International Year program (2-Quarter) - Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology/Archaeology

at Study Group - Western Washington University USA

The International Year program is specially designed to prepare international students with the solid foundation needed to succeed in an undergraduate degree at Western Washington University.

You will learn in a supportive environment to develop your academic and English language skills, while adjusting to living and learning in the USA. After successfully completing the program with the required grades, you can continue your undergraduate degree with the confidence to engage and succeed.

American Cultural Studies
American Cultural Studies is an interdisciplinary field of critical inquiry that investigates power dynamics, inequality, and agency, at the intersection of race, gender, status, religion, class, and ability.

Our courses place particular emphasis on minoritizing and other exclusionary practices shaping limits to national belonging, and how those experiences are lived. We pay attention to the roles of institutions, policies, discourse, and other socio-cultural processes. We educate students in historical and social inquiry, textual analysis and interpretation, and critical theory and practice. We expose students to theoretical foundations in Settler Colonialism, Queer and other Feminisms, Critical Race Theory, Borders, and Transnationalism.

The American Cultural Studies (ACS) major combines the social sciences with humanities to provide students with a rich undergraduate background that is the foundation for careers and advanced study in law, domestic social services, public service, government service, education, and graduate work in American studies, ethnic studies, and the social sciences.

Graduates of the program are especially prepared to go on for further study. Over half of all ACS graduates go on to professional and graduate schools upon the culmination of their undergraduate degree.

Archaeology is the "cultural anthropology" of the human past. It uses scientific fieldwork and laboratory techniques to investigate past human societies and the processes and effects of cultural evolution through the study of material remains. Western's Anthropology—Archaeology program is active in regional prehistoric and historic archaeology. Undergraduate participation in fieldwork is encouraged, and necessary if one is to enter the field professionally.

Anthropology Department faculty members carry out research in Latin America, North America, Asia, The Pacific, and Eastern Europe, and are dedicated to excellence in teaching. The department faculty have earned awards for distinguished contributions to undergraduate education and research, have written nationally-disseminated textbooks, and developed curriculum designed to provide extensive opportunities for students to engage in hands-on learning experiences working with clients in community social-services agencies, and through participatory research.

The International Year program is specially designed to prepare international students with the solid foundation needed to succeed in an undergraduate degree at Western Washington University.

You will learn in a supportive environment to develop your academic and English language skills, while adjusting to living and learning in the USA. After successfully completing the program with the required grades, you can continue your undergraduate degree with the confidence to engage and succeed.

Japanese
The best way to understand a culture directly is through its language. Studying Japanese opens the door to learning firsthand about Japanese society through language, literature, culture, and civilization.

Studying Japanese opens the door to learning firsthand about Japanese society through language, literature, culture, and civilization. Studying Japanese with a Teaching Endorsement imparts skills to future foreign language teachers so that they may similarly enable high school students to begin the acquisition of foreign languages.

The International Year program is specially designed to prepare international students with the solid foundation needed to succeed in an undergraduate degree at Western Washington University.

You will learn in a supportive environment to develop your academic and English language skills, while adjusting to living and learning in the USA. After successfully completing the program with the required grades, you can continue your undergraduate degree with the confidence to engage and succeed.

Computer Science
Computer science is an exciting, growing, challenging field that is critical to many aspects of everyday life. You can make an impact on the advancement of medicine, clean energy, entertainment, communication for the disabled, climate research, and automotive technologies to name a few. For some, the most motivational aspect of being a computer scientist is being involved in creating the next great technology that will help people the world over.

Western's program provides the problem-solving and analytical background that ensures programmers and systems analysts can produce creative programming solutions. The program is composed of core classes organized around the study of design and analysis techniques used to write software in various application domains along with details about the internal workings of computers and networks. Elective classes in areas such as artificial intelligence, mobile device programming, robotics, graphics, web programming, bioinformatics, computer security, and video game programming allow students to explore areas of individual interest.

The International Year program is specially designed to prepare international students with the solid foundation needed to succeed in an undergraduate degree at Western Washington University.

You will learn in a supportive environment to develop your academic and English language skills, while adjusting to living and learning in the USA. After successfully completing the program with the required grades, you can continue your undergraduate degree with the confidence to engage and succeed.

Business Administration - Management Information Systems
Western's Business Administration majors explore leadership roles in business and the community, providing students with the perceptual and analytical skills necessary to make decisions and evaluate policies in business, and develop an understanding of the social, economic, and regulatory environments in business. All students earning a degree in Business Administration develop significant understanding of management information systems and computing.

