Academic Accelerator - Bachelor of Science - Family, Community and Human Development

Program Description

The Academic Accelerator Program (AAP) is a balanced first-year program for international students with good English-language skills. It supplements immersive classes taught in English with just the right amount of support.

Students in the Academic Accelerator receive:

• The right amount of support for their academic and English-speaking needs
• A full year’s worth of college credits
• Access to courses exclusively for international students
• English-language help with words they need to know for their classes
• A mix of classes with international and U.S. students

The Family, Community and Human Development (FCHD) Major is housed in the Department of Family and Consumer Studies (FCS). The objective of the FCHD major is to provide students with a broad and detailed understanding of the processes of personal development in the context of the family, and as impacted by community and societal forces beyond the family. More specifically, students with a FCHD major will acquire an understanding of:

• The key features of development through each stage of life (infants, children, adolescents and adults);
  
• How these key features of development are impacted by experience to account for the ways that each human is unique;
• How family members develop and maintain relationships within and across generations;
• The decisions people make about managing resources such as time, money, and material assets;
• The ways that individual and family well-being are impacted by community and societal forces;
• The impact of local, national, and international policies and laws on individual, family and community well-being;
• How research in these areas is conducted and evaluated, and how the findings from these works may be applied to enhance the well-being of individuals (at every age) and families

In addition to the breadth and depth of the FCHD major as summarized above, the department offers students three opportunities for diving more deeply into specific areas of focus that are both relevant to the broader goals of our major and oriented toward specific career opportunities. These include:

Child Life: Learn how to meet the social and emotional needs of young children and their families in a medical setting. This Emphasis is great for pre-med and pre-nursing students and fulfills all the educational requirements for those who want to become Child Life Specialists.

Early Childhood Education: Provides students with a foundation for a career working with young children (0-8) in early care, education, and other applied settings. There is also a pathway for earning a K-3 teaching license.

Financial Planning: This emphasis meets specific criteria set forward by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards for preparing students for a professional career as a financial planner.