Multidisciplinary Studies

This concentration prepares students for work in border security, terrorism prevention, counter- terrorism and basic disaster management. You will cover counterterrorism tactics and gain a better understanding of the motivations behind terrorism. You will review how information is collected in order to make better decisions.

The disaster management aspect of the concentration in homeland security focuses on the complexities of dealing with both natural and man-made disasters. Plan preparation is a large part of the program and you’ll learn how to coordinate between multiple supporting agencies. Actual disasters and how they were handled will be reviewed to highlight what was done correctly and what could have been improved from each stage of disaster management.

The degree requires 120 total credit hours with 42 of those being general education core credits and another 42 credit hours being elective credits. You’ll also need to complete 18 program core credits and 18 concentration credits specific to the Homeland Security Concentration.

Strategies for Decision Making (HU260): This course will help students look at critical thinking and how it associates with decision making. You will have course topics that dive into common logical fallacies and how to diagram those discussions to see those fallacies. You can expect to understand all the different ways of reasoning that is used for decision making (i.e., inductive or deductive reasoning).

Professional Strategies (CA499): This course is one that students can expect to take towards the end of earning their multidisciplinary studies degree at University of Arkansas Grantham. A big focus of this course will be around taking the core concepts you have learned in previous courses but being able to articulate them in a professional setting. It will be a final mastery class to pull all the different theories and principles previously learned and show students how to successfully explain them to others.

The biggest difference between multidisciplinary versus interdisciplinary bachelor degrees is that interdisciplinary typically focuses on only two topics of choosing from the student. It is a bit more rigid in the curriculum whereas a multidisciplinary degree typically allows a student to learn about three or more topics of their choosing.

It should be noted that each degree program can be different but this is viewed as a common difference.