New Majors, Options for Students at Cal State Long Beach this Fall

Students at California State University, Long Beach have a few extra degree opportunities that weren’t available during the last academic year. In fact, since last fall CSULB has added three new undergraduate programs, a joint doctoral program, an additional minor program and four new options to already existing majors.

The campus now offers a bachelor of arts and a bachelor of science degree in environmental science and policy. Jointly housed in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics and the College of Liberal Arts, the program is designed to provide training in basic physical, biological and social sciences and also address the human involvement in environmental issues.

“This is the first time that this combination of majors has ever been available at any CSU campus,” said Darwin Hall, a professor of economics and one of the directors of the new program. “There are similar combinations of majors at some of the UC campuses. In fact, we modeled our majors after the environmental science major and conservation resource studies major at UC Berkeley.”

Hall went on to say that there were two areas of focus when officials were developing the program. One area was the relative lack of any kind of similar programs in Southern California relative to the population base, the economy and the environmental impact in the economy compared to Northern California, where relatively there are a number of programs of similar nature, but not as much need for them in terms of the impact on the environment and the population.

“The second area we focused on was the substantial and broad variety of careers that these two degrees can prepare students for,” he pointed out. “So, we identified this as a niche that Cal State Long Beach is really well placed to fill. We do acknowledge that these are demanding majors. Both the B.A. and the B.S. require a substantial number of courses, but the rewards are commensurate for those students who have the heart for this path.”

Also new to this year’s students is the bachelor of arts degree in French studies, which will give students a thorough basis in the study of French language, history, literature and culture within a global context. Among the broad range of career options open to these students are international law and business, teaching, government and foreign service.

The new joint doctoral program in educational administration and leadership is an effort between the California State University and University of California systems to help meet California’s educational leadership needs and to make Ed.D. programs more geographically accessible and affordable to the state’s working educators. CSULB’s program was developed with CSU Fullerton, CSU Los Angeles, Cal Poly Pomona and UC Irvine.

“The joint doctorate in educational leadership brings together faculty resources from CSULB, UC Irvine, Cal Poly Pomona and CSU Los Angeles to offer a very high quality program to prepare leaders for California schools," said Jean Houck, dean for the CSULB College of Education. "The Long Beach specialization area, educational leadership at the community college level, is especially attractive to students as there is a limited number of doctoral programs in this field in the United States."

Among the four new options added to already existing majors are: an option in elementary science education to the M.S. in science education program; an option in theatre management to the M.F.A. program in theatre arts; an option in dance science to the B.A. in dance program; and an option in applied statistics to the M.S. program in mathematics.

And within the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences, there is a new minor in child development and family studies (CDFS), a field that strives to improve the lives of children and families. Career options for professionals in the CDFS field include child life specialists, teen pregnancy or domestic violence counselors, child development educators/administrators and parent educators.