Twenty New Academic Concentrations to Be Offered

By Tyler Murdock

Last fall, Southern Virginia revealed a new addition to its academic plan in launching students into their career — academic concentrations. Expanding the choices within a major, concentrations have become a part of the individualized model of education at Southern Virginia.

Building on the seventeen majors offered currently, the University recently began offering twenty different academic concentrations with topics ranging from sports management to veterinary medicine. The office of the Provost indicates that this list will only grow with the university. It is anticipated that there will eventually be fifty concentrations that will continue to point students to a specific career or graduate program.

Associate Provost Jeremiah John sees this as a new opportunity for students to focus on their desired career path.

“The name of your major is probably not the name of your job,” remarked John. “If you major in English, your job is not going to be English, if you major in chemistry you are not necessarily going to be a chemist. Concentrations are an attempt to focus on specific skills and knowledge that [students] will need, whether they will be applying for graduate school or careers.

Cheyenne Peisely, ‘18, will be one of the first to graduate with an Academic Concentration. As a music major, Peisely wanted to study her passion while keeping her career options open. Her interest in music and psychology brought her to consider Music Therapy as a career. Working with both music and psychology professors, she was able to customize an academic concentration that was tailored to her interests and career path.

“The professors here are so good at helping you tailor your education to what you want to do… Dr. Nielson in my voice lessons tailored all my lessons toward how I would use it in my music therapy. Psychology professors also helped me know how to deal with people that I would work with.”

Each concentration consists of four or five academic courses often accompanied with hands-on experience such as an internship or practicum. Students are also given an academic adviser who has professional experience in their desired field. This gives students further advantages as they plan for their future career.

Although a number of concentrations are new, two have been an important part of Southern Virginia’s academic program for quite some time. Both the Pre-Med and Pre-Law concentrations, formerly called advisory tracks, are prime examples of how concentrations have functioned to land career opportunities. Each have graduate acceptance rates of over 90 percent, a statistic that is notably high compared to the national average of only 18 percent.

According to the Office of the Provost, Southern Virginia Students applying for these programs are not just getting in to mediocre schools but top tier programs, often among the top fifty best schools in the nation.

“A lot of it is just improving the product,” says Dr. John, “we really hope that people see SVU as a place where we really help people prepare for graduate school and for a job.”