Undergraduate Academic Accelerator Pathway (2-Term) - Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies

at Shorelight Group - Cleveland State University USA

The Bachelor of Arts in Physics degree is designed to prepare students for a broad range of technical/science careers or graduate professional programs (medical physics, patent processing, teaching). It is constructed to give an in-depth and broad look into the world of Physics, while aiming for a very flexible schedule of classes.

The study of physics provides a crucial understanding of the world around us though the study of the fundamental laws governing matter and energy. The field of physics has been instrumental in the development of advanced materials, electronic and optical devices, and medical equipment, impacting every aspect of our way of life. Studying physics fosters critical thinking, quantitative proficiency, and the ability to research and organize information, and infer new ideas.

Virtually everywhere one finds evidence for human societies, both historically and geographically, one finds evidence of religion. Religions identify and describe transcendent forces said to give shape to the world and thus to humanity’s experience within it. By explaining the past and imagining what is to come in the future, religions identify the meaning and purpose of present experience, and even of existence itself, for the groups and individuals who adhere to them. Consequently, religions have been and remain fundamental to the way people construct cultures, organize societies, determine “truths,” define values, and imagine themselves in relation to others. Perhaps most remarkably, different religious cultures do all this with an incredible and frequently conflicting variety of beliefs and practices.

Studying marketing provides students with the basis to understand the art of developing, communicating, and delivering an offering that consumers find attractive. The goal of marketing is to persuade, earn, and keep customers, clients and partners through carefully articulating the value of your product or service. Studying marketing develops creativity, strategic problem solving, and a deep understanding of consumer behavior and motivation.

Special tracks within the Marketing Major include: consumer marketing, business-to-business marketing, international marketing, database marketing and digital marketing.

Criminologists conduct research on a variety of topics linked to criminal behavior, including how criminal activity is defined and measured, the causes of crime, the consequences of crime, and the impacts of criminal justice system intervention on individuals and society.

Students who choose to major or minor in Criminology will take courses that will help them strengthen their critical thinking skills and prepare them for fieldwork in corrections, policing, courts, and victim services.  A degree in Criminology is also a great choice for students who wish to gain a foundation that will prepare them for graduate studies or law school.

• Spanish is the world's third most spoken language, after Mandarin Chinese and English, and ranks second in terms of native speakers.
• At the end of the 19th century, 60 million people spoke Spanish. Today, almost 500 million people worldwide speak Spanish!
• Spanish is the mother tongue of approximately 350 million people in 21 countries (Mexico: 98 million, Spain: 39 million, USA: 39 million, Argentina: 35 million, Colombia: 36 million, Venezuela: 22 million, Peru: 20 million…) It is also widely spoken in many more where it is not an official language.
• Hispanic consumers are the fastest-growing market segment in North America. Their population in the USA has grown by 60% in just one decade and their buying power is expected to exceed $926 million by 2007.
• Spanish is the second most used language in international communication, and an official language of the UN and its organisations.
• 29 million US residents above the age of 5 speak Spanish at home. That's approximately 1 of every 10 US residents, an enormous consumer and business-to-business market.
• "The world is rapidly becoming multilingual and Arabic and Spanish are both key languages of the future" said language researcher David Graddol, commenting on a recent report presented to the British Council.
• No one aware of the changing tides of business could fail to notice that we increasingly operate in global markets. Foreign language fluency is a significant asset for job seekers, as more and more companies trade internationally.
• The US Census Bureau reports that the nation's Hispanic population is expected to jump to 49.3 million from 38.2 million by 2015. The 39 million Hispanics currently living in the USA make up 12.5% of the total population. This population growth has increased demand for Spanish language media: radio, television, newspapers, magazines...
• Latin American countries are experiencing strong economic growth and becoming important global commercial partners. Newly created MERCOSUR and the existing free trade agreements between Hispanic countries and North America (ALADI, the Andean Community, CACM, NAFTA, G3), are expected to bring further growth to Latin American economies.
• Latin culture continues to have a global influence on architecture, art and literature. Who isn't familiar with Cervantes 'Don Quijote de la Mancha, the second most translated book after the Bible, which marked its 400th anniversary in 2005 with worldwide celebrations? Who hasn't heard that the most expensive painting ever sold is a Picasso?
• Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava continues to make his mark worldwide, with recent and current projects in Sweden, Ireland, Germany, the Olympic campus in Athens and the site of the world trade centre in New York, among others.
• Spanish language authors like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende continue to lead global best seller lists and win international critical acclaim.

