Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences

The fastest, most affordable way to complete your bachelor’s degree online from a top 9 research school in Texas while leveraging your previous college or military credits.

The Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences (B.A.A.S.) program from the University of North Texas (UNT) is designed to streamline your path to a fully accredited bachelor’s degree by making it easy to transfer course work you’ve previously completed for technical, applied, or military credit.

Our B.A.A.S degree accepts and builds on these unique credits, combining them with course work in seven distinct concentrations so you can meet your individual or career goals. The degree is designed to help transfer students from community colleges and technical institutions, non-traditional students with college credit, and veterans or active-duty military personnel finish their bachelor’s degree faster. The B.A.A.S. degree does this by accepting many types of credits that other degree programs won’t accept.

What makes this degree unique?

No need to start over. Build a bridge by transferring your educational experience towards your degree. Named one of America’s 100 Best College Buys® for 23 consecutive years, UNT pairs each applicant with an advisor to create a customized degree plan focusing on the “missing pieces” required to complete the degree.

Built for you. B.A.A.S. students receive high-touch support and career services as applicants and enrolled students. With seven concentrations in administration, organizational supervision, social welfare and community, hospitality, media innovation, consumer behavior, and information technology, you can customize your coursework to create a degree path that’s right for you and your career.

Attainable and flexible. Receive the same high-quality instruction as on-campus students and earn the same degree while learning when and where it works best for you.

Commitment to excellence. Founded 130 years ago, UNT is a well-established research institution that ranks in the top 100 nationally for social mobility. UNT is also a majority-minority university, 42 percent of on-campus students at UNT are first-generation students, and the school ranks in the top 50 nationally for diversity.

B.A.A.S. Unifying Courses The B.A.A.S. Unifying Courses are mandatory for all B.A.A.S. Fully Online Students. They include:

BAAS 3000- Pathways to Civic Engagement This course promotes understanding of self in relation to theory and practice of civic engagement. Topics include the history of civic engagement and civil society, earning and spending social capital, voluntary sector engagement, trends in civic engagement in the U.S., and social issues. This course has a service learning requirement.

BAAS 3020- Fundamentals of Inquiry and Discovery This course focuses on how to evaluate information and apply some of the methods commonly used by social scientists from a variety of disciplines to answer questions about social life. Topics include measuring concepts, determining the most appropriate method of data collection, constructing a survey instrument, selecting a sample, conducting basic data analysis, presenting findings and addressing the ethical and political issues associated with formal research.

BAAS 4100- Managing a 21st Century Career In this capstone experience, students will integrate knowledge gained through their core courses, technical backgrounds, and advanced focus areas as they develop a plan for engaging as professionals and citizens in a rapidly changing world. Students will further hone skills in teamwork, social awareness, personal awareness, and critical thinking as they make connections between knowledge areas and learn to match their skills to careers. They will work with challenging social and business issues and apply decision-making strategies as they develop effective recommendations for action. Students will explore personal branding as they develop their professional identity. This course serves as the capstone course for the B.A.A.S. degree.

Concentrations

With seven concentrations in administration, organizational supervision, social welfare and community, hospitality, media innovation, consumer behavior, and information technology, you can customize your coursework to create a degree path that’s right for you and your career. B.A.A.S. students must complete the university core curriculum and additional unifying courses to earn their bachelor’s degree. Read more about each course’s curriculum on the UNT website.

Administration Concentration (12 hrs)

Study how organizations are designed and properly managed in the 21st Century. Students will be well-versed in themes such as common organizational behavior, ethical practices, and management philosophy as they apply to both large (publicly traded corporations) and small businesses.

Administration Concentration Courses:

MGMT 3720 - Organizational Behavior: This course explores individual behavior in formal organizations through cases, lectures and experiential exercises in organizational culture, motivation, leadership, and more.

MGMT 3820 - Management Concepts: This course gives an overview of management philosophy; planning, organizing and controlling. It also includes an overview of entrepreneurial processeses, organizational theory and strategic management.