In the Management Information Systems (MIS) Concentration students learn how information technology can contribute to an organization, and how to develop and apply information technology based business solutions. The concentration teaches students to combine their understanding of business, information systems, and technology to help organizations compete more successfully by streamlining current operations.

The International Year program is specially designed to prepare international students with the solid foundation needed to succeed in an undergraduate degree at Western Washington University.

You will learn in a supportive environment to develop your academic and English language skills, while adjusting to living and learning in the USA. After successfully completing the program with the required grades, you can continue your undergraduate degree with the confidence to engage and succeed.

Environmental Science
Environmental Science draws on basic knowledge of the physical, chemical, biological, and quantitative aspects of natural systems. The knowledge of how natural systems work is applied to solving problems largely created by human activities. Often these problems are represented by disturbances in the functioning of natural systems as humans alter their own life-support systems — the air, the water and soil. The scale of disturbance ranges between molecular and cellular to individuals, populations, ecosystems, and regional and global levels.

Are you excited by how natural systems work? Do you want to solve the problems of the natural environment caused by human activities? Do you love to work outdoors? Do you love the sciences and scientific inquiry? Then Environmental Science is for you.

The International Year program is specially designed to prepare international students with the solid foundation needed to succeed in an undergraduate degree at Western Washington University.

You will learn in a supportive environment to develop your academic and English language skills, while adjusting to living and learning in the USA. After successfully completing the program with the required grades, you can continue your undergraduate degree with the confidence to engage and succeed.

Environmental Studies
Environmental Studies takes an interdisciplinary and holistic approach to understanding human-environment systems and environmental challenges.

Do you want to use your knowledge and skills to promote positive change in the environment? Do you want to understand the interactions and interdependencies between human and natural systems? Do you want an interdisciplinary education that reflects the complexity of society’s environmental challenges? Do you want to learn to communicate and integrate knowledge across areas of environmental expertise? Then Environmental Studies is the major for you.

The Environmental Studies major includes core classes in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities to prepare our students to integrate knowledge from multiple fields of study. Our students learn to analyze and interpret complex environmental data and communicate environmental information for diverse stakeholders. The Environmental Studies major equips students to succeed as environmental professionals through experiential learning and advanced coursework in each student’s choice of an emphasis.

The study of Economics provides insights into decision-making, market outcomes and the functioning of the overall economy.  Political Science is concerned with the structure and function of both domestic and international political systems, and engaging questions associated with American politics, international politics, public policy and political theory.  

The combined Economics / Political Science major provides students with rigorous preparation in both economic theory and applications, and political processes at the national and international levels.  By combining coursework in Economics and Political Science, students gain an interdisciplinary perspective important to understanding both political and economic issues.  Students are trained in research methods used in Economics and Political Science, giving them interdisciplinary tools for problem solving and policy making.  Students in this program will gain insight into a variety of areas including trade, monetary systems, development, and the interplay between politics and economics within the U.S. and the international system.

The International Year program is specially designed to prepare international students with the solid foundation needed to succeed in an undergraduate degree at Western Washington University.

You will learn in a supportive environment to develop your academic and English language skills, while adjusting to living and learning in the USA. After successfully completing the program with the required grades, you can continue your undergraduate degree with the confidence to engage and succeed.

Accounting
Accounting is an important tool used by managers of organizations to plan, control and report financial activity. A thorough knowledge of Accounting is necessary to understand the operation and financial condition of any business, non-profit organization, or governmental agency.

Western's Accounting students take a broad array of Accounting courses, including courses from the Economics and Business Administration programs, to prepare them for accounting careers or post-graduate studies. Graduates leave the program equipped to take examinations to become certified public accountants (CPA) or certified management accountants (CMA). 

Design is the visual communication of ideas. Western's Design program emphasizes the process of problem solving and encourages students to make connections between culture and design, and their role as visual communicators. Students learn to combine personal expression and critical thinking as they create solutions that connect industry to an audience and themselves to the world.

Design is the visual communication of ideas. Western's Design program emphasizes the process of problem solving and encourages students to make connections between culture and design, and their role as visual communicators. Students learn to combine personal expression and critical thinking as they create solutions that connect industry to an audience and themselves to the world.

Western's program is unique in its size and depth of curriculum. Students have significant opportunities to work with their faculty outside of class. Western’s Design faculty members are active in the profession, but place teaching first and foremost in their activities. Because industry expects designers to be fluid in both traditional print based graphic design and interaction design (web/app), the Design program does not offer areas of specialization within its curriculum.