With the university continually growing, so too are its degree and course offerings. Take a look at some new degrees and interesting courses that are helping to prepare students for a dynamic job market—and that may make you wish you were still a student.
NEW DEGREES
New degree programs and concentrations recently launched in the College of Emerging and Collaborative Studies, the Natalie L. Haslam College of Music, and the Herbert College of Agriculture.
Data Science
Students learn how to transform raw data into meaningful information and extract, prepare, and visualize data, which they will model and analyze. A list of electives allows students to design their own focus areas.
Applied Artificial Intelligence
This program provides a foundational understanding of artificial intelligence concepts, data sources, and tools in a less technical context than a computer science degree and accentuates real-world applications across various disciplines.
Innovative Transdisciplinary Studies
This fully customizable degree program provides students the flexibility to forge their own paths and prepares them for employment. It does so with stackable certificates—like Applied AI in Medicine and Game Craft—driven by industry partners and the need for a workforce skilled in multiple emerging areas of expertise.
Music Advertising and Public Relations
The degree is offered through a partnership between the Natalie L. Haslam College of Music and the College of Communication and Information’s Tombras School of Advertising and Public Relations. It allows students to have a focused professional education in music and advertising and public relations. Students take core music courses like musicology, music technology, and music business as well as courses like multimedia writing, social media strategy, advertising and public relations principles, legal environments in public relations, entrepreneurship, and management.
Outdoor Recreation and Park Management
This concentration in the Forestry degree program prepares students for careers as professionals in organizations like the National Park Service, the US Army Corps of Engineers, state parks, and city and county park and recreation departments. Students learn management of natural and recreational resources on UT’s more than 21,000 acres of forest land and other nearby natural areas like the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. An Outdoor Recreation and Conservation Lab enables students to conduct research in places like Civil War battlefields and Mammoth Cave National Park.
COURSES
Appalachia Now
Students in this English course study the culture of Appalachia through the arts—showing the diversity of the region through short stories, novels, poetry, photos, films, music, and storytelling.
Geography of Country Music
Students analyze the cultural geography and political climate of country music, emphasizing ideas like urbanization and explaining how country music aligns with issues of cultural identity and change around the country and even the world.
Innovation and Creativity
Understanding and mastering the entire new-product development process, from insight and inspiration through launch, is the focus of this class. Key topics include market opportunity analysis, creativity and innovation, customer insights, ideation, product design, and prototyping.