MGMT 3880 - Business Ethics and Social Responsibility: This course studies ethical behaviors crucial to personal and corporate success in organizations. The course will cover codes of ethics, theoretical models and managerial behavior that serve as the foundation to investigate ethics and, in turn, social responsibility associated with firm theory.

MGMT 4860 - Organizational Design and Change: This course focuses on developing an understanding of the basics of organizational design, how to utilize organizational design principles to manage change, and how to keep the design aligned with the needs of the firm and the demands to which it must respond.

Consumer Behavior Concentration (12 hrs)

Study consumer behavior in connection with the purchasing, utilization, and arrangement of goods and services. Students will be well-versed in foundations of marketing practice, consumer behavior in a global context, and user consumption in retail hospitality, and entertainment industries.

Consumer Behavior Concentration Courses:

CMHT 3950 - Creating Consumer Experiences: his course explores the dynamic merging of retail merchandising, hospitality, and entertainment industries to create total consumer experiences. Course topics include evolution of consumption, symbolic consumption, ritual consumption, sensory consumption, consumer efficiency; entertainment, thematic, lifestyle and value experiences; branding, brand extension and strategic alliance; and global experiential retailing.

MDSE 2750 - Consumers in a Global Market: This course uses critical, empirical and creative thinking processes to develop a global perspective that is sensitive to diverse consumers’ needs and preferences for products and services in a global market. This course requires students to think critically, articulate views, cultivate self-awareness, balance and an openness to change,and engage with others in thoughtful and well-crafted communication.

MKTG 3650 - Foundations of Marketing Practice: This course will provide a survey of marketing concepts and practices and overview of the range of activities performed by marketing managers. Course topics include the identification of market opportunities, strategic marketing planning, product/service development and management, price setting and management, establishing and managing distribution channels, and structuring promotional programs.

MKTG 4120 - Consumer Behavior: This course will give an overview of individual and organizational decision making in the acquisition, consumption and disposition of goods and services, with selected applications in market segmentation, marketing communications and marketing management. Course topics include consumer and organizational behavior models and decision processes, internal influencing forces of motivation, and external influencing forces.

Organizational Supervision Concentration (12 hrs)

Study how organizations are designed and properly supervised in the 21st Century. Students will be well-versed in organizational design and change, commonly accepted ethical behavior in business, production management, and mediation.

Organizational Supervision Concentration Courses:

MGMT 3880 - Business Ethics and Social Responsibility: This course includes a study of ethical behaviors crucial to personal and corporate success in organizations. Course topics include codes of ethics, theoretical models and managerial behavior and how they serve as the foundation to investigate ethics and, in turn, social responsibility associated with firm theory. Various stakeholder interest and demands are analyzed as an important theme during the course.

MGMT 4860 - Organizational Design and Change: This course focuses on developing an understanding of the basics of organizational design, how to utilize organizational design principles to manage change, and how to keep the design aligned with the needs of the firm and the demands to which it must respond. The course includes study of organizational structures, the basic work patterns of organizations, organizational cultures, managerial roles, and the use of teams.

OPSM 3839 - Operations Management: This course covers management of production emphasizing industrial enterprises, production objectives, improvement of processes, work methods, and physical facilities. It also covers use of measurements and standards, production planning and control, quality control, budgetary and cost control, and materials management. |

PADM 4000 - Mediation: This course defines and examines the process of mediation. The course also covers the history and development of mediation and introduces theories of conflict management. Students will review diverse settings of mediation, such as domestic, commercial, non-profit, employment and institutional environments and participate in mediation exercises and simulations.

Information Technology Concentration (Google IT Certificate on Coursera)

Learners who complete the Google IT Support Professional Certificate on Coursera can receive credit for the information technology concentration of the B.A.A.S. degree. These credits would count as lower division credits. Your advisor will assess whether or how these credits may be able to count towards your degree plan.

This 5-course certificate, developed by Google, includes innovative curriculum designed to prepare you for an entry-level role in IT support. A job in IT can mean in-person or remote help desk work in a small business or at a global company like Google. The program is part of Grow with Google, a Google initiative to help create economic opportunities for all Americans.

