Applied Humanities: Consumer, Market & Retail Studies Emphasis
Bachelor of Arts
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Learn technical, practical, and professional knowledge in the Bachelor of Arts in Applied Humanities: Consumer, Market & Retail Studies program. This degree combines skills essential to the design, marketing, and sales of products with the cognitive, creative, and interpersonal intelligence of the humanities.
You'll learn fundamental retailing/consumer science perspectives and how to apply them to public-facing, community-connected, and humanities-oriented projects. You'll also gain a consumer-centric perspective into the dynamic world of retailing and its many businesses. You’ll discuss current industry developments and focus on practical business decisions that increase profitability. Other fundamental skills areas include supply chain management, leadership, ethics, and more.
This degree is ideal if you’re interested or already working in marketing, retail, or consumer services. Upon graduation, you'll also have a range of diverse career options, including management, marketing, and product design/distribution.
*Residents of some U.S. Territories may not be eligible. Please see our Eligibility & State Authorization page for more information.
The core curriculum for this program include:
Gain insight into the dynamic world of retailing and many facets of retailing from a consumer-centric perspective. Explore how a retail business works, the issues and challenges involved in retailing, and the future of retailing. Topics include retail management and business practices, consumer behavior, and career options in this exciting industry.
This course is essential for anyone seeking a career in the retailing industry in fields such as merchandising, buying, planning, retail marketing, operations, sales, and brand management. Topics include retail planning and control procedures, computing prices and markups, inventory control, sales reporting, productivity metrics, and retail calendar impact.
Explore consumer behavior and the decision-making processes involved when individuals or groups select, purchase, use, or dispose of products and services to satisfy needs and desires. Discuss consumer behavior theories and practical applications of the concepts to real-world consumption activities.
Build essential skills to identify market opportunities, change processes, and solve business problems. Explore the principles and methods of business research, use of shopper data, and commonly used business research techniques within the retail sector. Topics include identifying the research question, developing a research plan, market and consumer research methods, data collection, sampling, data analysis, and research presentations.
This course focuses on contemporary concepts, principles, and practices of retail operations management. Other topics include operations strategy, process design, capacity planning, inventory control, loss prevention, and project management. The topics are integrated using the retail profit model and a systems model of the operations of a retail organization.
Investigate supply chain challenges, including how to cope with demand and supply uncertainty, how to build and optimize the supply chain organization, global perspectives, and optimization of logistics, inventory, and international trade-related costs.
Explore leadership and management concepts and practices that lead to more effective, ethical, and socially responsible organizations. Build your professional leadership capabilities in organizational planning, business decision-making, negotiation and influence, teamwork, employee motivation and training, organizational goal setting, and business communications. Develop skills for managing the challenges and opportunities of diversity and cultural differences within organizations and the global marketplace. Evaluate and reflect on your career path and career development.
Outcomes
Skills
Earning your Bachelor of Arts in Applied Humanities: Consumer, Market & Retail Studies Emphasis will build core skills, including:
- Abstract and critical thinking
- Analytical abilities
- Collaboration
- Entrepreneurial skills
- Innovation development
- Intercultural competence
- Leadership
- Opportunity recognition
- Oral communication
- Organizational skills
- Problem solving
- Professionalism
- Resource mobilization
- Storytelling
- Strategic planning
- Written communication
- Flexibility
Potential Career Paths
Graduates of the BA in Applied Humanities: Consumer, Market & Retail Studies program will be prepared to pursue the following careers:
