Accelerated programs offer fast-track to master’s degree

Numerous accelerated bachelor’s to master’s (ABM) programs have begun at the University of Rhode Island over the past year, providing students a fast track to a master’s degree.  

The programs allow students to earn both their undergraduate and graduate degree in five years, by applying credits taken as an undergraduate to their master’s degree. Currently, URI offers 21 programs for this, from political science to mechanical engineering.

One ABM program that is available to students is in the Communications department within the Harrington School of Communication and Media. This program is new to the University, and students were able to start enrolling in it during the Fall 2019 semester. Several students are finishing up the program now.

Students are able to fit their master’s program, which typically takes five semesters, into one year because they can get double credit on 400-level courses, which count for both their undergraduate and graduate degrees.

“The benefit of the ABM is that you can double count up to nine credits from your 400-level classes within the Harrington School,” Norbert Mundorf, communications professor and the interim director of the Harrington School, said.

Faculty members encourage students to apply to the program during their junior year of college, but Mundorf said you can get into it your senior year as well.

There are various reasons why students decide to enroll in the program, with one big reason being that they are able to further their learning in their field of study. 

“We’re doing more work with social media, other communication skills, developing social media skills,” Mundorf said.

Mundorf said that the time commitment for this degree, which only takes an extra year, is small when considering that future employers may react positively to a candidate having a master’s degree.

Another ABM degree program at URI is in environmental and natural resource economics. It was created last year and accepted its first students in the fall.

“We’ve already had 12 students in the program, and we’ve had about 18 inquiries in total since we started last year,” Emi Uchida, an environmental and natural resource economics professor and the associate director of the Coastal Institute, said. “I’m really pleased to see that some of our best students are applying and we’re getting a really good pool of great candidates for the ABM program.”

Similar to the communications ABM program, the environmental and natural resource economics program allows students to count up to 11 credits towards both degrees, according to Corey Lang, an associate professor of environmental and natural resource economics. The students who are a part of this typically end up in data-oriented jobs.  

“The master’s degree opens up a whole suite of job opportunities that your students with just a bachelor’s degree might not necessarily have and that’s because as a graduate student, they would be more equipped with more data analysis skills, and more economic theory foundation under their belt,” Uchida said.

She also said that those with this degree can go into fields such as consulting, federal agency jobs or anything that may require economic theory.  

One student who has taken advantage of an ABM program is Karolina Wojcik, who is finishing up her master’s degree in English. Wojcik is the first person to finish the English ABM program at URI.

“I was at the end of my third year when the notification of the new program came out. I had just happened to kind of cross that threshold of the 75 credits, and it looked the perfect thing to do,” Wojcik said.

A benefit Wojcik has found to the ABM program is the ability to grow the relationships she had started forming during her undergraduate degree.

“You can kind of grow the relationships that you have and continue to build upon the work that you’ve already started and, at the same time, earn a master’s degree,” she said.

After she receives her degree this year, she sees herself teaching at a professional level.   

There are many other accelerated programs at URI including Biomedical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Computer Science, History, Human Development and Family Science, Industrial and Systems Engineering, International Studies, Kinesiology, Mechanical Engineering, Nutrition and Dietetics, Pharmaceutical Sciences and Textiles Fashion Merchandising and Design.  There are even more programs that are listed on the URI website.