Master’s Degree
Explore blog posts highlighting Kent State University’s online master’s degree programs, covering fields such as Music Education, Public Administration, Geographic Information Science, and User Experience. Learn about program rankings, faculty insights, and specialized courses designed to help professionals advance their careers. Discover opportunities for growth and expertise in a variety of disciplines.
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Is gun violence a public health issue? Many Americans would have different answers to this. The truth is, it’s a complicated issue that brings out a lot of passion from each side. There are also political matters and bills that have been passed that have made solving this issue harder. So as we examine if gun violence is a public health issue, we’ll stick to the known facts. Let’s start by defining how our country determines what qualifies as a public health issue.
Few positions within the field of criminology and criminal justice have as much allure in popular culture today as crime scene investigation (CSI) jobs. Of course CSI careers in reality are not exactly like the versions of them you may see on television; their day-to-day work can be more mundane, and they require serious training and education to do them well. But if you are willing to put in the time and energy to channel your inner David Caruso and pursue a CSI career path, you may find it a creative and rewarding opportunity to work on the cutting edge of law enforcement technology.
Whether you currently work in law enforcement or are seeking a new career that will allow you to fight crime and protect your community, becoming a criminal investigator can open a range of challenging and satisfying paths. Being a criminal investigator allows you to operate independently, solve problems, and give back to the community. The role of a criminal investigator can take several different forms, often as detectives or crime scene investigators. However, all criminal investigators share common responsibilities: they collect evidence, interview individuals who are related to a case and testify about their cases in court.1
If you’re wondering how to become a UX designer after years working in another field, Kent State University alum Brian Parsons, MS ’18, has one piece of advice: “Take on any roles you can with a UX-related title in them, even if it’s volunteering.”
Kent State online Master of Science in User Experience Design (UXD) student Kendra Jobes, MS ’19 candidate, has always wanted her work to make an impact on people. When her undergraduate degree in design led to an initial user experience job after college, she quickly learned that she enjoyed developing and using the artistic and technical skill set required for a UX role.
Ken Slenkovich is the assistant dean of Kent State University’s College of Public Health and program director for the school’s online Master of Public Health program. Leveraging his diverse experience as a public health professional, with research endeavors that have focused on the operations of local health departments and community health needs assessment methodologies, Asst. Dean Slenkovich has helped to elevate and enrich our nationally celebrated online MPH program, even authoring an award-winning course for the program.1
Public health careers appeal to different people for different reasons, just as certain universities make more sense for certain individuals. The university you choose should be a conduit through which you can achieve your aspirations, and there are many factors to consider in the selection process. For some the most important of these may be prestige, while others may weigh connections or affordability more heavily.
Geographic information science (GISc) has numerous applications in fields ranging from emergency response and agriculture to finance and real estate, and with GISc jobs set to increase by 14% by 2026,1 a master’s in GISc and a solid understanding of how to apply geographic information systems (GIS) could be what sets you apart in this growing field.
With a projected 10-year job growth rate of over 20 percent,1 the field of user experience (UX) design is exploding right now, and a graduate-level UX degree can help you get into the fast lane of this ever-expanding career track. If you’re forward thinking, curious about UX design trends and someone who thrives in a fast-paced and dynamic environment, you just might have what it takes to be a successful UX designer—at least according to Ben Woods, a UXD professional with nearly two decades of experience and a faculty member at Kent State University.
Part of finding the perfect UX design career is building an awesome portfolio. Below, we’ve provided five easy steps to help you develop a portfolio that is sure to turn heads, helping to give you and your career the opportunity to excel.
What is criminal behavior, and what causes it? How a society answers these fundamental questions plays an essential role in how it responds to crime, from developing crime prevention programs to designing incarceration systems and rehabilitating criminals. As part of this effort, criminologists and experts across related fields such as healthcare, sociology and psychology work toward an understanding of the causes of criminal behavior, both by proposing new theories and testing existing ones.
As user experience (UX) designers consider their long-term career goals, some assume that management is the obvious next step. It’s true that the best managers usually have a background in the field they manage. But management also requires skills for which designers aren’t often trained, including leadership, time management, budgeting and interpersonal skills. Not every talented designer is a good fit as a manager, but for the right person, UX design management can be an immensely rewarding and satisfying career path.
In the world of public administration, there are frequent references to the “public sector.” But what exactly is the public sector? And why does it require such careful attention and monitoring by public officials? Broadly speaking, the public sector refers to any part of a state or national economy that is tied to public programs or services and is controlled by the government.
Of the nearly 323 million individuals who live in the United States, almost seven percent make their home in a food desert. That means more than 23 million Americans, including millions of children, are without consistent or easy access to fresh, nutrient-dense meals and groceries.1 It’s an alarming trend that has accelerated with other changes in modern cities, including suburbanization, growing socioeconomic inequality and increasingly inadequate public transportation. Some of the traumatic effects these food deserts have on public health include growing rates of chronic disease and obesity.
Although various fields of science may differ in how they use the word, a “biome” can generally be defined as a geographically large ecosystem with a shared physical climate. Earth’s biomes can be classified broadly into two overarching categories, terrestrial and aquatic. These are further divided based on climate and on the dominant plants and animals that have evolved to thrive in their specific environmental conditions.
