Bachelor of Arts in Environmental and Sustainability Studies

at Shorelight Group - University of Massachusetts - Boston USA

Preparing environmental policy and management professionals, our nationally-recognized BA in Environmental Science program integrates policy, management, and law with the natural sciences. Students gain practical experiences at the intersection of science and policy through coursework and real-world problem solving in our senior capstone course, internships, research, and cooperative education programs. Majors may focus their studies on policy and management (Policy and Management Track), policy-earth systems (Earth and Hydrologic Science Track), and policy-marine systems (Marine Science Track).

• Students will be able to apply the scientific method and design appropriate experiments to answer environmental science questions.  
• Students will understand the contributions of laboratory, field, and survey data collection and analysis for approaching environmental science problems.
• Students will be able to analyze and critique environmental questions across multiple natural and social science perspectives and research approaches.
• Students will demonstrate analytical and quantitative proficiencies to analyze environmental and/or social science data.
• Students will understand the system interactions and feedbacks between human activities and social institutions and the natural environment.
• Students will be experienced in communicating their learnings both in writing, visually, and orally, and for specific and general audiences.

UMass Boston’s MBA is an AACSB-accredited program focused on equipping you with the knowledge and skills you need to succeed as a business leader. The program is designed for professionals who want to gain a deeper understanding of the ever-changing business world to advance their career, change careers, or start their own business. Explore foundational business theories, gain experience with emerging technologies, and develop your analytical skills. Apply your learnings to virtually any field — from financial institutions to Fortune 500 companies to nonprofits. You have the option of earning your degree with a specialization in business analytics, health care informatics, or finance.

MBA students receive lifetime assistance from a dedicated internship and career opportunities office. UMass Boston's College of Management is home to five business centers:

• Center for Collaborative Leadership
• Digital Media Lab
• Entrepreneurship Center
• Center for Sustainable Enterprise and Regional Competitiveness
• Financial Services Forum

UMass Boston's MBA is a streamlined 12-course, AACSB-accredited, immersive business program. focused on equipping you with the knowledge and skills you need to succeed as a business leader. The program is designed for professionals who want to gain a deeper understanding of the ever-changing business world to advance their career, change careers, or start their own business. Explore foundational business theories, gain experience with emerging technologies, and develop your analytical skills.

The Information Technology major offered through UMass Boston's College of Management is designed to offer pathways to highly-demanded careers in IT for both high school graduates and students of Massachusetts community colleges. Our small classes ensure personalized attention from IT faculty while our ties to the Greater Boston business and technical communities add an extra dimension of learning to our program of business information technology education. The IT major offers an “applications-path” format for students which includes a core of technical knowledge (nine courses), an area of specialization or track within IT (four or five courses, depending on track selection), three professional electives in an application or domain area (preferably outside of IT but within business), and two wrap-up courses (project management and IT capstone), in addition to general education requirements.

The IT major is project based.  Every exercise assigned throughout the BSIT is designed to be of the kind that a student might encounter in his or her work: collaboration, competence, and outcomes assessment are the hallmark characteristics of the program.  Students will learn how to use IT to solve real-world problems within the context of a field in which they wish to work. Graduates will be familiar with, and be able to apply, the following core information technologies to solve business problems:

• Programming
• Networking
• Databases
• Web technologies

In addition, the BSIT program offers four specialization tracks: business intelligence1, computer forensics1, information architecture1 and systems administration.

Information Architecture Track
The Information Technology (IT) major is a jointly offered program between the College of Management (CM) and the College of Science and Mathematics (CSM) at the University of Massachusetts Boston. The BSIT consists of a common core of ten courses, a track of four to six courses in a particular area of specialization (the information architecture track requires four courses), a common capstone course, and three professional electives.

The goal of the Criminology and Criminal Justice major is to provide social scientific grounding to issues of crime and criminal justice. Through classes, internships and projects, students explore the nature of criminal behavior, its causes, the role of punishment, and prison as a social institution. Students learn about the criminal justice system, including law enforcement, corrections, and the law. Classes focus on issues central to criminal justice policies and practices, including mental illness, substance use and abuse, racial and ethnic inequality, gender and immigration. Differences among societies and historical trends are also addressed.

