with an interest in the sports industry.

This concentration provides students with the necessary skills to build knowledge and understanding of the development of the strategic business process in sports organizations and its relationship to media. The program offers a strong focus on applied elements of the sports industry, especially as it relates to media and its impact on the industry.

The proliferation of mass communication (including television, game systems and social networks) has transformed sports into a highly commercialized industry and, in turn, sports continue to generate revenues for these businesses. The interaction between sports and media has led to a multitude of applications of business knowledge to these fields.

The big data systems concentration under the MCS degree program is designed for graduate students who want to pursue a thorough education in the area of big data systems.

Students acquire the knowledge, skills and expertise in designing scalable systems (parallel, distributed and real time) that acquire, store, process and access large-scale heterogeneous multisource data, and they learn to use analytical tools to mine information from the data

Graduates are able to choose and deploy the appropriate data management processing and analysis systems with a suitable structured or unstructured data model that a particular task and domain application needs.