An increased emphasis on interaction with digital platforms in the contemporary world means new career paths for creatives working in digital fields—especially those whose skills lend themselves to user experience (UX) design and development. If you’re a graphic designer thinking about a career change, consider making the switch to UX design.
In a campaign event at Madison Square Garden in 1912, future President Woodrow Wilson said something that could be considered a mission statement for his life’s work: “There is no cause half so sacred as the cause of a people. There is no idea so uplifting as the idea of the service of humanity.”1 After living a life devoted to the public, both in practice and as a scholar, Wilson was uniquely qualified to discuss matters of public service. Twenty-six years earlier, Wilson had published “The Study of Administration,” an essay that served as the foundation for the study of public administration, and which caused Wilson to be enshrined as the “Father of Public Administration” in the United States.
If “public health” refers to caring for the collective health of a population, then “public health economics” is the science of how a society takes on and manages this responsibility with limited resources. Public health policy is broad: While some of it does focus directly on healthcare, other areas as disparate as environmental protection, individual habit change and infectious disease control all contribute to the economics of public health.1 Studies indicate that there are economic benefits to preventing disease, not just for sick individuals, but for society at large.
While crime frequently dominates the news cycle, media outlets often sensationalize the lives of perpetrators while the needs of victims are all too often overlooked. Those most deeply affected tend to have their stories buried and their voices silenced, even as criminals sometimes rise to the status of pseudo-celebrities. Shifting the focus back to victims of crime ensures that these individuals are considered in studies of criminal justice and by policymakers, preventing a one-sided story. This is called victimology: the scientific study of the physical, emotional and financial harm people suffer because of criminal activities.
Good user experience (UX) is good business. The average American internet user spends nearly 24 hours per week on the internet, and best practices in UX design have become crucial not only to success online, but also in the physical world, where online brand and service experiences carry over into other real-time interactions.1 But since the internet is where we largely work, study, socialize and shop today, implementing proven UX design principles can make the difference between successfully engaging users and losing them to competing sites and services.
Evidence-based public health interventions have saved millions of lives since 1854, when Dr. John Snow first identified a public water well as the source of a major cholera outbreak in London. In the decades since, public health interventions have been instrumental in improving the health and well-being of people in large and small communities.1
Nobody likes a 404 page. It’s never the page you were trying to find, and it’s usually not your fault that you ended up there. Standard error messages can be inscrutable, and the typically austere 404 page itself can disconnect the user from the overall site experience, which can sour them to your site and even your brand. So how do you create a 404 page that is dynamic, that easily redirects the user back to the content they want and that’s even a little bit fun?
“Community corrections” refers to any program that supervises offenders outside of the prison system, including probation, parole, work release, day reporting centers or residential “halfway house” programs. Community corrections has a long history in the United States, where there are presently two offenders on parole or probation for every individual currently serving time in prison.1 This long history has yielded many evidence-based practices in community corrections that are proven to decrease recidivism and are less costly than incarceration.2
Learn about NASPAA accreditation and why it’s an important accreditation to have for most MPA programs.
“Terrorism” is a term that holds strong connotations in the United States and across the world. If the Oxford Dictionary defines terrorism as “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in pursuit of political aims,” then we can define counter-terrorism as the lawful protection of civilians against violence and political persecution.
Criminology is a branch of sociology that focuses on the causes, effects and social impact of crimes. In many ways, the social aspect of criminology defines the field. For the criminologist, the ability to shift between conveying information with authority and listening carefully with compassion lies at the heart of communication in criminal justice. No matter what role you fill in this field, communication—both written and oral—is the number one skill you can polish in preparation for a criminology career.
User experience design (UXD) is a strategic design approach that attempts to guide product or platform users through a meaningful and easy-to-navigate experience. While designers can use many methods to help their users navigate a given platform, how users will actually choose to interact remains outside UX designers’ control. Therefore, much of UXD inherently deals with the prediction of human behavior; this can be thought of as the psychology of UX design.
When a website is excellently designed, we tend not to pay attention to the reasons why it’s so great—we simply enjoy it. On the other hand, if a website is difficult to use or frustrating, we’re more likely to take note of exactly what is making our experience so bad. This phenomenon has a name: It’s called the negativity bias, and simply put, it’s the sociological explanation for why we’re more likely to notice a negative experience than a positive one.1 It turns out that negative experiences require more thought for us to process, as they take us away from the experience we expected and demand a shift or adjustment in our thinking and action.2 Unsurprisingly, these moments are more likely to stick with us than a moment that went perfectly according to plan.
As technology evolves, it adapts to our social habits and expectations while simultaneously broadening our awareness of local, national and international current events. In recent years, this has included greater awareness of community-police relations, a few specific instances of which have had tragic outcomes and caused public scrutiny of modern policing tactics. The cumulative impact of these incidents, in conjunction with an increasingly all-encompassing and remotely accessible internet, has necessitated the integration of more and smarter technology into contemporary police work.
Human activity has had an effect on the environment for thousands of years, from the time of our very earliest ancestors. Since Homo sapiens first walked the earth, we have been modifying the environment around us through agriculture, travel and eventually through urbanization and commercial networks. At this point in earth’s physical history, our impact on the environment is so substantial that scientists believe “pristine nature,” or ecosystems untouched by human intervention, no longer exist.1