Graduates with a technical and business background are in great demand today. The BA physics curriculum for students going into business is designed to fulfill the needs of business students for science literacy, societal topics, and pre-requisites for the Master of Business Administration program. The program is flexible, leaving time for many interests. In fact, the program includes a 9-hour "special-emphasis area" at the 3000+ level in business or any other chosen field. Two types of business minor degrees can be obtained using these 9 hours, and five other minors are obtainable with only one additional business course.

In an increasingly competitive job market, a resume that stands out can be a major bonus. The broadly trained science student can best fill the widely divergent needs of an increasingly technological society. A survey by Kansas State University of approximately 320 university departments lends credibility to this statement. In the survey, KSU asked each department if a physics major would be considered ÒacceptableÓ for graduate study in their own special field. In business administration, 90% of the departments would accept such a student without any reservations.

Students completing this curriculum should be among the best-equipped business people our nation has to offer.

Medicine in the 21st century will surely be highly technological. Even today many important medical devices (MRI, PET, CAT) require knowledge of physics to interpret their results. As one indication of the importance the medical profession places on such technical knowledge, a significant fraction of the MCAT exam used for screening medical school applicants is devoted to physics. Medical researchers in particular need a good knowledge of physics. Thus, it has been found historically that medical school applicants with physics undergraduate degrees have high acceptance rates.

The BA physics curriculum for pre-medical students is especially designed to fulfill the needs of pre-medical students for science literacy, societal topics, and pre-requisites for admission to medical school. The program is flexible, leaving time for many interests. In fact, the program includes a 9-hour "special emphasis area" at the 3000+ level in any chosen field.

Students completing this curriculum should be among the best-prepared medical school applicants our nation has to offer.

What will the legal profession be like in the 21st century? Many law schools see the growing role of science and technology in our society as altering the kind of background that lawyers will find valuable in their careers. Already certain fields such as patent law, forensics, environmental law, health law, products liability law, and food and drug law, are making technical demands on the profession that it finds itself ill-equipped to handle. This has led to reliance on outside technical consultants, and raises the new problem of communication with these experts.

The BA physics curriculum for pre-law students is designed to fulfill the needs of pre-law students for technical topics, science literacy, and societal topics. The program is flexible, leaving time for many interests. In fact, the program includes a 9-hour "special emphasis area" at the 3000+ level in any chosen field.

Students completing this curriculum should be among the best-prepared law school applicants our nation has to offer.

There is a growing need for journalists who are skilled in interpreting and reporting the increasing amount of science-related and technology-related news today, for example news about the environment, about high technology businesses, about advances in medicine, and about breakthroughs in basic science. According to Dr. Patsy Watkins, Chair of the UA Department of Journalism, "Science writing is a lucrative field. There are few reporters out there with sufficient background in science to do a creditable job."

The BA physics curriculum for journalists is designed to fulfill the needs of journalists for technical topics, science literacy, and societal topics. Dr. Watkins states that "The courses suggested and the sequencing of them seems very logical and reasonable to me. We in Journalism would be delighted for you to recommend this plan to your students." The 9-hour "special emphasis area" at the 3000+ level allows stuydents to complete the BA in journalism simultaneously with the physics BA.

Students completing this curriculum should be among the best-prepared science reporters our nation has to offer.

Many studies have shown that our nation is in great need of teachers who are well-versed in the sciences. There is a particular need for science teachers at the middle school and high school level. Our society needs scientifically literate high school graduates who can fill a wide variety of technology-related jobs and who can fulfill responsible roles as voters and citizens. Physics has a vital role to play, both providing general science literacy and in providing knowledge needed for technology-related jobs

The Department of Physics, in cooperation with the College of Education, has designed a physics curriculum for pre-education students (middle level education or secondary education) that fulfills the requirements for the BA physics degree while also fulfilling the pre-education requirements specified by the College of Education for entry into the Master of Arts in Teaching program. In addition, the suggested curriculum leaves approximately 8-15 credit-hours free for electives that may be chosen in a second scientific field such as chemistry, biology, or geology. Thus, upon obtaining teacher certification, the BA physics graduate will be well qualified to teach physics, physical science, and at least one other science.

Physics can be beneficial for students planning careers in nearly any field. Examples include literature (technical writing, science-related fiction), history (history of science), music (acoustics, electronic music), political science (armaments, medicine, etc.), agriculture (scientific methods in agriculture), drama (influence of modern physics, science-related drama), and philosophy (philosophy of science, science and the human condition). And of course physics is related in many ways to other sciences such as astronomy, chemistry, geology, biological sciences, psychology, sociology, anthropology, archeology, paleontology, computer sciences, and mathematics.