Bachelor of Arts in Political Science

at Kent State University USA

The Bachelor of Science degree in Biology is for students who are interested in pursuing an in-depth specialization as a biologist or wish to pursue a medical or health care career.

The Biology major comprises the following concentrations:

• The Molecular and Cellular Biology concentration is the study of biological processes within and between individual cells, allowing for a better understanding of biological principles in normal and diseased states. The focus of this program includes concepts related to the genetic basis of life, regulation of gene expression and cellular functions.
• The Organismal Biology concentration allows students to examine organisms in their natural environment and address fundamental principles of survival and adaptation in discrete micro-environments and entire ecosystems. While basic concepts of biological and chemical functions are covered, the focus of this concentration is comprehensive aspects of the whole organism.
• The Pre-Medicine/Pre-Podiatry/Pre-Dentistry concentration prepares students for careers in medicine and health care. The curriculum provides the courses necessary for admission to advanced degree programs in healthcare and biomedical science professions.

Program Learning Outcomes

Graduates of this program will be able to:

• Understand the fundamental biological principles.
• Acquire the fundamental skills necessary for laboratory and field investigations.
• Conduct proper experimental design, analyze biological data and communicate research results.
• Know and appreciate the role that biology plays in societal issues, such as those related to the environment, biodiversity, ethics, human health and disease.

The Master of Education degree in Special Education provides students with advanced understanding of contemporary research and practice issues in special education. Students in the program are typically interested in pursuing enhanced professional competence, career advancement, leadership roles, advocacy and systems change; or they may be wanting to prepare for doctoral-level study. Students do not need to have an undergraduate degree in special education (or in education) to be successful in the master's degree; however, should be motivated to develop a deeper understanding of the field of special education.

The M.Ed. degree program does not prepare students for teacher licensure; however, some of the coursework required for the degree may count toward licensure. Students interested in both licensure and a M.Ed. degree will need to apply and be fully admitted into both the master's degree and the non-degree graduate licensure preparation program.

The Special Education major comprises the following concentrations:

• The Early Childhood Intervention Specialist concentration focuses on needs of young children with or at risk for developmental delays or disabilities, birth to grade 5 (birth to age 10) and their families.

The Master of Arts degree in Sport Administration provides students a knowledge base in management theory and application in sport settings. The program culminates with an internship, research project or thesis.

Students have the opportunity to complete a dual degree program with the M.B.A. degree in Business Administration and the M.A. degree in Sport Administration.

Program Learning Outcomes
Graduates of this program will be able to:

• Demonstrate the knowledge and experience necessary to become successful as a professional in the sport industry.
• Apply theoretical and practical knowledge of the industry in a professional career.
• Engage and expand the number of international promotional, scholarly and educational research/presentation opportunities in the profession.

The Bachelor of Science degree in Emerging Media and Technology offers students the space to play, imagine and solve problems. The degree program draws on a number of disciplines, including emerging media, design, information sciences, human-computer interaction and communication. The technology curriculum is grounded in social science and the humanities, introducing students to theories of how technology shapes and changes people and societies. Students learn technical applications and skills in problem solving, design, user experience, creative applications and programming. Students synthesize technical and organizational skills in a series of experiential, hands-on and project-based courses in which they work collaboratively in interdisciplinary teams.

Program Learning Outcomes

Graduates of this program will be able to:

• Demonstrate competency in the technical skills needed to pursue jobs in emerging media and technology, which includes web development, coding, data, human-computer interaction, creative applications, programming and problem-solving.
• Utilize emerging media technologies to design better experiences, improve existing systems and analyze digital social structures.
• Recognize the rapidly changing nature of emerging media and technology and learn the skills needed to adapt.
• Apply interdisciplinary solutions to solving technical, social and human problems related to emerging media and technology.
• Employ teamwork and project management as a problem solving technique.
• Critically analyze the effectiveness of their own work and the work of others.

The Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Managerial Marketing prepares students to be marketing practitioners by helping them to fully develop the analytical, decision-making and communications (written and oral) skills used and valued by individuals working in this field. Faculty engage each student in active learning through hands-on assignments, case studies, projects with real businesses, and dynamic interactions with the faculty member and other students in the classroom. Each course aims to strengthen writing skills by emphasizing logical flow, persuasiveness and succinctness. Because coursework is sequential and integrated, each course builds upon prior classes to give students a comprehensive body of knowledge, skills and abilities.

The objective of this program is to educate students to function effectively in business environments where they will have to make autonomous decisions and be required to take action on their own initiative.

Managerial Marketing students may apply early to the M.B.A. degree and double count 9 credit hours of graduate courses toward both degree programs. See the Combined Bachelor's/Master's Degree Program policy in the University Catalog for more information.

Program Learning Outcomes

Graduates of this program will be able to:

• Demonstrate an ability to conduct financial analyses for the purposes of making strategic marketing decisions.
• Demonstrate an understanding of segmentation and target marketing.
• Demonstrate an ability to analyze market research data.
• Demonstrate an ability to analyze markets and competitors within markets.

Graduates of all Bachelor of Business Administration programs will be able to:

• Recall strategic frameworks that are used to make business decisions.
• Perform basic calculations using quantitative tools that are used to support business decisions.
• Articulate and deliberate their ideas in writing.
• Articulate and deliberate their ideas orally.
• Identify ethical dilemmas and stakeholders.
• Recommend alternatives and consequences and choose a reasoned conclusion from the alternatives given.
• Identify global factors in making a business decision.
• Analyze global factors in making a business decision.

The Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Business Analytics provides students with understanding of the diverse knowledge they need to be effective business data analysts. The focus of the major is to develop students who will understand and be able to apply business analytics to real-world problems.

While the major's curriculum builds student expertise from theory, the focus is the practical application of the analytics knowledge. Therefore, the major primarily emphasizes problem-solving with data for strategic business decision-making using various analytics tools such as data visualization and machine-learning technologies. Examples of business analytics applications include marketing analysis or segmentation, city planning, delivery logistics, risk management, security and healthcare management.

Graduates from the program will be in demand for entry-level analytics positions in the workforce.

Program Learning Outcomes

Graduates of this program will be able to:

• Understand and assess business problems.
• Understand how to frame analytics problems.
• Use analytics tools to make strategic business decisions.
• Articulate and deliberate their ideas in writing and orally.
• Acquire, clean, present and tell stories with data.
• Communicate data analyses results effectively to all stakeholders in an organization.
• Analyze data in different business scenarios.

Graduates of the Bachelor of Business Administration degree will be able to:

• Recall strategic frameworks that are used to make business decisions.
• Perform basic calculations using quantitative tools that are used to support business decisions.
• Articulate and deliberate their ideas in writing.
• Articulate and deliberate their ideas orally.
• Identify ethical dilemmas and stakeholders.
• Recommend alternatives and consequences and choose a reasoned conclusion from the alternatives given.
• Identify global factors in making a business decision.
• Analyze global factors in making a business decision

The Bachelor of Science in Education degree in Physical Science prepares students for teacher licensure in physics and chemistry, grades 7 to 12. Students take a broad range of science-content courses in biology and geology and specialize in physics and chemistry content. Students in the Physical Science major complete most of their content coursework during their first three years, and then begin their methods coursework during the spring of their third year. During the final year of the program, students complete remaining content courses, science teaching methods courses and a year-long placement in a local school district, which concludes with 13 weeks of student teaching in the spring. Physical Science students are encouraged to meet with their faculty advisor early in their program because many courses must be sequenced carefully.

Students are required to complete Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification (BCII) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) background checks.

Program Learning Outcomes

Graduates of this program will be able to:

• Plan multiple lessons using a variety of inquiry approaches that demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of how to engage all students in learning science.
• Plan a learning environment and learning experiences for all students that demonstrate chemical safety, safety procedures, and the ethical treatment of living organisms within their licensure area.
• Plan fair and equitable assessment strategies to analyze student learning and to evaluate if the science learning goals are met.

The Master of Science degree in Biomedical Sciences–Physiology Interdisciplinary prepares graduates in areas that include cardiovascular, pulmonary, endocrine and neuroendocrine, reproductive or exercise physiology. In this context, emphasis is placed on an integrative approach for both research and graduate education. As with other program areas, the Biomedical Sciences–Physiology Interdisciplinary major takes advantage of the latest molecular and cellular techniques to address questions related to human diseases.

Faculty members are drawn from various departments at Kent State University, Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED) and the Lerner Research Institute of the Cleveland Clinic. Although graduate work may be completed in any of the various research areas, faculty are listed in two general specializations: (1) environmental and comparative physiology and (2) cardiopulmonary and exercise physiology. Each specialization addresses different subject areas of physiology and each has an associated training faculty. The degree program is research oriented and designed to provide students with a thorough grounding in physiological principles and techniques within several well-defined focus areas.

The Master of Science degree in Biomedical Sciences–Physiology Interdisciplinary is offered in consortium with Cleveland Clinic and  Northeast Ohio Medical University.

The Master of Arts degree in Biology is for students wishing to gain additional knowledge in any area of the biological sciences. This is a non-thesis master's degree designed for secondary school science teachers, individuals looking for additional background or preparation for professional school (e.g. medicine, dentistry or Ph.D. programs) and those seeking employment in life science industries in a non-research capacity.

The Biology major includes the following concentration:

• The Medical Biology concentration provides students with a deep understanding of physiological systems and the mechanisms that underlie various disorders and disease pathologies.

Students who declare the Biology major with no concentration will select their area of specialization in consultation with an academic faculty advisor.

Program Learning Outcomes

Graduates of this program will be able to:

• Understand advanced biological concepts beyond the scope of the typical undergraduate degree and to increase the depth of their knowledge through coursework and hands-on experiences.
• Apply scientific principles and appreciate work outside of their particular field.
• Effectively communicate about science with colleagues as well as those outside of the student's area of expertise.
• Develop the necessary laboratory skills that will allow testing of hypotheses.

The Master of Science degree in Data Science provides a focus on developing scientists who will understand the theories, methods and tools of data science and apply data science to solving research and workplace questions in the natural, health and social sciences for businesses and industries.

Data science is an emerging STEM discipline founded on the principles of mathematics and the sciences and developed through a synthesis of mathematics and computer science. One may think of data science as a blending together of methods and ideas from analysis, statistics, databases, big data, artificial intelligence, numerical analysis, graph theory and visualization for the purposes of finding information in data and applying that information to solving real-world problems.

Program Learning Outcomes
Graduates of this program will be able to:

• Ask the questions so that problems in a particular business or industrial situation become clear.
• Determine if the problem may be addressed with data science methods and tools, and if yes, propose potential methods for solving the problems.
• Make suggestions for how data science may be used to enhance the quality and value of currently existing products (whether the products are physical or methods) and how data science may be used in the development of new products.