Information Technology Concentration Courses:

Technical Support Fundamentals: This course is the first of a series that aims to prepare you for a role as an entry-level IT Support Specialist. In this course, you’ll be introduced to the world of Information Technology, or IT. You’ll learn about the different facets of Information Technology, like computer hardware, the Internet, computer software, troubleshooting, and customer service.

The Bits and Bytes of Computer Networking: This course is designed to provide a full overview of computer networking. The course covers everything from the fundamentals of modern networking technologies and protocols to an overview of the cloud to practical applications and network troubleshooting.

Operating Systems and You: Becoming a Power User: This course covers the main components of an operating system and how to perform critical tasks like managing software and users, and configuring hardware.

IT Security: Defense Against the Digital Dark Arts: This course covers a wide variety of IT security concepts, tools, and best practices. It introduces threats and attacks and the many ways they can show up. The course topics include background of encryption algorithms and how they’re used to safeguard data, the three As of information security: authentication, authorization, and accounting, network security solutions (ranging from firewalls to Wifi encryption options), and a case study of the security model of Chrome OS.

System Administration and IT Infrastructure Services: This course will transition you from working on a single computer to an entire fleet. In this course, you’ll learn about the infrastructure services that keep all organizations, big and small, up and running. The course will cover everything from typical cloud infrastructure setups to how to manage cloud resources. You'll learn how to manage and configure servers, how to use industry tools to manage computers, user information, and user productivity, and how to recover your organization’s IT infrastructure in the event of a disaster.

The following concentrations will be added to the degree in the future:

Social Welfare and Community Concentration (12 hrs) Students will address societal concerns and the well-being of people to ensure they have equal access to resources, services and opportunities. Students will learn cause and effect of social problems in modern society, how social bases affect human behavior, and cross-cultural and historical patterns of different social institutions.

Media Innovation Concentration (12 hrs) Students will address strategic communications, media management, public relations practices and journalism in an ever changing media industry. Students will study trends and implications that have helped propel and hault media innovation throughout history.

Hospitality Concentration (12 hrs) Students will examine service-driven management foundations including conflict mediation, ethics, event planning, budgeting, marketing, and workforce diversity.

University Core The University Core courses are required to graduate with a degree from a Texas institution. They include:

MGMT 3300 - Communicating in Business: This course helps students develop interpersonal business communication skills in the following areas: group communication, written communication (collaborative writing and business letters, memorandums and reports), oral communication (business presentations, meetings and interviews), and listening. The course also covers international communication and electronic communication technology.

PSCI 2306 - US and Texas Constitutions and Institutions: This course provides an introduction to the institutions of government, with particular emphasis on the U.S. and Texas Constitutions. The course focuses on the structure and powers of the three branches of government (both national and Texas); the division of power between those branches (separation of powers); the division of power between the national and state governments (federalism); and issues related to civil rights and civil liberties.

HMGT 2460 - Introduction to Nutrition Science: This course provides an introduction to the relationship between nourishment, lifestyle choices and long-term health. Topics include classes, sources and functions of nutrients and their digestion, absorption and metabolism. The course investigates eating patterns using database technology demonstrates the relationship between food consumption and nutrition adequacy along with the economic, cultural and psychological implications of food choices and eating behaviors.

HIST 2620 - United States History Since 1865: This course covers U.S. History from the Civil War to the present.

MDSE 2750 - Consumers in a Global Market: This course provides cross-cultural comparisons using systems, human needs, and consumer behavior frameworks. The course uses integrated critical, empirical and creative thinking processes to develop a global perspective that is sensitive to diverse consumers’ needs and preferences for products and services in a global market. This class helps students gather the tools necessary for full engagement in the undergraduate experience by having them examine their own value systems and compare and contrast them with other cultures’ in a consumption context. This course requires students to think critically, articulate views, cultivate self-awareness, balance and an openness to change, and engage with others in thoughtful and well-crafted communication.