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Professional Studies, Associate in Applied Science

Overview

Narrative

The Professional Studies, AAS degree program at Northampton Community College is for students seeking an associate degree that is flexible, inter-disciplinary, and aimed at up-skilling for career advancement. It is not intended for students who plan to transfer into a bachelor's degree program at a four-year institution.

The Professional Studies degree program is designed to maximize the personal and professional experiences that students already bring to NCC. Working with the Assistant Dean of Prior Learning Assessment, incoming students will explore ways that they may be able to turn prior job experience, credentialing and training, professional development, military service, or self-taught studies into college credits that can be directly applied towards degree completion. Students who have served in the military, been part of extensive on-the-job-training or apprenticeships, participated in a non-credit program, earned certificates for professional development, are fluent in another language, or have spent dedicated years of service in a given career all may qualify for significant credit awards.

Features

Recognizing that the needs of a given employer or that an incoming student seeks in pursuit of personal and professional goals may not map directly onto a traditional associate, certificate, or degree program, the Professional Studies program combines core communication, math/science, and information literacy skills with humanities-based general education requirements, alongside an additional 36 elective credits that students can tailor to meet their specific career needs and desired learning outcomes. Working with a dedicated advisor, Professional Studies students will select coursework that most effectively addresses the needs, industry standards, and growth areas within their own professional field.

This program is intended as a degree completion program for students that seek a college credential to assist in furthering their career goals. This program is not intended to transfer into a baccalaureate degree program.

Outcomes

Graduates of the program will:

  • Convey ideas effectively with supporting evidence in both spoken and written communication.
  • Evaluate source information and use it ethically in their work.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of diversity through analysis of arts, cultures, histories, or other expressions of the human experience.
  • Identify and solve problems using data to make conclusions.
  • Effectively use technology as a tool to accomplish specific goals. 

Courses

First Semester

COLS101College Success

1 credits
ENGL101English I

3 credits
CISC101Introduction to Information Technology

3 credits
Mathematics (QL) or Science (SCI) Elective

3/4 credits
Electives

6 credits
Total Credit Hours:16-17

Second Semester

ENGL151English II

3 credits
COMM101Introduction to Communication

3 credits
General Education Elective

3 credits
Electives

6 credits
Total Credit Hours:15

Fourth Semester

Electives

15 credits
Total Credit Hours:15

Third Semester

General Education Elective

6 credits
Electives

9 credits
Total Credit Hours:15

Total Credit Hours: 61-62

For the General Education Electives, students must select three courses from the list of approved courses in two of the following categories: Arts & Humanities (AH); Social Science: Societies and Institutions over Time (SIT); Social Science: Scientific Study of Human Behavior (SSHB).

One General Education Elective course must be designated as Diversity and Global Awareness (D).

The Writing Intensive course may be:

One General Education Elective in a Writing Intensive (WI) section, or

One non-General Education elective that is Writing Intensive (WI) All General Education and free Electives should be selected with the assistance of an advisor in order to meet individual students’ professional goals.