Allegheny College

2 Dimensional Design

2D Design equips students with the foundational knowledge to produce a portfolio of works in 2D, whether digitally or in traditional media such as drawing and painting. Students who earn this microcredential will be able to effectively utilize the tools and techniques of varying 2D media toward the production of a body of work.

3 Dimensional Design

3D Design equips students with the foundational knowledge to produce a portfolio of works in 3D, whether in sculpture, ceramics, or emerging media areas such as additive manufacturing. Students who earn this microcredential will be able to effectively utilize the tools and techniques of varying 3D media toward the production of a body of work.

Accounting

The accounting microcredential provides foundational knowledge of accounting processes and methodologies. Students develop an understanding of accounting principles such as recording transactions, presenting financial information, and analyzing costs.

AI-Driven Content Creation

AI-Driven Content Creation equips students with contemporary strategies and tools for creating images, video, and text such as prompt engineering and large language model (LLM) fine-tuning. Students completing this microcredential will be able to generate intentional and consistent results in response to a wide variety of purposes, including artistic and industrial applications.

Art History Fundamentals

Students who complete the Art History microcredential demonstrate basic fluency in the language of art history and visual analysis. Students understand major movements in Art History, particularly in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and they learn about how artworks reflect, impact, and participate in cultural power dynamics related to race, gender, sexuality, and nationality, among others.

Artificial Intelligence Engineering

The Artificial Intelligence Engineering microcredential equips students with the skills to integrate machine learning techniques into new software for autonomously solving real-world problems beyond standard benchmarks. Through the coursework, students will critically evaluate how the convergence of modern tools and new applications can proceed ethically and sustainably.

Art, Science, and Innovation

Art, Science, and Innovation is an interdisciplinary major that prepares students to become cultural innovators and critical makers prepared to produce works of visual art that can transcend disciplinary boundaries and promote greater cultural and technological awareness, while creatively contributing to STEM fields.

Biochemistry

Biochemistry is the science at the interface of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics that deals with the chemical composition of living matter and the molecular nature and physical processes of living systems. The Biochemistry major is part of an interdisciplinary program primarily supported by faculty from the Biology and Chemistry departments. The major is considered a Mathematical and Natural Sciences major.

Biology

Biology, the study of life, is a discipline of astonishing variety and complexity. It encompasses the diversity of living things on the earth today and in the past, and also a diversity of levels (from molecules to cells to organisms to ecosystems) at which life can be studied. The Biology Department offers a comprehensive treatment of biology, emphasizing independent research, analysis of information, and integration among its subdisciplines and with other areas of the liberal arts.

Business

Business is the study of how organizations, workers, society, and resources can be efficiently managed to achieve certain goals. It is a multifaceted discipline that applies the principles of economics, quantitative techniques and organizational behavior to the study of decision-making and problem-solving in organizations. Core areas of Business include the study of the financial, managerial, accounting, human resource, marketing, and entrepreneurial functions of organizations.

Chemistry

Chemistry is the central science as it provides an understanding of how the assembly and manipulation of atoms and molecules affect life by connecting physics to biology, and it provides ready entry to applied sciences like medicine and engineering.

Communication and Media

Communication and Media is dedicated to the critical study of various forms of communication and media as a dynamic and influential part of cultural life. The curriculum offers students opportunities for creating and sharing content across platforms, critically analyzing media content and structures, and examining their intersections with cultures, audiences, technologies, and civic life.

Community and Justice Studies

Community and Justice Studies (COMJ) investigates challenges facing communities, analyzes key methods of social action, develops ethical reasoning, and directly engages students in responsible engagement in our community. COMJ offers students an intellectual framework for understanding social systems, structures, movements and how these shape society, especially in relationship to power and oppression.

Computer Science

Computer Science focuses on computational theory and the rich interplay between computer hardware and software. Students use scientific and design-centric approaches to solve computational problems and to create and evaluate realistic computer and computer-based systems. The study of computer science leads to and requires the ability to analyze ideas, to think logically, and to communicate ideas clearly and concisely.

Content Creation

Content Creation will develop students' skills in producing images, video, and sound-based content and instructing them on effective deployment through web development and/or contemporary marketing practices.

