Bachelor of Technical and Applied Studies

at Kent State University USA

The Bachelor of Science degree in Biotechnology is an interdisciplinary program that provides a strong academic foundation in biological sciences and chemistry, practical training in the various biotechnologies and a solid understanding of their application in industry and biomedicine. The science of biotechnology extends across many areas of biology and chemistry and provides cutting-edge technology tools for modern biology and biomedical research. The curriculum includes a research experience at Kent State and/or an internship at a biotechnology company.

Biotechnology graduates have employment opportunities in biomedical research and in the rapidly growing biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.

Program Learning Outcomes

Graduates of this program will be able to:

• Apply knowledge and information to complex issues in biotechnology
• Use problem-solving and data-gathering skills to comprehend issues in biotechnology.
• Develop inductive reasoning and technical communications skills in the context of working in a complex group environment.
• Analyze scientific papers and expand skills for listening to and critiquing scientific seminars based on the literature or current research.
• Effectively communicate scientific information.
• Develop collaborative working relationships with research mentors and laboratory members.

The Master of Arts degree in Political Science focuses broadly on the dynamics surrounding representation, equity, conflict, human rights, development and conflict resolution. Students delve into the scholarship on these dynamics (among others) in an interdisciplinary and theoretically sophisticated way, thinking about how the political process and government policy-making affect the lives of citizens, and how citizens influence those processes.

The Political Science major comprises the following concentrations:

• American Politics and Policy
• Conflict Analysis and Management
• Transnational and Comparative Politics

Program Learning Outcomes
Graduates of this program will be able to:

• Understand the theoretical underpinnings of political science and be able to address real world issues and problems.
• Attain research and methodological skills that will further their research and make them attractive to future employers.
• Effectively communicate research findings and implications to a range of audiences including scholars, practitioners and citizens.

The Bachelor of Science in Public Health degree in Public Health broadly prepares students to enter the workforce as a public health professional or to enter an advanced program of study. Students explore the five disciplines of public health: biostatistics, environmental health, epidemiology, health policy and management and the social and behavioral sciences through general coursework.

The Public Health major comprises the following concentrations:

• The Allied Health concentration seeks to augment the career portfolio of the allied health professional or aspiring student. Students who are interested in a generalist focus in public health or interested in moving to a professional degree (accelerated nursing) or technical allied health degree (respiratory care, radiologic technology, occupational/physical therapy assisting, etc.) are encouraged to pursue this path.  Students may currently hold or may be actively pursuing a state licensure in an allied health field and may be eligible to receive a maximum 12 credit hours of upper-division credit for their prior experience and demonstrated competency in select areas. Students without a state licensure may still pursue this concentration but will complete 12 hours of coursework in allied health-specific areas. Students in this concentration will be exposed to broad areas of public health including epidemiology, biostatistics, environmental health, global health and health policy; thus, preparing students to meet the increased demands for a trained and educated public health workforce.
• The Clinical Trials Research concentration focuses on training students in the epidemiology methods used in clinical research. The curriculum provides students a thorough understanding of the management of research studies, the scientific literature related to drugs, medical devices and other new therapies, and the federal regulations related to conducting clinical trials. Students are prepared to design and answer research questions, collect and manage data and communicate research findings to both scientific and lay audiences. An internship experience provides necessary experience in a clinical research setting. Potential places of employment for graduates include hospitals, contract research organizations, medical schools and pharmaceutical companies where graduates assist with and manage clinical research studies.
• The Community Health Outreach and Development concentration focuses on identifying and exploring ways to influence the multi-level determinants of population health and health behaviors, from a perspective that prioritizes health equity and social justice. Approaches focus on community- and system-level strategies to promote health and healthy behaviors among populations and eliminate health disparities through media, policy and education initiatives. Career options include the public sector, social services, non-profit agencies and other community-based health promotion and advocacy efforts. Graduates are prepared to assist with developing, implementing and coordinating public health interventions that promote community health and organize diverse communities around issues related to health and health behavior.
• The Global Health concentration educates students in identifying and working to address the critical public health and human needs of diverse, underserved and vulnerable populations locally and globally. Students learn the need for multidisciplinary (biological and social sciences) approaches and cooperation to address the major global public health problems. In addition, they have the opportunity to focus on a specific aspect of global health, e.g. HIV/AIDS, health policy, health disparities, health education, environmental health, nutrition. Graduates are prepared to work at entry-level positions in public health with local, regional, national or international public health agencies in both public and private sectors. Students who pursue this concentration are required to participate in a study abroad experience and complete four courses (at the elementary and intermediate levels) of either Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish
• The Health Services Administration concentration establishes a foundation for graduate work in health policy and management. Students analyze national and local public health infrastructure, evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of health care delivery and explore the legal and ethical issues of health care administration. Graduates enter the health care workforce as finance managers, compliance officers, patient navigators, insurance specialists and other health care managers. Students are encouraged to pair this concentration with a minor.
• The Pre-Medicine, Dentistry, Osteopathy concentration includes preparatory courses for the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT), the Dental Admissions Test (DAT) and admission entry into other professional schools including pharmacy, podiatry, occupational/physical therapy and physicians assistant programs. The overall curriculum—focusing on biological, social and economic determinants of health, prevention and control of diseases, introduction to biostatistics and public health research—makes this program highly desirable for admission to professional schools. The unique features of the program open new opportunities and offer competitive advantages for students seeking to enter into clinical medicine.

