Associate of Arts in Legal Studies

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 In this course, students receive instruction in academic reading and writing, including writing processes, effective use of language, analytical thinking, and the foundations of academic research.  

In this course, students receive instruction in critical thinking for purposes of constructing, evaluating, and composing arguments in a variety of rhetorical forms, using primarily non-fiction texts, refining writing skills and research strategies developed in College Reading and Writing. 

 An introductory course in argumentation and debate, this course covers research into, and critical analysis of, major public issues through written and spoken formats. The course will provide practice in persuasive speaking, writing and formal debate, with emphasis on research, organization, logical proof, and effective presentation. Students will engage in analysis and critical deconstruction of written and spoken presentations. Students will also learn how to understand and avoid fallacies in their persuasive presentations. 

 Historical survey of the European colonization of North America and of the United States through Reconstruction, emphasizing the interaction of political, military, diplomatic, economic, geographic, and social factors in the evolution of American culture.  

 This course is an introduction to moral philosophy, exploring questions such as "What is a good life?", "What makes an action right or wrong?", and "Where does morality come from?" Students will analyze ethical theories such as utilitarianism, deontology and virtue ethics and apply these theories to moral problems such as abortion, animal rights, and euthanasia. 

 This course is an introduction to government and politics in the United States and California. Students examine the constitutions, structure, and operation of governing institutions, civil liberties and civil rights, political behaviors, political issues, and public policy using political science theory and methodology. 

 This course provides an overview of the American legal system including its development, structure and history. The course will review the legal and judicial process in the United States covering the adversarial system, jurisdiction of federal and state courts, and the general process of judicial review. Explanation of different sources of law including statutes, court cases and administrative agency rules. Review of basic legal reasoning and introductory research methods. Introduction to civil law, criminal law, family law, real property law, contracts, employment, immigration, intellectual property, and other areas of law. Also included is a review of the principles of legal ethics. 

 This course is an introduction to statistical thinking and processes, including methods and concepts for discovery and decision-making using data. Topics include descriptive statistics; probability and sampling distributions; statistical inference; correlation and linear regression; analysis of variance, chi-squared, and t-tests; and application of technology for statistical analysis including the interpretation of the relevance of the statistical findings. Students apply methods and processes to applications using data from a broad range of disciplines. COS Expanded Description: This is an introductory course in probability and statistics covering both descriptive and inferential statistics. Statistical software will be used throughout this course. 

 Introduction to Criminal Justice offers an overview of the criminal justice system, including law enforcement, the courts, corrections, and the historical development and evolution of each. Students will examine crime causation theories and the structure, function, and decision-making processes of the criminal justice system from the perspective of the accused, the police, the courts, corrections, and victims. 

 This course explores how anthropologists study and compare human culture. Cultural anthropologists seek to understand the broad arc of human experience focusing on a set of central issues: how people around the world make their living (subsistence patterns); how they organize themselves socially, politically and economically; how they communicate; how they relate to each other through family and kinship ties; what they believe about the world (belief systems); how they express themselves creatively (expressive culture); how they make distinctions among themselves such as through applying gender, racial and ethnic identity labels; how they have shaped and been shaped by social inequalities such as colonialism; and how they navigate culture change and processes of globalization that affect us all. Ethnographic case studies highlight these similarities and differences, and introduce students to how anthropologists do their work, employ professional anthropological research ethics and apply their perspectives and skills to understand humans around the globe.  

 Recommended for most business majors, this course includes an introduction to the U.S. legal system; the relation of ethics to law; administrative, criminal, tort, and labor law; and legal aspects of international trade. Emphasis is on the study of the law of contracts and agency, with case studies, discussion, and analysis 

 This course will provide the student with an understanding of the different cultures in our country by providing an insight into the communicative behaviors each culture possesses. A variety of cultures will be studied, with specific emphasis placed on the different skills in verbal and nonverbal communication, communication climates and language interpretation of those cultures. 

 This is an introductory course focusing on choices of individual economic decision-makers. Topics include scarcity, comparative advantage, market equilibrium, elasticity, cost theory, market structures, factor markets and market failure.

 An introductory course focusing on aggregate economic analysis. Topics include market systems, aggregate measures of economic activity, macroeconomic equilibrium, money and financial institutions, monetary and fiscal policy, international economics, and economic growth.  

 This course focuses on the identification and analysis of contemporary social problems, including topics such as: drug abuse, deviant sexual behavior, violence, crime, inequities of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation, and inequalities within our social institutions. Special attention will be given to (1) the role of power and ideology in the definition of social problems, (2) their causes and consequences, (3) evaluations of proposed solutions, and (4) methods of intervention.