A major focus of the criminal justice faculty is to help students connect theory and research with policy and practice in the “real world.” Using current events, their own research and observations, and critical study of criminal justice systems, students better understand broader trends and future options. For example, during classroom discussion and debate, students may consider the rapidly increasing prison population and high cost of incarceration and ask: Who is being incarcerated and why? Do prison alternatives work? How do incarceration policies affect families and communities?

As part of the Performing Arts Department, the Music Program welcomes students from our international campus community and provides a comprehensive education in preparation for careers in music and teaching. A dynamic faculty fosters an environment of academic and musical excellence within a liberal arts curriculum, and provides students with the tools to develop an understanding of a wide variety of musical genres, practices, and pedagogies.

• Music plays an integral role in the human experience.
• The historical, global, and creative contexts that inform music are presented with significant exposure to music education, music theory, musicology, and ethnomusicology.
• Core components of a comprehensive education in music include creating, listening to, responding to, and performing music of Western and non-Western musical traditions.
• Contextualizes the intersection of and interrelationship between music and other expressive arts especially theatre and dance.
• Faculty mentoring is vital to a successful undergraduate experience in music and serves as a foundation to support student’s career trajectories.

Our award winning, nationally recognized BS in Environmental Science program is grounded in the natural sciences integrating biology, chemistry, physics, and geology with the social sciences to prepare the next generation of innovators and knowledge creators. Students gain essential skills in ecology, geology, hydrology, and marine science and apply these skills to critical challenges facing coastal marine systems in the Boston metropolitan area. Through coursework, our senior capstone course, internships, research, and cooperative education programs, students apply their knowledge to real-world problems in collaboration with our many public and private partners. Majors can focus their studies on the earth systems (Earth and Hydrologic Science Track), coastal oceans (Marine Science Track), or on the science-policy interface (Policy and Management Track).

• Students will be able to apply the scientific method and design appropriate experiments to answer environmental science questions.  
• Students will understand the contributions of laboratory, field, and survey data collection and analysis for approaching environmental science problems.
• Students will be able to analyze and critique environmental questions across multiple natural and social science perspectives and research approaches.
• Students will demonstrate analytical and quantitative proficiencies to analyze environmental and/or social science data.
• Students will understand the system interactions and feedbacks between human activities and social institutions and the natural environment.
• Students will be experienced in communicating their learnings both in writing, visually, and orally, and for specific and general audiences.

Our BS program in Computer Science is accredited by the Computing Accreditation Commission of ABET. ABET assures quality for degree programs in applied science, computing, engineering, and technology. The program provides a rigorous education in theory and practice of Computer Science in addition to outside science courses. A BS degree can be used as a basis for many jobs in industry or for graduate work in Computer Science and other fields. We have an Honors Program for students who complete an Honors Thesis.

We offer a curriculum stressing software development. It provides training appropriate for students with interests in areas such as cybersecurity, data mining, artificial intelligence, database management, and software engineering. An aptitude for logical reasoning and mathematics is needed to complete the major successfully, partly because designing programs to solve problems requires good problem-solving skills and partly because some of the requirements are relatively advanced theoretical Computer Science and mathematics courses.

The Sociology major helps students understand the world around them and the social forces that impact us every day. Sociology provides a lens to study a wide range of topics, from housing inequality to families to social media. The Sociology curriculum advances your knowledge in core areas and helps focus your interest, while providing experience in a related work environment and ultimately helping you select a career path.

UMass Boston's MBA is a streamlined 12-course, AACSB-accredited, immersive business program. focused on equipping you with the knowledge and skills you need to succeed as a business leader. The program is designed for professionals who want to gain a deeper understanding of the ever-changing business world to advance their career, change careers, or start their own business. Explore foundational business theories, gain experience with emerging technologies, and develop your analytical skills.