Mississippi State University

19/07/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 19/07/2024 15:21

College of Arts and Sciences announces new academic concentrations, specialized pathways to success

Contact: Alex McDaniel

STARKVILLE, Miss.-Mississippi State University's College of Arts and Sciences now offers four new academic concentrations for the Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts degree-allowing students with specialized interests to create focused pathways to achieve their educational goals.

Approved this spring by MSU's University Committee on Courses and Curricula and open to students this fall, the new concentrations include environmental justice, international studies, linguistics and gender studies.

Kate Sawaya (Photo by Beth Wynn)

"Many of these exist as minors at MSU, but currently there are no full degree programs in these fields at MSU. These concentrations allow students to pursue a multi-disciplinary undergraduate degree and gain expertise in two or more fields, synthesizing them into new interdisciplinary perspectives to think critically and analyze problems," said Kate Sawaya, an academic coordinator for the College of Arts and Sciences.

The environmental justice concentration provides students with a sufficient natural science background to understand and explain human impacts on the natural world and is useful for those pursuing careers in sustainability, environmental planning, environmental law and environmental policy.

The international studies concentration combines social sciences, humanities and foreign languages to give students a well-rounded understanding of how political, economic and social changes in the world impact life, an area of study with increasing popularity for those interested in careers in business, national security, politics and the non-profit sector.

The linguistics concentration offers an opportunity to learn about human language throughout multiple disciplines and is a useful focus for those pursuing a career in language teaching, editing, publishing, speech therapy and more.

The gender studies concentration emphasizes different approaches to understanding gender and sexuality from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.

Students interested in the new concentrations can contact Sawaya at [email protected]. For more details about MSU's College of Arts and Sciences, visit www.cas.msstate.edu.

Mississippi State University is taking care of what matters. Learn more at www.msstate.edu.