The Bachelor of Arts degree in American Sign Language presents American sign language as a culture- and community-based language that interacts with other world languages. Through techniques—including immersion and bilingual-bicultural comparison classes, community interaction, research, lab activities and use of digital video technology—students gain documented proficiency in American sign language, validity within the deaf community and networking within the professional community.

The Master of Science degree in Artificial Intelligence prepares students with a focused educational and research environment to develop career paths through necessary learning and training with emerging artificial intelligence technologies and applications to intelligent analytics, smart homes and communities and robotics and automation. Graduates have technical knowledge and research and development skills necessary for applying artificial intelligence to industry, community and military. These areas include sectors requiring intelligent pattern-analysis of big data such as retail, healthcare, biology, psychology and intelligent human-machine interactions and interfaces.

Program Learning Outcomes
Graduates of this program will be able to:

• Combine intelligent analytics and automation, human-computer interaction and robotics techniques to optimize and automate, transportation, industrial process and/or healthcare processes.
• Apply machine learning techniques on big data to predict, classify, data mine and explore patterns.
• Apply intelligent visualization and Internet-based techniques for smart homes and communities.
• Perform research, discovery and integration by applying knowledge of artificial intelligence theory and techniques.

The Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations empowers students to make a difference on a global scale. Whether students are interested in human rights, economic development, international law, peacebuilding, climate change, or some other global question, the program encourages them to understand international problems from a range of perspectives and see more clearly how they can make an impact on them.

The major is interdisciplinary, which enables students to explore issues from such perspectives as political science, economics, and geography, as well as history, literature, and pan-African studies. IR students also engage in advanced language study, enhancing their ability to communicate globally, and they are encouraged to study abroad if they are able. The program has permanent arrangements for study in Florence or Geneva, and more customized opportunities are also possible.

Because of their broad exposure to global issues and their language training, IR majors go on to rewarding careers in almost every imaginable sector, including international organizations, non-profit agencies, business, law, and government. To all of those areas, they bring a multifaceted understanding of the global system, and wherever they go, they make a difference.

Program Learning Outcomes

Graduates of this program will be able to:

• Demonstrate a basic understanding of global economics, politics, geography, literature and societies.
• Demonstrate knowledge of at least one foreign language through intermediate II.

The Bachelor of Science degree in Translation is a pre-professional program designed for students who are seeking the more professional focus and interdisciplinary breadth that the B.S. degree offers with the inclusion of a minor, double major or certificate to develop the skills needed to translate in a professional setting. It introduces the basics of translation theory as it applies to the actual practice of translation.

The requirement of a minor, certificate or second major enables students to acquire a level of expertise in a specific field in which they can specialize as translators. This degree also enables students to have a major and a minor that make them more competitive and prepares them for a sector that the U.S. Department of Labor projects as one of the fastest-growing sectors globally. Translation majors are strongly encouraged to undertake study in a country where their language concentration is spoken so that they can achieve the necessary proficiency level. Skills necessary include an excellent command of the source language, an excellent command of the target language, cultural knowledge, specialist knowledge, research competence, terminological competence, technological competence, an understanding of the translation industry and transfer competence.

