Bachelor of General Studies in Political Science

at Shorelight Group - University of Kansas USA

The BA program allows many free electives for background courses in the sciences or liberal arts. The program permits study of traditional geology (with emphasis on the solid earth, the earth’s surface, or environmental geology and natural resources), environmental geology (with emphasis on water or urban environmental geology), or an individually tailored program.

Chinese
In a few short weeks, CHIN 104: Elementary Chinese language students know their four tones and can speak beautifully about basic topics of daily life. Learning characters, the challenging but fun aspect of Chinese, starts slowly the first year, then accelerates the second and third years of study. Advanced-level students from KU can read newspapers and contemporary fiction by the time they graduate; graduating majors are fluent in Chinese.

Japanese
Often considered the "Gateway to the East," Japan is a center for commerce, trade, education, and culture in East Asia. KU alums with Japanese language skills have followed career paths such as acting for Japanese television, banking in Tokyo, and working as a legal expert for Microsoft, as well as many who pursued graduate work in Japanese culture and history. Beyond the practical advantages, studying Japanese possesses its own intrinsic rewards: learning one of the world's most complex languages exercises the mind in unique ways. Japanese language students are never bored!

Korean
Although Korean has been a spoken language for several thousand years, the development of its phonetic alphabet in 1446, hangul, made it the easiest East Asian language to master. Today Korean is the 11th most spoken language in the world. More than half of Korean's vocabulary can be traced to Chinese, and the structure and grammar are similar to Japanese. KU is the only institution in Kansas that teaches intermediate and advanced Korean language courses.

The mission of the Department of Psychology at the University of Kansas is to further the understanding of the mind, the brain, and human behavior through the classes we teach, the new discoveries we make in our research, and in our service to the people of Kansas and the world. At the undergraduate and graduate levels our students acquire knowledge and skills that will enable them to become leaders in the psychological sciences and in other professions.

Psychology is the scientific study of how and why people think, feel, and behave as they do.  Our scientific approach to understanding human behavior equips our students with a solid foundation of analytical, research and clinical skills for careers in many fields with a human service emphasis.

Our department offers a unique academic experience in which you will obtain a vast array of transferable skills that prepare you for a broad scope of professions. Students will be trained in research methodology, critical analysis, data and statistic collections and assessments, ICT skills, and project management. The undergraduate curriculum has been designed as part of a general education for students preparing for careers in various fields of psychology, for students that seek general professional positions, as well as for students anticipating graduate work.

• A more broad-based, liberal arts and sciences curriculum with balanced contributions from natural sciences and mathematics, social sciences, and the humanities 
• The broadest preparation for admission into a professional program.
• An avenue for adding a bachelor’s degree to an already existing technical degree or licensure certificate.
• A degree option with maximum flexibility.
• A distance-education option for a KU degree.
• A degree that provides students the opportunity to build the skills and knowledge employers indicate are required for success in our changing economy and world community — skills that are limited in current college graduates.

The Mathematics Department offers two undergraduate degrees: the B.A. in Mathematics and the B.S. in Mathematics. The B.A. has fewer mathematics course requirements and more general education requirements. The B.S. requires more mathematics courses, an applied mathematics concentration, and fewer general education courses.

Because political science advances our understanding of politics, power, governance, and public policy in the United States and across the globe.

In the broadest sense, political science is the study of governments and governmental procedures. Political science is as old as civilization, because people always have been interested in their government and in their leaders. But political science as it is thought of today, as one of the social sciences, is a comparatively new discipline. It developed in the United States during the last century as political scientists developed an ability to make increasingly scientific observations of government. Political scientists are concerned with the origins and sources of governmental organizations, their growth, and their decline, as well as with the processes and structure of government.

We engage our students in the practice of design thinking, making and visualization to create beautiful, innovative, and responsible solutions (products, spaces, systems, messages, art objects, experiences, and services) that respond to human needs and enhance the quality of everyday life. Our programs foster the development of real-world problem-solving skills that can be applied to a variety of creative disciplines.

• Illustration & Animation
• Industrial Design
• Photography
• Visual Communication Design

The bachelor's degree in secondary history and government teacher education at the University of Kansas prepares individuals to teach in both middle school and high school classrooms. History and government is also commonly known as social studies. The teacher education program combines history, political science, and geography courses and professional education coursework with multiple field experiences in diverse communities.

In philosophy we ask big, important questions. While asking such questions is easy, answering them is difficult. Because these questions are often abstract and vague, it is necessary to use precise reasoning and analysis to clarify what exactly it is we are asking. Only then can we attempt to develop answers. For example:

• What is the morally right thing to do?
• What is the nature of the mind?
• When can we know something, rather than merely believing it?
• Do the sciences exhaust what can be known about the natural world?
• What is justice?
• What assumptions do we make when we try to answer questions like these?
• Plus many, many others...

In studying philosophy, you will learn what others have thought about life's big questions. You will also learn to challenge those views, and to develop your own thoughts in a precise, logical manner. Philosophy will help you develop critical thinking skills, enabling you to analyze the underlying logic and assumptions in arguments about a variety of topics. This is a skill that generalizes to virtually every area of life.

Marketing combines both analytical capabilities and creativity, preparing you for job opportunities across a range of industries.

As a marketing major, you will prepare to take on a fast-paced, ever-changing field. Jobs in marketing require interpersonal skills, strategy, flexibility and creativity.

Through coursework and experiential activities, we train our graduates to become proficient in identifying target segments and designing high-impact marketing campaigns that include the elements of product, price, place, and promotion.