Jessica Bills -- 8 new majors offered by California Baptist University.
The job market is healthy in many industries and California Baptist University has developed several new majors, and a few minors, that will help students get hired.
The majors developed for this fall are mostly in the healthcare field: Clinical Health Science, Communication Disorders, Health Education, Healthcare Administration, Pre-Physical Therapy. Construction Management is the only new major that is not.
Two new minors include, Creative Writing and Leadership Studies.
The growth rate in the Health Industry, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is 22 percent on a national average compared with national average for all jobs: 11 percent.
“Healthcare in general will provide twice as many jobs as all other jobs combined,” Chuck Sands, dean of allied health, said.
The chosen majors were picked after research and study on the feasibility of these jobs.
The big questions when deciding on introducing new ma- jors are, “Is it marketable … is going to benefit them, but also can we provide them a strong potential for a job, no guarantees. We cannot do that, but a very strong potential for a job opportunity that is what lead us to choose these majors,” Sands said.
Students moved into each one of the new majors quickly. There are currently about 20 students in each.
“Before the school offered this major I planned on majoring in biology, I am glad that the pre-physical therapy major is offered now because it is focused precisely on my career,” Melanie Cortes, pre-physical therapy major, said.
The Pre-Physical Therapy major is moving towards a Masters in physical therapy. Before this was offered, the course work was much different.
“In the past… we had health science as a major and inside that a concentration for physical therapy. The concern that I had was that those students were not getting appropriate kinesiology based movement and anatomy courses … going to physical therapy school they need to know more about the body,” Sands said.
Working with a purpose and a passion for healing, Cortes’ goal is to “become a physical therapist.”
In the new major of Clinical Health Science which is a narrow to be eligible because “it is designed for students that have already earned an associate’s degree in science and they have some kind of clinical licensing,” Sands said.
Even though it is narrow, Afua Nwachukwu was able to move into this major because of her AS degree and being a Certified Medical Assistant.
Feeling that “this major would be a great stepping stone to help guide me towards my future education and career goal,” Nwachukwu said, she made the change.
Sands indicated there is one more possible major, Nutrition and Dietetics, that could be of- fered next fall, but no final decisions have been made.
“If you choose healthcare administration the opportunity for you to get a job is two to three times greater than if you choose another major and your median salary right now is about 80,000 dollars a year,” Sands said.
