Liberal Studies Major

Liberal Studies Major

IN THIS SECTION

Understand, analyze, appreciate, and affect your world.

An education in the liberal arts and sciences will enable you to understand your world, and it will equip you to analyze, appreciate, and affect that world. With these aims in mind, the faculty at Worcester State University have designed the university’s liberal arts and sciences curriculum to ensure breadth both in the range of subjects you will encounter and in the range of approaches to that material. In addition, the curriculum emphasizes the fundamental abilities and attitudes that make it possible to benefit fully from a liberal education. While the specialization provided by major and minor fields of study is essential to a college education, the breadth and integration provided by the liberal arts and sciences curriculum supply an invaluable context for understanding the wider world.

Given the crucial importance of languages other than English in today’s global society, the university strongly encourages the study of world languages through the majors and minors and through combining the requirements in global perspectives and thought, language, and culture. You may also choose to study languages through your elective courses.

What you will do:

  • Demonstrate effective oral and written communication
  • Employ quantitative and qualitative reasoning
  • Apply skills in critical thinking
  • Apply skills in information literacy
  • Display an appreciation for the interrelations among global and cross-cultural communities
  • Develop a critical understanding of the US experience
  • Understand the roles of science and technology in the modern world
  • Demonstrate and value personal creative expression
  • Understand how scholars in various disciplines approach problems and construct knowledge
  • Display socially responsible behavior and act as a socially responsible agent in the world
  • Make connections across courses and disciplines
  • Develop as a healthy individual—physically, emotionally, socially, ethically, and intellectually

Explore sample courses in this program.

LS-190 Introduction to Liberal Studies

A special topics course that introduces students to interdisciplinary scholarship and learning as well as student-initiated/directed learning.
3 to 4 credits

LS-490 Capstone/Senior Research in Liberal Studies

This course provides an opportunity for students to compile evidence and reflect on the courses and independent work comprising their liberal studies major. Students are expected to develop a cohesive narrative of their course of study.
3 credits

LS-290 Intermediate Liberal Studies

This course focuses on a particular area of study that requires students to show mastery of the topic and a critical understanding of interdisciplinary learning and research methods.
3 to 4 credits

LS-390 Advanced Liberal Studies

This course is organized around a particular subject area or research methodology problem. Students engage in joint or individual scholarship related to the course topic.
3 to 4 credits

EN-101 College Writing I

College Writing I focuses on writing as critical inquiry, reflection, and communication. Students practice the fundamentals of effective writing, emphasizing planning, drafting, revising, and editing.
3 credits

EN-102 College Writing II

Builds upon College Writing I and focuses on research writing, synthesizing sources, critical analysis, argumentation, and information literacies. Students practice the fundamentals of effective writing in collaborative and academic communities, while evaluating and using sources in different rhetorical situations. This course is designed to help students develop transferable skills and strategies that may be applied to a variety of audiences and in a range of situations.
3 credits

PO-318 Constitutional Law of Government Powers and Constraints

A critical analysis of key US Supreme Court decisions addressing the horizontal allocation of power among federal government branches and institutions and the vertical allocation of power between federal and state governments. Attention is also given to unresolved constitutional issues between the legislative and executive branches, the Massachusetts state constitution, and the theoretical foundations of the United States Constitution (such as Locke, Montesquieu, and the Federalist Papers).
3 credits

AR-118 Global Art History

Surveys the outstanding visual art from all cultures beginning in the prehistoric era to the late 19th century.
3 credits

EN-256 Creative Writing: Fiction

An opportunity to develop the student’s writing ability and critical sense; work of students and professional authors are analyzed.
3 credits

PH-242 Race, Nation, Class, Gender, and Sexuality

Examines these 5 important social categories that define the political, legal, economic, and cultural contexts in which we live.
3 credits

SO-425 Global Capitalism

This class looks at the development of capitalism from an historical, sociological, and critical perspective and considers the ways capitalism has made and unmade the world. Themes may include imperialism and the underdevelopment of the Global South, decolonization struggles, global urbanization, global financial institutions, global labor struggles, war and capitalism, global environmental crises and the struggle over resources, and market hegemony.
3 credits

PH-110 Critical Thinking

Critical thinking through informal logical identification, analysis, and evaluation of arguments, including identification of fallacious arguments, through engagement with rhetoric and public discourse.
3 credits

UR-285 Urban Anthropology

Students in this course become familiar with urban anthropology through an exploration of ethnography—the study of peoples, cultures, and power dynamics—from the perspective of an insider. By investigating ethnographic fieldwork and ethnographic writing from our globalizing world, students are introduced to a number of different accounts about peoples and cultures—some struggling and some thriving—in cities spanning the globe. Through this diverse sample of lived, urban environments, students become critical thinkers about the role of culture and society in the construction of the city.
3 credits

PY-217 General Astronomy

Algebra-based astronomy course covering a breadth of topics, primarily focusing outside of the solar system. Topics include nature and evolution of stars; supernova; white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes; galaxies, quasars, and dark matter; large scale structure of the universe; the Big Bang; and dark energy. Emphasis is on the physical principles underlying the astronomical phenomena.
3 credits

CS-135 Programming for Non-CS Majors

Introduction to programming. Emphasis on practical skills, working with data sets, doing analysis and visualization. No prior programming experience required.
3 credits

Requirements

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