Undergraduate Extended Accelerator Pathway (3-Term) - Bachelor of Arts in Family, Community, and Human Development

at Shorelight Group - The University of Utah USA

A degree in accounting offers students the chance to move beyond merely tracking a company’s income and assets. With this program, you can learn how to budget and manage money for a business, ensure that a firm is spending money wisely by making sound investments, file taxes for a corporation, and ultimately understand how a business operates and sustains itself financially. In addition to core business courses, accounting majors take classes in financial and managerial accounting, tax accounting, and accounting information systems.

Conflict exists both within ourselves and in our interpersonal relations: with friends, families, or our community, locally and globally. If you want to be able to recognize and peacefully resolve conflict, consider the Peace & Conflict Studies program at the University of Utah. Offered collaboratively by the College of Humanities, Department of Communication, and College of Social and Behavioral Science, Peace & Conflict Studies will give you the knowledge, skills, and values you need to be a peacemaker in the world. Students in this program choose one of three themes for their studies: Conflict Resolution, Social Justice, or Global Perspectives. Regardless of emphasis area, students take courses in topics like negotiation, poverty and inequality, international affairs and human rights, world religions and politics, and the economics of race and gender. The culminating experiences of the program include a capstone course, seminar, and required internship. Through your studies, you will develop your communication, social awareness, and critical thinking skills, enabling you to pursue careers in a number of fields.

The French program at the University of Utah is intended for students wishing to gain a deeper understanding of French and Francophone (French-speaking) cultures through the study of French language, literature, and society.  The program, housed within the Department of World Languages & Cultures, caters to individual student needs and fosters forward thinking and intellectual freedom. This freedom is reflected in program coursework: the program curriculum begins with intensive grammar and progresses through the cultural history of France and the more than 50 French-speaking nations in the world, covering topics such as French film, fashion, romance, art, nationhood, otherness, and identity. The U’s French program provides excellent preparation for pursuing graduate work and entering a variety of professions where critical reading, writing, and thinking skills are paramount.

Religious studies scholars examine religions from the perspective of a religion’s followers, studying the similarities, differences, and core tenets of a belief system. If you want to gain a broader understanding of religions and their traditions, consider the Religious Studies program at the University of Utah. Courses of study include Jewish Studies, Coptic Studies, Western Christianity, Islam Studies, Mormon Studies, and Religion & Conflict. Through critical analysis and discussion of these faiths, students will learn how theology shapes individuals and communities across the globe. Regardless of emphasis area, the Religious Studies program consists of courses from 13 departments: English, History, Communication, Philosophy, World Languages & Cultures, Political Science, Social Work, Sociology, Anthropology, Art & Art History, Theatre, Health Promotion & Education, and the Middle East Center. Within these fields, religious studies courses are divided into four areas: Text and Literature, Theory and Methodology, Art, Culture and Society, and World Religions. The culminating experience of the program is a capstone seminar, a student-conducted research project that demonstrates your knowledge and skills in religious studies. Graduates of the program are ultimately equipped with social awareness and theological knowledge that can be used in a variety of careers.

The Family, Community and Human Development (FCHD) Major is housed in the Department of Family and Consumer Studies (FCS). The objective of the FCHD major is to provide students with a broad and detailed understanding of the processes of personal development in the context of the family, and as impacted by community and societal forces beyond the family. More specifically, students with a FCHD major will acquire an understanding of:

• The key features of development through each stage of life (infants, children, adolescents and adults);
• How these key features of development are impacted by experience to account for the ways that each of us is unique;
• How family members develop and maintain relationships within and across generations;
• The decisions people make about managing resources such as time, money, and material assets;
• The ways that individual and family well-being are impacted by community and societal forces;
• The impact of local, national, and international policies and laws on individual, family and community well-being;
• How research in these areas is conducted and evaluated, and how the findings from these works may be applied to enhance the well-being of individuals (at every age) and families

In addition to the breadth and depth of our FCHD major as summarized above, our department offers students three opportunities for diving more deeply into specific areas of focus that are both relevant to the broader goals of our major and oriented toward specific career opportunities.

Management skills apply to every organization and in every business discipline. The Management Major is designed to give students the skills they need to lead companies in all phases of development, from startup to maturity, and through challenging situations. Students develop competence in human resource management, quantitative and statistical decision making, production/operations management, and general management. In addition to core business major requirements, management students must complete courses in leadership and business ethics. Students then choose electives from areas such as Organizational Leadership, Sustainable Leadership, Managing Conflict, among others. The Management degree will prepare you for careers in not only business but nearly any field that requires excellent communication, organizational, and management abilities.

Students of English enter a world rich with intellectual possibilities. As an English major at the University of Utah, you will study literature, creative writing, and literary discourse and theories. The U’s English curriculum covers the vast range of literature written in English, from the 8th century AD until the present day. Students will explore theory, film, graphic novels, video games, digital humanities, popular culture, and have the chance to develop their skills as critical and creative writers. However, the skills you gain from an English degree are not limited to just studying literature—written and verbal communication skills are central to any career or subsequent degree that demands the ability to think, argue, write, and speak about complicated issues. In addition to expanding your intellect, your English degree ultimately provides an essential foundation for careers in law, business, government, education, finance, and media.

The Health, Society and Policy (HSP) Program addresses the multidimensional characteristics of human health. Health status may be related to factors beyond pathogens or illness: lifestyle, environmental exposures, socioeconomic status, cultural affiliation, poor communication, or access to health services can all contribute to an individual’s health. Students in this program are given the broad, interdisciplinary foundation for understanding health, allowing them to sensitively and effectively address health care issues in multidimensional contexts: for example, the geographic location, literacy, or socioeconomic status of an individual might impact their ability to access or obtain healthcare or eat a healthy diet. HSP students take courses from a variety of fields, including epidemiology, behavioral sciences, research methods and quantitative skills, administration, philosophy, and history. This coursework provides students with a coherent perspective on health care in its various social and administrative contexts. The culminating experience of the program is a capstone, delivered as an interdisciplinary series of seminars on a particular theme related to the major.

Civil engineering is about community service, development, and improvement. It involves the conception, planning, design, construction, and operation of facilities essential to modern life: without civil engineering, things like transit systems, offshore structures, and space satellites would not exist. Civil engineers are problem solvers, meeting the challenges of pollution, traffic congestion, drinking water and energy needs, urban redevelopment, and community planning. At the University of Utah, an integral part of studies in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department is an emphasis on environmental engineering. In addition to core courses in engineering, students also take a range of math, science, and technical courses, as well as general interest electives. Through their coursework, students of the program learn how to apply physical, chemical, and biochemical processes to environmental problems, ultimately improving the quality of life across the globe.

Psychologists study human and animal behavior, seeking to understand how people and nonhuman animals function in their environments: through this, a psychologist ultimately wants to understand, predict, and resolve behavioral and psychological problems. If you are interested in how the mind works and functions in an effort to help people achieve and maintain mental health, consider studying psychology at the University of Utah. The Psychology curriculum includes coursework in the following topics: psychology as a science and profession, cognition and behavior neuroscience, intergroup relations, development in infancy, emotions, human performance, personality, sexuality, health, among others. Through coursework, and hands-on experience through research, internships, peer advising, and/or teaching assisting, you will gain the knowledge base and critical thinking skills you need for success in post-college careers or graduate school.