Graduates may enter graduate programs in translation (the professional degree) or go on to work for government, business or industry, for translation agencies or as freelance translators.

The Translation major comprises the following concentrations:

• Arabic
• French
• German
• Russian
• Spanish

Many study abroad opportunities exist, including:

• France: Université Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux III, Bordeaux (all class standings, all majors/minors)
• Germany: Julius-Maximilian-Universität Würzburg, Würzbug (all class standings, all majors/minors)
• Germany: Universität Leipzig, Leipzig (intermediate German language proficiency required)
• Spain: Universidad Europea de Madrid, Madrid (all class standings, all majors/minors)
• Spain: Universidad Europea de Valencia, Valencia

Program Learning Outcomes

Graduates of this program will be able to:

• Participate in the most informal and some formal conversation with sufficient accuracy, clarity and precision to convey their intended message without misrepresentation or confusion and identify the cultural variables likely to lead to misunderstanding when communicating in their language pair.
• Compose routine social correspondence and write summaries, narratives and descriptions of a factual nature needed in a professional context (i.e., business letters, memos, commercial and legal forms etc.) in their non-native language.
• Translate short general and semi-specialized tests in various domains and in a variety of translations contexts from the source language into their native language with a basic understanding of translation principles and of text features relevant in the translation decision-making process.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the typical life cycle of multilingual information in the language industry and common computer applications used by translators.

The Master of Arts degree in Applied Mathematics is emphasizes areas relevant to mathematical applications in the sciences, including engineering, biological, financial and physical sciences. There is no thesis requirement or option. Students in the Ph.D. degree in Applied Mathematics can apply for this M.A. degree after completing the requisite number of credit hours.

Program Learning Outcomes

Graduates of this program will be able to:

• Engage effectively in problem solving, including exploring examples, devising and testing conjectures and assessing the correctness of solutions.
• Reason in mathematical arguments at a level appropriate to the discipline, including posing problems precisely, articulating assumptions and reasoning logically to conclusions.
• Approach mathematical problems creatively, including trying multiple approaches and modifying problems when necessary to make them more tractable.
• Communicate mathematics clearly both orally and in writing.
• Teach university-level mathematics effectively.
• Obtain depth in some subdiscipline of applied mathematics.

The Master of Arts degree in Cultural Foundations explores education through a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives: philosophy of education, history of education, sociology of education, comparative/international education, anthropology of education, gender studies, multicultural studies and religious studies. Students examine the social contexts of education, with particular emphasis on structural inequalities, issues of access, and the distribution of educational opportunity, normative considerations about the purposes of education, and the transformative potential of education.

The degree program promotes students' responsibilities as change agents in a range of educational settings, including schools, cultural and religious institutions and civic associations. Graduates of the program have the knowledge and skills to interpret and critique educational policies and practices and to promote innovative practices in a variety of educational settings, domestically and worldwide.

Students in the M.A. degree write a thesis on an educational topic of their own choosing. Thesis students work closely with their academic supervisor to generate a thesis topic and design a research study or undertake a scholarly analysis of an issue of interest to the student.

Program Learning Outcomes
Graduates of this program will be able to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the social, cultural, economic and political assumptions shaping educational policies and reforms in the United States and other societies.
• Understand the nature of the democratic challenge for schooling in answering such foundational questions as: "What should be taught?" "Who should be taught?" and "Who should teach?"
• Demonstrate an understanding of the convergence of social class, race, gender, sexual orientation and disability as barriers to and opportunities for educational change, domestically and internationally.

The Master of Public Health degree in Public Health is designed to help students develop real-world knowledge and skills needed to pursue success in the public health industry.

The Public Health major comprises the following concentrations:

• The Health Policy and Management concentration prepares students to address public health risks and develop effective health services delivery models. This concentration incorporates health services research, health policy analysis and health care planning and management. Given the active research of the college’s faculty in identifying service gaps and in developing evidence-based practices and policy analysis, students emerge with strong skills in health services management, alternative models of service financing and strategies for improving services. Career opportunities for graduates include administrative and management positions in hospitals, clinics, state and local health departments, nursing homes and mental health facilities; policy analyst positions in health planning organizations and governmental agencies; and planning and management positions in health maintenance organizations and health insurance companies.