American Studies :: NWC Humanities

Eagle Map of the United States American
Studies

The American Studies program at Northwest will stimulate a lifetime of challenging inquiry, productive analysis, and self-initiated learning about significant contemporary issues and their historical backgrounds. The many facets of lifestyle and culture in the United States are only the starting points for considering the identity of Americans in a global context.

The American Studies program equips students with intellectual skills that they can use in almost any career. At Northwest, American Studies is mainly a four-semester program aimed at transfer to a broad range of Bachelor’s programs in the Humanities, the Social Sciences, the Sciences, and the Arts. Just a few of the potential areas for future study are American Studies, pre-law, media studies, and regional ecology, and these degrees lead, in turn, to even broader career possibilities.

American Studies calls for independent thinkers willing to work with an academic adviser to develop not just a collection of credits but a personalized, interdisciplinary, and coherent sequence of courses. Intellectual fire, imagination, and a desire to make connections in several academic fields are the basic requirements for entry to American Studies at Northwest.

Sample Courses – Intro to American Studies, American Cultural Landscapes, Intro to Cross-Cultural Studies

Career Directions – Governmental Administration, Public Service, Business, Teaching, Law, Journalism, Media Production, Museum Studies

All students who specialize in American Studies work closely with an adviser in the Humanities Division to decide upon a sequence of courses. They may also formally consult with a faculty member from another division who is likely to have a different point-of-view about an appropriate choice of courses. Beyond the general education courses that are required for all Associate of Arts degrees, core courses and core elective courses allow students to explore the topics and the academic fields that most interest them.

Curricular choices that students make should form a coherent and logical course of study. Several exciting and innovative Options are available within American Studies; students can customize their programs according to their own unique combination of interests. The Interdisciplinary Studies option will be the most popular, simply because it offers the most possibilities for customizing a degree. The other options listed here are suggested for your consideration but also as examples of the breadth of potential programs of study that students can design in American Studies.

Students can use the Interdisciplinary Studies Option in American Studies to pursue a coherent program of study that:

The pervasive presence and effects of all forms of media are prompting a need for informed critics in addition to new practitioners. Students who choose the Media & Culture Studies Option in American Studies will:

Courses regularly taught at Northwest study film and society, television and national culture, themes in popular music, topics in popular literature, and issues related to global cyberculture. The rich list includes a specialized team-taught course on country music that takes advantage of Northwest's developing Special Collection in the College's Library.

American Studies students who choose to focus in this area examine the frequently opposed perspectives of the sciences and the humanities. They develop a expertise on environmental issues that require the language of both areas of academia by taking courses that: