Concentrations
Your OS degree challenges you to meet professional expectations.
At APU, you won’t wait until you’ve landed your first job to demonstrate your talent, knowledge and skill as an outdoor professional.
Whether you’re earning a bachelor’s degree, an OS minor, or a master’s degree in Outdoor and Environmental Education, your classes emphasize practical, structured experience that develops your professional network and adds value to your learning.
Outdoor Studies at APU is an interdisciplinary degree drawing on foundation courses throughout the university. Your classes in communication, ethical and religious values, and social and behavioral science help put today’s OS topics in context. Courses in natural history and outdoor leadership – among many others – develop your ability to apply learning to Alaska-based issues with regional, national and global implications.
Workplace skills are built into each of five OS concentrations at the bachelor’s degree level: Outdoor Entrepreneurship, Adventure Therapy, Snow Science, Land Management and Outdoor Education. Each concentration requires a junior year practicum, pre-professional experience for academic credit. OS students like you have earned practicum credits at places like the Wilderness Society, Denali National Park, the U.S. Forest Service and Alaska Public Lands Information Center, among many others.
Then in your senior year, you’ll demonstrate professional competencies by completing your capstone project. Working closely with your OS faculty mentor, you’ll structure a project that can help position you to enter OS careers, pursue advanced coursework – or both.
