Master of Arts Religious Studies

at Kaplan Group - Arizona State University - Tempe Campus USA

Do you love thinking about the urgent questions at the intersection of culture, gender, religion, politics, ethics, and science and technology? Gain skills in communication, creative and critical expression, and learn broad-based methods of inquiry to meet the contemporary moment and achieve meaningful, justice-oriented goals.

The MLSt program offers students interested in creative, critical and integrative approaches to the study of human ideas and values an opportunity to explore, experiment with, and integrate a range of liberal studies insights.

The program is intended for students seeking a graduate degree that explores the integration of humanities questions with relevant political, religious, social and scientific insights. Throughout the program, students develop concrete creative and critical tools to respond to these urgent questions of the contemporary moment. This interdisciplinary approach trains students in the skills needed for the jobs of the future: communication, research and an understanding of the diverse and changing world.

The MS program in innovation and venture development integrates the most advanced practices and technologies from business, engineering and design in a transdisciplinary, experience-based program that prepares the next generation of leaders with skills needed for launching successful ventures in any industry or sector, inside existing organizations or as new entities.

Graduates are prepared to lead cross-disciplinary teams in a world of growing uncertainty and ambiguity. They can identify needs and evaluate opportunities, generating insights from real world problems; innovate solutions; and create and launch scalable business models that provide value to all stakeholders. Founders with this innovation and venture development degree from ASU can define a new standard for venture development.

This concentration in arts, media and engineering in the MS program in electrical engineering is a collaboration between the electrical engineering program at ASU and the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, and it is available for MS and PhD students admitted to this program who take two-thirds of their course, research and thesis credits from the electrical engineering program and one-third of the credits from the arts, media and engineering program.

Electrical engineering students in the arts, media and engineering concentration undergo training toward integrating principles of digital signal processing, pattern recognition, computer vision and multimedia computing with transdisciplinary objectives, with the goal of enabling new paradigms of human-machine experience that directly address societal needs and facilitate knowledge. Examples include media-based intelligent systems for health care and well-being as well as promotion of environmentally sustainable practices.

The BS program in earth and space exploration with a concentration in exploration systems design offers students a fundamental curriculum in geology, physics and astrophysics while providing tools that enable them to design and build hardware and software to explore Earth and the universe beyond.

The program has a rigorous and quantitative grounding in the fundamentals of physics, mathematics and chemistry. Upon that foundation, students learn how to design hardware and software for scientific exploration. Coursework focuses on conceiving the requirements needed for a mission or project destined for space or extreme environments on Earth.

Each student in this program has the opportunity to learn how projects and missions are designed and planned, starting with the scientific drivers and then defining engineering specifications. All students are expected to complete a senior project that takes a desired scientific measurement and realizes the technological solution to achieve the observation.

The MS program in organizational leadership offers a theoretically and methodologically rigorous approach to studying and creating use-inspired research needed to impact organizational leadership.

Students explore areas such as organizational dynamics, institutional evolution, strategic change, leading diverse teams, collaborative governance, conflict mediation, critical problem-solving and leadership assessment, and they learn advanced methodological and statistical skills.

The program places special emphasis on learning best practices and other applied aspects of leading organizations. Students tailor their degree to their interests through a vast array of leadership elective courses. In consultation with a faculty advisor, students choose from many different elective courses, such as not-for-profit leadership and intercultural leadership.

The ASU School of Art's MFA program provides artists with both a formal and a conceptual foundation in contemporary art. Situated in the context of a public research university renowned for innovation, students work closely with distinguished art faculty to develop the skills to produce culturally relevant work and sustain a lifelong creative practice. Students are encouraged to work across disciplines, and also select a focus from a range of media including animation, ceramics, intermedia, metals, painting and drawing, photography, printmaking, sculpture, textiles and woods.

In addition to the expansive curriculum, students benefit from a visiting artist and scholar lecture series, professionalization workshops, teaching opportunities and pedagogical training. Students also supplement their arts curriculum by taking advantage of the vast resources afforded by a "Research 1" university, engaging with world renowned researchers or taking courses in a variety of departments. The ASU Museum offers vital opportunities for students to learn from and connect with artists and curators.

The BA in philosophy with a concentration in morality, politics and law combines the basic analytical approaches of philosophy with an emphasis on the moral questions that arise in political theory and law. The foundations of our political and legal systems are moral values, such as individual liberty, equality and justice. These are contested values, open to different understandings of their nature and implications.

Students explore the nature of morality, political theory, legal theory and the interconnections between them. Students complete philosophy courses as well as courses from disciplines related to philosophy to enrich and enliven their understanding of the intersections of morality, politics and law. This degree program is of special interest to students planning to pursue postgraduate work in law, policy or politics.

In the BS program in mathematics with a concentration in statistics, students learn innovative mathematical, computational and statistical methods to analyze data sets as well as how to use data in real-world applications.

Using data analytics, students discover how to generate insights that inform fact-based decision-making. They use cutting-edge techniques to study and understand methods of statistical inference and explore strategies for dealing with uncertainty.

The MA program in classical liberal education and leadership is an integrated, interdisciplinary course of study that is student-learning centered, employing the Socratic method of classroom dialogue. This Master of Arts degree program fosters a learning community of students and faculty oriented to the classical, holistic pursuit of knowledge.

The curriculum focuses on philosophy, politics, literature, ethics, economics and history. It combines theory and practice with ideas and application, incorporating inquiry about the good life with the practical challenge of leading others --- nations, societies and individuals --- in the pursuit of a way of life that accords with the precepts of justice and the ethos of humanity.

Intellectual, moral and civic education are understood to be component parts of a genuine liberal education; all are necessary for the flourishing of the individual and society. As Aristotle taught, there is no substitute for doing the right thing in the right way. This is true in how children are educated, neighbors are lived with, and nations are governed. The classical liberal education and leadership program aims to prepare the next generation's teachers, scholars, civic leaders and statesmen to meet the challenges ahead with foresight, integrity, prudence and imagination.

The MS program in auditory and language neuroscience trains scholars in basic and applied research in the fields of auditory and language neuroscience to prepare them for doctoral-level graduate studies as well as for positions in science, health care and industry.

In addition to innovative coursework in neuroscience, this program also includes hands-on training in instrumentation such as neuroimaging, neurophysiology and clinical research applications. Students develop a strong foundation that enables them to conduct impactful neuroscience research related to auditory and language processing and human communication.