Core Skills for Mental Health Professions

Provides foundational knowledge and introductory skills in clinical assessment, diagnosis, and therapeutic interventions for mental health conditions affecting adults and/or children. This microcredential is designed as an educational stepping stone to build essential skills for roles supporting licensed mental health professionals or preparing for further training in mental health fields. It is not intended to qualify participants for clinical practice or independent therapy provision.

Cybersecurity Risk Analysis

Cybersecurity Risk Analysis introduces the knowledge and skills that students need to design, implement, and deploy secure software systems. Students who complete this microcredential will have the demonstrated ability to identify and resolve cybersecurity risks through the analysis of a system's design and implementation.

Data Analysis

Data Analysis introduces the knowledge and skills that students need to effectively make decisions using varied data sources. Students who complete this micro-credential will have the ability to use the Python and R programming languages to create data visualizations, perform statistical analyses, and train machine learning models that yield actionable insights and support decision-making.

Data-driven Health Informatics

The Data-driven Health Informatics microcredential provides foundational knowledge and skills in finding, understanding, organizing, visualizing, and extracting information from health-related data. Students who complete this micro-credential will be able to explore publicly available health and genetic data, and use open-source web tools, Python programming, and the Stata software package to learn insights from this data.

Data Science

Data Science focuses on the study of integrated principles and methods to analyze complex big data for decision making, prediction, modeling, and data management. Students examine social and human contexts and ethical implications of how data are collected, analyzed, and utilized in diverse areas.

Economics

Economics is a social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economic activity is organized at many levels, including firms, markets, and governments, and the economics curriculum offers students the opportunity to study decision-making and the consequences of those decisions at all of these levels.

Editing and Publishing

This microcredential emphasizes public-facing writing, editing, and ethical publication. The courses have been selected to offer students opportunities to consider the practical skills of copy-editing, publication production, and marketing, while simultaneously learning to give and receive useful and editorial feedback.

Embedded Systems Engineering

The Embedded Systems Engineering microcredential equips students with the skills to develop and optimize software for hardware systems. Students who complete this microcredential will have the demonstrated ability to design efficient, high-performance embedded applications while utilizing memory management, parallel processing, and secure communication.

Engineering Physics

The Engineering Physics major is a program in the Mathematics and Natural Sciences Area of Study. Students demonstrate an understanding of the basic principles of the major subfields of physics (mechanics, electricity and magnetism, optics, quantum mechanics and thermodynamics) and apply physical and mathematical principles to analyze and solve real-world engineering problems. Engineering Physics majors may not minor in Physics.

English

Allegheny's English Department prepares students for an unknown future through the study of literary citizenship. The program is oriented in flexibility and deep thinking, dedicated to the analysis and production of texts that mediate our relationship to the world, and committed to the cultivation of the uniqueness of human intellect, creativity, and communication. The major is offered with an emphasis in Creative Writing or an emphasis in Literature.

Environmental Science and Sustainability

Environmental Science and Sustainability is the study of interrelationships between human systems and activities and the natural environment. It is an integrative academic discipline in that it generates scientific knowledge about the natural world as well as a social and humanistic understanding of ways in which humans interact with that natural environment. The major prepares students to work on issues related to terrestrial, marine, or aquatic environments.

Filmmaking & Media Production

Filmmaking & Media Production equips students with strategies and techniques to best utilize contemporary tools in the field. Students completing this microcredential will be able to produce technically advanced films that effectively leverage technique toward expressing an underlying conceptual or narrative objective.

Finance

Finance equips students with the tools and methodologies employed by finance professionals. Upon completing this microcredential, students will understand the role of financial markets in the economy, how interest rates are determined, how risk affects the price and expected return of a financial asset, and will be able to analyze investment decisions.

Foundations of Industrial Design

Foundations of Industrial Design equips students with the foundational knowledge to produce a portfolio of Industrial Design studies prompted by problems generated through the study of commonplace objects and their use cases. Students who earn this microcredential will be able to effectively utilize the tools and techniques of the field of Industrial Design toward the production of a cohesive portfolio of design objects.

Game Design

The Game Design microcredential allows students to develop crucial skills for conceptualizing, designing, and building video games. Skills include electronic art, game logic, and web-based interactive interfaces. In addition, students learn how to think conceptually in areas like digital space, story, and level design.

