Business Associate Degree program curriculum

Achieve your true potential! This course will help you sharpen existing skills, build on your strengths, and discover the best ways to learn. You'll identify your learning styles, learn new behaviors to ensure college success, and maximize your learning as you complete your program of study.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to do the following:

• Identify personal strengths and traits used to succeed in motivating and setting goals to complete higher education.
• Describe the requirements for successful online learning.
• Discuss the value of goal setting and time management.
• Explain methods to achieve effective reading comprehension and note-taking.
• Recognize effective academic writing and types of plagiarism.
• Describe strategies for online testing.
• Explain the role of critical thinking in problem solving.
• Identify the necessary skills for successful online research.

Credit Hours: 3

Introduction to Computers provides you with foundational skills and knowledge needed for today's technology-based careers. You'll learn the components of systems—from the CPU and memory to input devices and peripherals—and how these components interact with an operating system to perform critical tasks. Keeping current with fast-changing computer technologies, this course will discuss the computer technologies today that are allowing the creation of a virtualized mobile workforce. It will explore how computers connect to the internet, what services can be found online, and what dangers exist in the form of viruses, Trojans, and other malware. The course will also familiarize you with the basics of today's office productivity applications and help to establish a foundation for working with these different types of applications, including spreadsheets and presentation-creation tools.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to do the following:

• Identify all of the major types of computing devices and their internal and external components.
• Compile a list of the various computer operating systems that are utilized today and identify characteristics about each one.
• Relate the various cloud-based technologies to the virtual and remote abilities that are utilized in a professional environment.
• Describe modern office productivity suite applications.
• Illustrate basic office software tasks using Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote.
• Characterize the role computer networking plays in society and identify current networking technologies.
• List the hardware components, software applications, and IT protocols that make the internet possible today.
• Apply basic maintenance tasks on your computer to combat viruses, malware, and computing inefficiencies.

Credit Hours: 3

This course offers an introduction to basic writing skills that are especially relevant to academic assignments. The course focuses on APA paragraph development and organization in conjunction with a review of basic grammar and mechanics. The course also covers basic techniques for critically editing and revising one's work.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to do the following:

• Use appropriate style, grammar, and mechanics in writing assignments.
• Compose a strong paragraph with attention to the following: topic sentences; and effective use of transitions.
• Identify and use a variety of essay structures, including expository, descriptive, narrative, comparison and contrast, and persuasion/argumentative.
• Organize, develop, and produce a fully developed five-paragraph essay.
• Differentiate and apply correct techniques for prewriting, writing, and proofreading using a variety of styles.
• Correctly apply the rules of APA for use in direct or indirect quotations and reference citations.

Credit Hours: 3

This course provides an overview of technological advances over the span of human history. Topics include the interrelationship of technology and culture; ethics and morals as they relate to technological progress; energy; ecology; demography; war and politics; and the unintended consequences of globalization, including social inequality, climate change, and global warming.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to do the following:

• Explain how technology and culture are interrelated, and outline technological advances from ancient times to the present.
• Discuss different perspectives on ethics and morals as they relate to technological applications.
• Explain basic concepts related to energy, including the pros and cons of nonrenewable and renewable sources of energy.
• Discuss basic concepts of ecology, including the environmental challenges of global warming and climate change.
• Explain basic concepts of demography, especially as they apply to population growth.
• Describe how war and politics have affected nations as they adapted to advances in technologies.
• Explain the origins of global inequality, including colonialism and capitalism.
• Discuss different approaches to measuring the evolution of technologies, the unintended consequences of globalization, and the prospects of a paradigm shift.

Credit Hours: 3

Principles of Management is designed to help you understand the major functions of management (planning, organizing, leading, and controlling) and the significance of each function in relationship to the existence of the company. This course describes how companies use management to set and accomplish goals through individuals, groups, and other types of resources. It also analyzes communication and ethics in the organization. Other topics include decision making, change, employee development, organizational structures, management control, leadership, conflict resolution, information security, and globalization.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to do the following:

• Describe the management role and its importance within an organization.
• Discuss the role that social responsibility and ethics has on managing.
• Describe decision-making as it relates to management.
• Describe the role of strategic management and project planning in managing an organization or team.
• Examine the role that structure and human resources play in managing an organization.
• Discuss how managers can impact individual and team behavior.
• Explain theories of and approaches to leadership and motivation.
• Explain how managers control operations and performance.

Credit Hours: 3

The ability to communicate well is essential to success in any professional environment. English Composition II is organized to provide you with a broad understanding of multiple types of written communication. Far from being just academic exercises, formal writing skills allow you to relate to the world in ever-increasing ways. Simply put, good writing is good thinking. As you master various techniques of effective writing, you'll note a change in the way you process information, and those around you (including your employer) will also note the transformation.