Sociologists study human behavior in industrialized societies. Sometimes this behavior involves personal relationships, perhaps among teenagers or the elderly, sometimes the difficulties facing the urban poor or drug addicts, sometimes the development of modern nation-states and political conflict. Sociology open new windows--challenging conventional wisdom, dissolving myths about social reality, illuminating how the world is socially constructed and clarifying our options and choices.

Sociology students at Cleveland State University are taught to analyze modern social problems scientifically. In addition, they are taught how to do research about these issues using statistics, interviews and participant observation. Good research requires a grasp of the "sociological imagination"--the connections between historical, large-scale social forces and biography, the ways in which people live and understand their lives.

Majors in sociology develop the critical thinking and writing skills basic to a sound liberal arts education; they learn research skills and an understanding of the sociological perspective. This prepares them for a wide range of careers: some students use the degree as preparation for graduate work in one of the social sciences or law, others work in human resource management, social service, criminal justice, corporations or schools.

Several traits distinguish the B.A. in Liberal Studies from majors in specialized disciplines:

• Broad-based liberal education across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities
• Academic (rather than technical or training) emphasis
• Maximum flexibility in choosing courses across the University curriculum (including technical electives)
• Breadth rather than specialized depth of intellectual experience
• Appropriateness for students who wish to take an active role in shaping their studies

Students majoring in Liberal Studies may create programs that suit their own academic, professional, or other personal goals. For example, some use this undergraduate degree as a foundation for graduate study in Business, Education, or Philosophy. Others use it to take specific prerequisites for professional training in Law, Medicine, or Physical Therapy. Still others pursue Liberal Studies to explore educational experiences for their inherent value and satisfaction.

Environmental science focuses on ecosystem management, the effects of pollutants on ecosystems, ways to restore polluted environments to their natural state, and effective strategies toward minimizing pollution (preventative management). The Environmental Science major at Cleveland State University provides education in the fundamentals of all the major areas of modern Environmental Science, training in current laboratory skills, as well as environmental policy.

Computer hardware engineers research, design, develop, and test computer systems and components such as processors, circuit boards, memory devices, networks, and routers. These engineers discover new directions in computer hardware, which generate rapid advances in computer technology. Computer network architects design and build data communication networks, including local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs), and intranets. These networks range from small connections between two offices to next-generation networking capabilities such as a cloud infrastructure that serves multiple customers. Computer systems analysts study an organization’s current computer systems and procedures and design information systems solutions to help the organization operate more efficiently and effectively. They bring business and information technology (IT) together by understanding the needs and limitations of both. Computer and information research scientists invent and design new approaches to computing technology and find innovative uses for existing technology. They study and solve complex problems in computing for business, medicine, science, and other fields.

History is the essential foundation of knowledge. It provides the context for a liberal education, the tools to understand ourselves and our contemporary world, and the skills for an educated person to live a more fulfilled and gratifying life in a wide range of careers.

Because of these various functions, we study history for many reasons:

• To better understand our society and the times in which we live
• To better understand ourselves; to place our own society in historical perspective
• To balance present-mindedness with historical memory
• To acquire skills such as conducting research, communicating effectively through writing or oral communication, critical thinking, evaluating evidence, and problem-solving
• To understand the roles which individuals and groups have played in shaping their worlds
• For the enjoyment of examining societies very different or very similar to our own

This is possible because history at the university level is far more than a collection of facts, names, and dates. The emphasis is on accessing and analyzing information, the critical use of historical sources, learning to communicate the results, and the excitement which comes from exploring important ideas. To study history is to enter a time machine to explore the far reaches of the human experience from classical times to the present; from the lives of great thinkers and kings to that of average people; from dramatic moments such as the Civil War to the routine. The past becomes the universe, all corners of which can be explored.

The department offers coursework in European, U.S., African, Latin-American, and East Asian history and thematic foci on social and urban history and the History of the African Diaspora. The major program not only prepares students for teaching and for graduate study in history but many students have found history an appropriate preparatory foundation for careers in law, library science, international work, the foreign service, the ministry, business, government and archival and museum work.