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BVU Storm Lake Campus

Art

Is expression your passion? Do you admire how skillfully creativity can be used to seek truth, depict beauty, conjure fiction, and uncover ugliness? Or are you driven by your own desire to create, to make the next work so unique that we don’t yet have words to describe it?
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Art History

The courses that form the art history minor provide focused study in major figures and movements over the centuries, from the Pre-Historic through the Renaissance to the Baroque and Modern.
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Biology

Did you know that the largest organism in the world is a set of aspen trees in Utah that share the same root system? Or at least it could be. Depending on how you define what constitutes a single living system, the Great Barrier Reef might be the largest, or it could be a 2,200-acre fungus in Oregon. And that doesn’t even ask the question of how you even define life itself.
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Business

Made up of selected courses from the business core, the business minor develops a versatile background that you can apply to other courses of study to benefit your future career.
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Chemistry

Do you know so much about the periodic table that you’ve memorized it? If you have, that’s great! You certainly have ‘chemistry’ with the subject. Chemistry, however, is more than tables and test tubes. Chemists apply their skills to a variety of contemporary challenges. They find ways to improve our health by developing and improving new drugs, healthier food items like salt substitutes, and medical procedures like dialysis. They invent new substances and enhance existing inventions by understanding properties of atoms and how they can be combined to form useful compounds.
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Chinese

In addition to a Spanish major and minor (see Spanish), Buena Vista University offers language
instruction using a combination of on-campus offerings and exchange programs.
Read More about Chinese at BVU

Communication Studies

The ability to effectively communicate is among the most widely applicable life and career skills you can develop. It can help you land a job and keep it. It can help you advance your career and maintain personal relationships. All that we do conveys important information about ourselves to others. Learning to carefully consider and craft the messages we send is of paramount importance in the information age.
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Computer Science

A few decades ago, it would have seemed unbelievable that a day would soon come when computers would be installed in everything from new cars to children’s toys, phones would take pictures and send messages by text, and a social network called Facebook would connect one-twelfth the world’s population. Technology will only continue to grow – and with it will grow the need for people who understand and further technology.
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Criminology and Criminal Justice

Criminology is a science that seeks to understand crime, its causes, effects and its prevention. Criminal justice concerns methods of law enforcement and judicial action. Studying both in combination provides you with a thorough view of theory and the criminal justice system, making you professionally and theoretically prepared to stand up for what’s right.
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Digital Media

Contemporary life is a whirlwind of information. You can tune in, log on, switch to, or pick up ideas and art and designs just about anywhere. Media is culture – and it's everywhere. As you read, watch and listen, take note: it could be you reporting live, taking the next important picture, writing an award-winning article (or blog), or editing the next great viral video sensation.
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Economics

Are you curious how companies decide how much to pay their employees? Or how the decisions of farmers, food distributors, and grocery stores determine how much you pay for an ear of corn? By studying economics, you’ll apply problem solving, theory and mathematics to better understand how processes like these work – and how you might be able to make them work more efficiently.
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English

Who wrote your favorite book? What was compelling about the writer's ability to describe a situation or bring a personality to life? Perhaps you feel driven to write yourself, capturing your thoughts and the world around you in words and phrases, written and spoken. As an English student, you’ll learn how to increase the effectiveness of your self-expression as you develop composition skills for professional success and a literary background for personal fulfillment.
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Environmental Science

How do you save the world? This isn't a rhetorical question. It's being asked with increasing urgency by scientists, governments, businesses, and concerned individuals. When they need an informed perspective on how to work towards its answer, they listen to people with an environmental science background.
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Exercise Science - Coaching

All athletes – from Little Leaguers to Olympians – don’t do it on their own. No matter how skillful, graceful, and powerful, they need great coaches to recognize their talents, challenge their weaknesses, and inspire them as they improve their games.
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Exercise Science - Health Education

The health education minor helps qualify you to teach elementary, middle, and high school health courses. If you want to become a coach or physical education teacher, the minor can help you develop skills to better promote healthy living through your athletics curriculum.
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Gender and Women's Studies

The interdisciplinary women's studies program explores the construction and representation of gender, race, class, and sexuality through courses in social work, philosophy, literature and theatre. As a student, you’ll also explore the perspectives of women and other traditionally marginalized groups, examining ignored and suppressed contributions to knowledge, history, and culture.
Read More about Gender and Women's Studies at BVU

German

In addition to a Spanish major and minor (see Spanish), Buena Vista University offers language instruction using a combination of on-campus offerings and exchange programs.
Read More about German at BVU

