BSM 150: Business Start-up Strategies
Students in this course are exposed to basic issues in starting a business. Topics may include capitalization, staffing, subcontracting, permits, facilities, and basic business planning. The course offers students practical exercises to begin strategic development of a business and offers practical problems and issues in the startup phase of building a successful organization.
BSM 220: Principles of Marketing
In this course, students study the nuances of promotion, advertising, and consumer spending, and how those concepts can be applied to getting the word out about a company, product or service. Students learn about planning effective advertising campaigns by analyzing public demand for a particular product or service, and the products offered by the competition. Students also learn about the different methods of marketing, and how technology has impacted the way marketing is handled for both big and small companies.
BSM 255: Project Management
This course prepares students to develop and implement project plans when working to complete assigned projects. Topics in this course may include defining project goals and objectives, specifying tasks or how goals will be achieved, establishing needed resources for project completion, and associating budgets and completion timelines. Students study the major phases of project management including project feasibility, planning, implementation, evaluation, and support. Project management software will be used by students to gain an understanding of how to best organize and delegate their project. Students gain an understanding of how to manage projects and how these skills may be applied to an individual project or a group project.
CSC 100: Student Success Fundamentals
This course serves as an introduction to the necessary core skills needed to be successful at an academic, professional, and personal level. Students will identify core skills, values, and interests to assist in their path to success. Topics covered in this course may include time management, effective study skills, written and oral communication, improving critical thinking to enhance problem-solving skills. Other topics may include job search techniques and job etiquette, and on-the-job behavior. Students will work towards building their professional development through various assignments and topics throughout the course. Students will explore Laurus College resources for success inside and outside the classroom.
ENG 100: English Composition I
English provides students with the basic rhetorical foundations to prepare them for the demands of academic and professional writing. Students in this course will learn and practice the strategies and processes that successful writers employ when communicating information. These strategies include reading analytically and strategically, improving reading comprehension, writing persuasively, writing for investigative purposes, problem-resolution, evaluation, explanation, and refutation.
ENG 200: English Composition II
English provides students with the basic research foundations and skills to prepare them for the demands of academic and professional writing. Students in this course will learn and practice the strategies and processes that successful writers employ when researching topics and information to prepare reports and arguments. The course will culminate with a written research paper and the presentation of the student’s research for peer response.
HUM 120: Introduction to Sociology
This course introduces tools used by sociologists to explore and understand society. Social relationships, social structures and processes are explored.
HUM 140: Introduction to Psychology
Psychology is the science of behavior and mental processes. In this class, students will dive into what makes themselves and others behave the way they do. Topics covered in this class include Neuroscience, Sensation and Perception, Learning, Memory, Thinking and Intelligence, Developmental Psychology, Personality Theories and Assessment, Social Psychology, Abnormal Psychology, and Workplace Psychology. This class will be focused more on behavior as it pertains to the workplace rather than the clinical side of Psychology.
MTH 101: Introductory Algebra
This course provides students with a conceptual understanding of algebra by using problem solving applications in context to real-world application. Students will integrate meaningful applications with relevant data, graphs, tables, charts, colors, and diagrams.
WDD 101: Internet Fundamentals
This course introduces students to the World Wide Web. Students examine the history of the web and how its development has shaped the ways people do business and advertise. Students gain an understanding for the complexity of the web and how servers, users, and databases all work, search, access information, and download simultaneously. Topics in this course may include the basics of HTTP, FTP, HTML language and tags, coding styles, links, image placement, and image maps. Students learn the importance of web page appearance and navigation. Students are introduced to the basics of initial web page planning and production, and learn key terminology applied to web page creation and implementation.
WDD 110: Digital Graphics
This course introduces students to Adobe Photoshop, the fundamental graphics application and image editing software used in the computer graphics industry. Students learn the fundamentals of this software, and will study topics including selections, layers, masking, filters, image manipulation and correction, composition, painting, and optimization for the web. Students examine techniques for efficient editing, processing, and file handling. Topics in photo editing may be studied, including color enhancement, lighting correction, and overall retouching.
WDD 130: Website Fundamentals
In this course, students will learn how to reproduce common web design layout patterns to quickly create websites that are easy to understand and navigate. Students learn to create more complex multi column designs to make their pages easier to read and understand. Students learn the basics of wireframing and planning as they take first steps towards building custom layouts utilizing design patterns. Students review the anatomy of web pages and examine common workflows as well as build confidence via critiquing both their peers and ready-made examples.
WDD 150: Creative Design
Vector graphics are ideal for simple or composite drawings that need to be device-independent, or do not need to achieve photo-realism. In this course, students learn how to use a computer software program to create and edit vector-based graphic images for use within a web page. Applying the principles of graphics design, students will create and edit images for use within a web page. Other topics may include drawing and various artistic techniques to produce visual graphics effective for the web.
WDD 160: Graphic Design Basics
This course introduces students to the basics of design theory as it relates to web design. Students gain an understanding of the effective use of design elements such as points, lines, colors, shapes, & space to create examples that emulate current web design trends. Students are introduced to building common layouts using design elements to create intentional visual hierarchies using visual weight and basic design principles. Students work with wireframes to create custom prototypes of web pages and other design solutions and learn to incorporate peer critiques into their designs. Additional topics include art history, typography, color theory, and designing for different audiences.
WDD 170: Web Page Authoring
In this course, students gain an understanding of the basics of responsive design techniques. Students work towards creating responsive web pages using current techniques. In addition, students are introduced to common CSS frameworks to improve the speed and accuracy of building web solutions. Students work building pages utilizing common design patterns and elements through frameworks. Topics include media queries, percentage-based widths, image DPI, and modifying previously learned patterns to be responsive to different screen sizes.
WDD 210: Digital Solutions
In this course, students gain an understanding of the PHP scripting language. This server-side language is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML documents. Students in this course will learn how to write programs to store and retrieve data, build arrays, work with control structures, and build contact forms. Students are introduced to sessions and cookies, custom functions, uploading files, and working with common programming elements.
WDD 230: Web Framework Fundamentals
In this course, students will learn the basics of installing and managing popular Content Management Systems (CMS). This class will explore the creation and implementation of custom themes as well as the process of managing accounts, comments, pages, posts and other common CMS tools. Students will also study techniques to craft and display blog posts and other content. Topics include writing and installing plugins using popular scripting languages such as PHP, creating custom templates, and modifying the user interface.
WDD 240: Digital Business Development
In this course students learn to create an online ecommerce solution using popular Content Management Systems (CMS). Students work with ecommerce plugins to transform their projects into websites designed for electronic sales including a means to collect orders, store customer information, work with payment gateways, and protect data. Students will learn to customize their sites for different types of businesses and products and add other common ecommerce elements. In addition, students are introduced to analytics and metrics for CMS sites as well as improving search engine optimization through plugins and other methods.
WDD 250: Client-Side Scripting Fundamentals
In this course students learn the basics of the JavaScript scripting language. Students are introduced to programming elements such as variables, arrays, control structures, functions, and objects. Students gain an understanding of the Document Object Model and learn ways to manipulate HTML and CSS using current best practices. Students create simple common scripts and study how JavaScript can be incorporated into modern web designs. Other topics include DOM selection and events listeners, timers and dates, plus how to plan scripts and work with errors and bugs.
WDD 270: Digital Publishing
This course introduces strategies for creating simple interactive mobile applications. Students will gain an understanding of the basic theory behind creating effective mobile applications as well as techniques for creating custom apps based on common design patterns and interfaces. Topics in this course may include native mobile applications created via Adobe AIR via Adobe Animate CC and hybrid apps created via HTML/CSS & JavaScript.