German Language and Culture

Through the German Language and Culture micro-credential, students acquire basic skills in reading, speaking, and writing the language together with essential cultural knowledge about the geography, regional culture, art, economy, politics, and values of German-speaking countries. In addition, students acquire an intercultural awareness and understanding of how linguistic and cultural differences shape communication and cognition.

Global Health Studies

Global Health Studies promotes a rich understanding of local and global health issues from multiple perspectives. It emphasizes the link between health, culture, ethics, and economic and social development. Students studying global health explore a range of topics, including the determinants of health, community health, epidemiology, nutrition, health policy, environmental health, sustainable development, and transnational health challenges.

Health Anatomy

The Health Anatomy microcredential involves a three-course series that covers terminology and anatomy and physiology. This series may fulfill admissions requirements for graduate programs in nursing, physician's assistant, physical therapy, or other allied health professions.

Healthcare Management

Healthcare Management is the study of the healthcare industry, which includes service providers, insurers, manufacturers, non-profit institutions, and government actors. It emphasizes an understanding of the US healthcare system, including the organization and delivery of preventive health and healthcare services.

History

The study of history helps us to understand the differences and similarities between our own lives, thought, and habits and those of a variety of past and present cultures. The department treats history as an interpretive endeavor, investigating from various points of view the ways in which individuals and social groups have sought to order and understand their world across time, and assists students in developing conceptual skills, critical analysis, research competence, and writing fluency.

Industrial Design

Industrial Design refers to a process whereby objects are designed and fabricated through a liberal arts lens that integrates an understanding of design and history, sustainable fabrication, and cultural context. The Industrial Design program prepares students to design objects that reflect the conditions of contemporary cultural life, while critically exploring speculative design futures in response to emerging cultural conditions.

Informatics

Informatics focuses on critical approaches to information and technology, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary methods. Students develop ethical and technical frameworks and apply them to a wide-ranging set of culturally-relevant problems in order to enrich the public understanding of the relationship between information and culture.

International Studies

International Studies is an interdivisional, liberal arts program that endeavors to develop and relate those analytical skills most appropriate for the examination of increasingly complex interactions among nations and regions of the world. It draws upon the disciplines of economics, history, world languages and cultures, and political science. The program pairs theoretical coursework with regionally-focused courses and asks students to reach designated language proficiency and to study abroad.

Investing

Investing equips students with the tools and methodologies employed to value assets. Upon completing this microcredential, students will understand how risk and interest rates influence the pricing of financial assets, and will be able to generate reports on firms, including equity recommendations.

Mathematics

The Department of Mathematics offers a wide range of courses designed to introduce students to major areas of mathematical thought, formal reasoning processes, general methods of problem solving, applications of mathematics to diverse areas, the history of mathematics, and the effective communication of mathematics. Courses emphasize the activity of thinking with ideas, as opposed to learning content by rote memorization.

Neuroscience

An interdisciplinary program, Neuroscience draws primarily upon course offerings of the Biology and Psychology departments. The major is considered a Natural Science major. Neuroscience majors are not permitted to minor in Psychology; students wishing to study Psychology in depth may elect to double major in Neuroscience and Psychology.

Philosophy

Philosophers inquire into structures that form the basis of all that exists, the ways we can justify our claims to knowledge, and the values and goals that guide individuals and society. Allegheny's Philosophy program pays particular attention to the question of the values and goals that ought to guide individuals and society by exploring lived experience and analyzing the social world.

Physics

Physics is crucial for understanding the principles that govern our physical world, studying everything in nature from the formation of the universe, galaxies, and black holes to the unusual way living systems behave. It is the goal of the physics department to help students develop strong backgrounds in experimental, theoretical, and computational physics and to learn the scientific method of investigation.

Political Science

The Department of Political Science offers courses in Law and Policy; American Politics; Comparative Politics and International Relations; and Theory and Methods. These courses are designed to help students understand politics, political behavior, political outcomes, and political life and discourse, as well as the institutions and processes that shape the political dynamics of different political systems.

Product Development in the Internet of Things

Product Development in the Internet of Things provides students hands-on experience with creating smart devices using the principles of human-computer interaction (HCI) and user-centered design (UCD). Students will develop and prototype physical devices incorporating industry grade software and hardware such as the Raspberry Pi, Teensy, or ESP32 platforms to design reproducible, manufacturable, technical solutions which respond to and/or supplement human needs.