English Composition II begins with the assumption that you've attained basic writing skills through completion of English Composition I. So, in fact, English Composition II is a continuation of English Composition I. In that light, you'll be expected to access and review basic concepts covered in English Composition I and, in particular, the sections on grammar and mechanics.

English Composition II begins by offering you tips on college writing, active reading, and study strategies at the college level. Next, you'll explore the framework for drafting a college essay, including elaborate explorations for finding a topic, assessing your audience, and determining the purpose of your essay as you identify its thesis and craft a thesis statement.

Next, because college essays often require research, you'll be introduced to strategies for finding and using sources. Based on this preparatory foundation, you'll be challenged to analyze essays in all of the various rhetorical modes, which, in turn, will prepare you to write college-level essays for these different patterns of development.

The balance of this online text is devoted to the specifics of reading, analyzing, and writing college-level essays, including description, narration, illustration, process analysis, comparison and Contrast, classification and Division, definition, cause and Effect, argument, and business applications.

By the end of EN130, you'll be able to do the following:

• Describe the nature of academic writing at the college level.
• Understand and apply the principles of active reading.
• Comprehend and apply the structure of a college essay.
• Develop an essay thesis that's supported by facts, authorities, and examples.
• Apply the principles of revision and editing.
• Write an academic essay supported by relevant and credible sources.
• Critically evaluate essays in all of these patterns of development:

  • Narrative, Descriptive, Illustration, Process, Comparison and contrast, Definition, Classification and division, Cause and effect, Argument.
• Create effective, engaging, and informative essays in all of these patterns of discourse through the following:

  • A deep understanding of the writing process; Organizing an essay in terms of space order, time order, or order of importance; Creating attention-getting introductions and memorable conclusions; Using facts, logical reasoning, examples, and authorities to support your thesis; Identifying and avoiding logical fallacies; Effectively applying the techniques of persuasion; Blending two or more patterns of development in a single essay.

Credit Hours: 3

View General Education Elective (Science 100-200 Level) offerings.

Business Communication is a practical course that examines principles of communication in the workplace. It introduces you to common formats, such as the memo, letter, and report. It helps you review your writing skills to gain greater mastery of grammar, mechanics, and style. More importantly, it introduces you to the strategies successful business professionals employ for a variety of situations. You are exposed to techniques for writing informational, persuasive, sales, employment, good news, and bad news communications. You'll gain information on internal and external communication situations and practice audience analysis. You'll also gain information on the technological tools available to business communicators today. You'll be introduced to the exciting communication possibilities offered by personal computers, cell phones, videoconferencing, desktop publishing, and other technology. In essence, this course provides you with an introduction to the communication skills needed to enter and advance successfully in your business career.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to do the following:

• Describe the role of trust, competence, caring, and character in establishing credibility in business communication.
• Describe the elements of the interpersonal communication process.
• Explain the importance of emotional intelligence in interpersonal communication.
• Describe how to effectively communicate in teams that involve collaboration active leadership, difficult conversations, and virtual meetings.
• Describe the role of audience analysis, information gathering, and message development in effective business communication.
• Improve readability of business communication using style and design techniques.
• Describe how to strategically select channels of communication.
• Develop messages for routine, persuasive, and bad-news communication.
• Research, propose, plan, and deliver business presentations.

Credit Hours: 3

This course will introduce you to the types of ethical issues you may encounter in your professional life and provide you with ways of considering what the best response to an issue might be. First, you'll be introduced to different schools of thought about how to determine the "right" course of action—philosophical approaches such as utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, and character-based philosophies. Second, in addition to these personal ethics perspectives, you'll be introduced to various business-related approaches to ethical issues in a professional setting. Third, you'll be introduced to a process for decision making to balance the personal, professional, and societal considerations to help you make good decisions in your business life. Finally, you'll be given an overview of selected areas of business that may require particular attention to ethical and social responsibility issues.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to do the following:

• Categorize ethics and perspectives pertaining to business and decision making.
• Distinguish between the norms of corporate culture and the corporate social responsibilities.
• Analyze the various employer and employee responsibilities, the issues of technological capabilities, and ethical marketing.
• Point out the impact of ethical corporate governance on corporate sustainability and conflicts of interest.
• Prepare a report on business ethical decisions in veterinary practice by utilizing your findings.

Credit Hours: 3

 Introduction to Accounting introduces basic concepts of accounting using a balance of theory and practice. Topics covered include double entry bookkeeping, the accounting cycle for service and merchandising enterprises, notes and interest, bad debts, merchandise inventory, and accounting for fixed assets.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to do the following:

• Apply accounting principles to the accounting equation and balance sheets.
• Explain the expanded accounting equation and the financial documents involved.
• Demonstrate the use of a T-Account in recording transactions.
• Apply accounting principles to the trial balance and financial statements.
• Apply accounting principles to the processes of journalizing and posting.
• Apply accounting principles to the adjusting process.
• Apply accounting principles to the completion of the accounting cycle.
• Apply accounting principles to banking.

Credit Hours: 3