Graphic Design & Visual Communication

To be a successful visual designer, talent and passion are musts, but they aren’t all you’ll need. As a graphic design & visual communication student, you’ll develop your artistic abilities alongside your skills in corporate communication and media studies. You’ll learn both how to produce graphic art and apply it to a career.
Read More about Graphic Design & Visual Communication at BVU

History

What is history? More than memorizing dates and names, it’s a method of tracing who we are in today’s world by understanding who we were.
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International Studies

An understanding of the world in which we live and work and an ability to relate to the people who populate that world are considered essential ingredients in a liberal arts education.
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Japanese

In addition to a Spanish major and minor (see Spanish), Buena Vista University offers language instruction using a combination of on-campus offerings and exchange programs.
Read More about Japanese at BVU

Mathematics

Mathematics is perhaps the most fundamental tool we have to describe the universe. Numbers, formulas, and algorithms help us understand the rules that govern the natural world by explaining everything from the massive scale of planetary motion down to the behavior of subatomic particles. They help us to predict how businesses will develop, allowing us to make stock market predictions. They quantify human behavior through the social sciences. They advance technology through their roles in computing and programming.
Read More about Mathematics at BVU

Music

Whether conducting an orchestra, playing in a band, leading a classroom or selecting an iPod playlist, there are many ways in which music forms an important part of life’s rhythms. Studying it in-depth at BVU allows you to hone your talents as part of a supportive community of talented students and professors.
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Music Production & Technology

You don’t just listen to music, you stream it. You beam it to your car by satellite, shuffle it on your iPod, and maybe even spin it on classic vinyl. To call it just ‘music’ seems limiting: audio today includes remixes, podcasts, and compositions made entirely with – and sometimes even written by – computers. That’s good news if you want to make music your career: you can do on a home computer today what decades ago would have required signing with a label. It’s never been easier to make quality music and help it find an audience.
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Philosophy and Religion

Some questions are meant to be answered while others are meant to be pondered. The disciplines of philosophy and religion explore and debate concepts that are often not definitively knowable. Though supported by evidence, they depend on faith and reasoned argument. These questions, ideas, and belief hold profound influence on society. On a personal level, they may be highly meaningful to you – even the basis for how you live your life. Studying them in-depth can encourage you in your own understanding of the world and beyond.
Read More about Philosophy and Religion at BVU

Physics

Physicists study how the natural world behaves at basic levels: the motion of matter and the forces that govern it. Even though these properties may seem simple, they can be used to address many challenging, contemporary questions: How do we decrease our carbon footprint? Where are we going to get energy for the next 50 years? Why is gravity so weak? How can we stretch computers to the physical limits to increase their processing power?
Read More about Physics at BVU

Political Science / Public Administration

Even though members of a society hold different opinions and values, they must agree on certain rules and procedures in order to get things accomplished Working in the public and private sectors, professionals skilled in politics and public administration implement policies and bring together large groups of people with very different agendas and get them to move in a singular direction.
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Psychology

What is it about people that causes them to act the way they do? Understanding the human mind can show you how to best encourage people through difficult times, help businesses get the most from their workers, allow advertisers to make informed choices about what will appeal to a particular market, and increase the chances of diffusing dangerous situations peacefully. As a psychology major, you’ll learn about behavior and mental processes – both the normal and the aberrant – as you seek to understand why people are the way they are and the human possibilities for change.
Read More about Psychology at BVU

Sales

How does something become all the rage...the iPad everyone must have, the Wii that outsells its more technologically powerful competitors, the next big toy that dominates the holiday season and has customers flocking to the stores at 5 a.m. just for a chance to buy one? Many goods and services become popular not just because of their quality, but because of the marketing teams who shape their images and salespeople who provide them to consumers.
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Social Studies

Why do people live how they live? And what can be done to address their problems? The disciplines of the social sciences seek to understand questions the address human order and disorder, and the possibilities of change for the better. Though the social studies minor, you’ll take courses from economics, history, government psychology, and sociology, learning how to teach their basic concepts to the next generation.
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Sociology

Why do people live how they live? And what can be done to address their problems? Sociology seeks to understand how people behavior in groups, applying critical and empirical methods to analyze human behavior and attitudes.
Read More about Sociology at BVU

Spanish

Spanish has more native speakers worldwide than any other language except Mandarin, including nearly 35 million in the United States. Being able to communicate with it can help your business reach out to growing segments of the population and enable you to better connect with the community around you.
Read More about Spanish at BVU

Theatre

The lights go down. A crowd falls silent. For a moment, you can hear everyone breathe in. Not just the audience in their seats but the actors backstage waiting to enter stage left; the crew on the catwalks high above the proscenium; and the light and sound techs in the booths at the back of the house. It’s the excitement of a performance about to begin. What part would you like to play in creating that feeling?
Read More about Theatre at BVU

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