Programming with Web Technologies

Programming with Web Technologies teaches students how to develop accessible, aesthetically pleasing, and well-organized websites and web applications. In addition to attaining the knowledge and skills needed to benchmark, maintain, and enhance websites, students who complete this microcredential will be able to design the user experiences and interfaces for compelling and dynamic web projects.

Psychological Research Design and Analysis

This microcredential equips students with the ability to design methodologically sound psychological research studies, applying principles of effective research design and ethical considerations. Students will develop proficiency in collecting and analyzing data using statistical methods and gain hands-on experience with statistical software such as JASP. They will learn to interpret statistical results accurately and communicate research findings clearly, both in writing and verbally.

Psychology (B.A.)

Psychology is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding human thought and behavior, blending scientific and applied approaches and sharing its roots with philosophy, physiology, and sociology. The 44-credit major, which may be taken for the Bachelor of Arts degree, provides breadth and depth through basic principles and methods, the major subfields, and advanced coursework.

Psychology (B.S.)

The 44-credit Psychology major addresses how our biological nature prepares us for the ways in which we behave, how we learn, perceive, and remember, and how susceptible we are to social influences. Students electing the Bachelor of Science option complete the same major requirements, including research methods, statistical methods, and courses from each core area.

Public Humanities

The Public Humanities refers to taking specialized knowledge and rendering it accessible and engaging to non-specialist publics, and/or collaborating with publics beyond academia to create new knowledge and projects.

Site Reliability Engineering

Site Reliability Engineering develops students' ability to manage large software systems with a focus on maintaining system reliability. Students who complete this microcredential will be able to develop and use intelligent monitoring tools to anticipate and address technical instability to prevent system failures.

Software Development

Software Development introduces the knowledge and skills that students need to engineer, release, and maintain software implemented in the Python programming language. Students who complete this microcredential will have the demonstrated ability to make high-quality contributions to both the source code and technical documentation in software projects stored in GitHub repositories.

Software Engineering

Software engineering focuses on the knowledge and skills that teams and individuals need to develop and maintain large-scale software systems. Students apply engineering principles and industry-standard software tools to design, implement, test, release, and enhance software for real-world customers.

Software Performance Engineering

Software Performance Engineering introduces the knowledge and skills that students need to design, implement, and deploy correct and efficient software. Students who complete this microcredential will have the demonstrated ability to conduct experiments that characterize a software system's performance, pinpoint and resolve software performance bottlenecks, and optimize a system's performance without compromising its correctness.

Spanish

Allegheny College offers a major in Spanish and instruction in the Spanish language through the department of World Languages and Cultures. Students who major in Spanish are encouraged to participate in the area studies programs in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Quito, Ecuador; Queretaro, Mexico; or Seville, Spain, which offer courses in Spanish language, civilization and culture, literature, art history, politics and economics.

Studio Art

The Studio Art major is a program in the Visual and Performing Arts Area of Study. The department's major programs are designed to develop a broad intellectual grounding in the traditions of the visual arts through an understanding of studio and art history, coupled with knowledge from other disciplines. Studio Art majors may not double-major or minor in Art, Science, and Innovation.

Tax Fundamentals

The tax fundamentals microcredential provides a working knowledge of accounting fundamentals, tax law, and tax preparation. Students receive training and hands-on preparation experience by preparing individual tax returns and reviewing those returns over two semesters of the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Internship.

Theatre

Theatre is dedicated to the critical study of live performance as a dynamic and influential part of cultural life. The curriculum offers students opportunities for conceiving, creating, and sharing performances with an audience; critically analyzing dramatic works, performances, and production structures; and examining the intersections of cultures, technologies, audiences, and civic life.

The Multilingual Mindset

The Multilingual Mindset Microcredential is awarded to students who study two languages besides English at an intermediate (200-level) or higher. This level of study develops situational language skills, cultural awareness, and effective communication in multiple languages. Students gain critical listening and problem-solving skills through language comparisons and cultural exploration.

Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies

Women's, Gender & Sexuality Studies (WGSS) examines how gender and sexuality are central social, political, economic, and cultural formations and exist in relation to race, ethnicity, dis/abilities, socioeconomic status, religion, and/or nationality across humanistic thought, artistic expression, social institutions, and scientific inquiry.