Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and International Relations

at State University of New York at New Paltz USA

The nationally accredited MFA program offers varied and extensive opportunities for graduate study in a unique setting. Our location is just 90 minutes north of New York City in the historic Hudson River Valley, allowing access to cutting-edge artists, historians, critics, and curators. The campus features expansive facilities, private and semi-private secure studios, and extensive computer labs and digital fabrication technologies. Additional exhibition spaces complement the prestigious Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art.

Metal - Specialization
The Metal program is an active area of study that engages a wide variety of ideas, objects, images, and modes of making toward critical and dynamic outcomes. Students and faculty form a community of inquiry that seeks to expand the field’s discourse. The rigorous curriculum provides opportunities to explore the technical, aesthetic, and conceptual aspects of contemporary jewelry and metalsmithing in a state-of-the-art facility with faculty who are actively engaged artists and who exhibit and lecture internationally. The 10,000 square-foot studios supply equipment for working in a range of traditional and contemporary methods, instruction and access to expanding digital technologies, and designated private studio spaces for each student.

Black Studies is a multi-disciplinary major devoted to the exploration and analysis of the history and culture of African people in the United States, Caribbean, and Africa.  It seeks to define the Black experience from an African and Afro-American centered perspective rather than Euro-centric perspective, to illuminate the contribution of African people to world culture and to correct a traditional approach to the study of world history that tended to bypass the Black Diaspora experience.

The nationally accredited MFA program offers varied and extensive opportunities for graduate study in a unique setting. Our location is just 90 minutes north of New York City in the historic Hudson River Valley, allowing access to cutting edge artists, historians, critics, and curators. The campus features expansive facilities, private and semi-private secure studios, and extensive computer labs and digital fabrication technologies. Additional exhibition spaces complement the prestigious Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art.

Photography & Related Media - Specialization
The Photography program engages students in an expanded field of artistic lens-based practice to critically interrogate and deepen their creative research within a vibrant community of artists. Photography is an ever-changing field with a short and tumultuous history and immense and growing relevance in today’s shifting cultural and social context. We support our students in their process of independent experimentation as they hone their critical awareness, skills, and concept, and position themselves with their unique voice and vision in the field. The Photography program offers a range of state-of-the-art digital and analog facilities and equipment.

The Department of Music strives to educate students by providing a rigorous undergraduate core program in music within the liberal arts context. We aspire to promote integrated student learning through a diversity of offerings within the department and across the campus. Prospective students - majors and non-majors alike - will find a variety of liberal arts and professional courses as well as a full range of performing ensembles. We also offer an extensive series of on-campus concerts involving faculty members, guest performers, students, and student ensembles.

The department offers Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees in Music, with concentrations in Classical Performance, Jazz Performance, and Recording & Electronic Music, as well as a general music program with broad elective offerings in music genres and history, classical and jazz performance, recording and electronic music, music therapy, and composition.

This program designed specifically for college graduates holding an appropriate liberal arts degree in Biology, Chemistry, English, Geology, History, or Mathematics who have not had a formal background in education and who wish to prepare for a teaching career in adolescence education grades 7-12.

Upon successful completion of the program, candidates will be recommended to the New York State Education Department for Initial/Professional Certification.

Psychology is an empirically based science. Therefore, it is desirable for psychology majors to have the skills to interpret and generate new information. To that end, courses in statistics and research methodology are required of all majors. In addition, psychology majors take a writing-intensive capstone seminar in which they demonstrate their mastery of the techniques and the content areas of the discipline. Students majoring in psychology are advised to acquire a broad range of training in the Liberal Arts. Taking a variety of elective courses in other disciplines is strongly recommended.

• Geography is a diverse and integrative discipline that allows students to explore and make sense of place, space, and landscape and the connections between them, while also learning to analyze problems from multiple perspectives. Our programs are designed to prepare students for graduate study in geography or for employment in fields actively seeking geographers. Students may choose the general Geography major, leading to a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree, or Geography concentrations in environmental geography and in urban planning, leading to a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree. The concentration in urban planning is for students who wish to undertake graduate study in planning or to obtain employment in that field. A Geographic Information System (GIS) sequence is offered in addition to courses in Cartography and Remote Sensing.
• Environmental Studies is an interdisciplinary major drawing on social and physical science, the humanities and the arts to provide students a broad understanding of the relationship between humans and the earth. The Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) program emphasizes environmental policy and social and economic aspects of the environment while providing a background in earth science. Much of environmental studies focuses on public and political discourse about scientific uncertainty, assessment of risks, and economic costs and benefits. Students majoring in Environmental Studies gain theoretical perspective and practical experience through a combination of coursework, activism, policymaking, applied-learning opportunities, and a capstone seminar.

The Journalism major offers students a combination of practical news-gathering skills across print, multimedia and digital platforms and an investigation of the historical, ethical, theoretical and literary contexts of journalism. Students learn not only how to put together a news story in a variety of media platforms but also the reason why our society needs news.

In addition to learning about writing and editing print stories, Journalism majors prepare for the realities of the workplace by composing, shooting, editing, and producing their stories in our state-of-the-art computer facility. The major's core required courses build foundational skills in writing, reporting, editing, ethics and multimedia storytelling.

The Department of Mathematics offers undergraduate majors in Mathematics, Adolescence Education Mathematics and Early Childhood & Childhood Education Mathematics. Graduates with the Mathematics major go on to do graduate work in mathematics and other fields requiring strong quantitative and reasoning skills. Those graduating from the Adolescence Education program have a depth of knowledge that underlies the courses they will teach. Early Childhood & Childhood Education majors go on to become mathematics specialists within the primary schools.

Bachelor of Science programs in Accounting, Business Analytics, Finance, General Business, International Business, Marketing, and Management are offered.

It is expected that students who complete the program will possess skills in critical thinking, oral and written communication, teamwork and ethics. Follow the links below to learn more about the curriculum for each major, as well as for the minors in Business and Business Analytics.