Master of Arts in Humanities (HUMA) - About This Program

Achieve “the Good Life” ─ as you envision it ─ through critical thinking!

This mind-expanding, graduate-degree program is for college graduates of any age, area of expertise, or stage in their careers who want to become more innovative as problem-solvers and leaders in their communities and workplaces.

Designed especially for those with wide-ranging interests (e.g., business, education, art and lifelong learning), CSUN’s online Humanities program is an excellent choice for those who want to make their lives as meaningful as possible while keeping their options for further exploration and professional development open.

This 20-month, fully online program offers a course of study that emphasizes critical thinking, discussion and reflection. Through these processes, participants discover how to achieve more holistic, effective and fulfilling lives in any profession or area of interest.

The program achieves this outcome with a stimulating curriculum that focuses on humankind’s most important questions, such as:

• What constitutes “the good life”?
• How meaningful are cultural differences?
• What is a just society?
• What is fair treatment?
• How can major challenges be met most effectively?

Prepares graduates for careers, professional advancement and personal re-invention

In today’s constantly evolving work environments, employers are increasingly seeking employees who are flexible enough to apply a broad set of conceptual skills in ways that can meet the unique ─ and ever-changing ─ needs of their organizations.

Moreover, because most of today’s working adults will switch careers during their lives, CSUN’s online Master of Arts in Humanities program is crafted to enable students to develop habits of mind that will facilitate lifelong intellectual exploration, agility and adaptability.

Program Highlights

In this program, participants interact online while learning to:

• think more logically,
• communicate clearly and effectively,
• analyze and synthesize problems, and
• respond appropriately to challenges of any kind.

The program’s academic content synthesizes the best of humanity’s collective wisdom from a wide range of fields, including history, philosophy, ethics, law and religion.

Its online format supports an unusually high level of shared honesty, which results in stimulating discussions of assigned topics. This format also gives students time to reflect on course content and shape their insights before sharing them with fellow learners for feedback and further inspiration.

CSUN online programs share the same distinguished faculty and high academic standards with on-campus programs

This accelerated 20-month program will be fully online, providing midcareer adults with significant flexibility for completing coursework at times and in places that fit their own weekly schedules. All CSUN online programs are crafted by the same distinguished faculty and leading practitioners as CSUN's on-campus programs. CSUN's online programs are held to the same high standards of academic excellence and student achievement. Every online program is taught by CSUN full- and part-time faculty, whose digital engagement with online students is qualitatively equivalent to their engagement with students on campus.

Program cohorts encourage teamwork, support and high graduation rates

While students complete assignments on their own time within a structured schedule, they proceed through this program as a cohort with a limited number of participants, thereby developing a supportive network of fellow learners. The cohort design guarantees registration in all required courses and also typically results in on-time program completion rates of 90 percent or higher.

Exceptional support services designed for working professionals

From application to graduation, students enjoy the one-on-one support of a designated program coordinator and a CSUN faculty member assigned to coordinate the efforts of all teaching in the program. This support frees busy professionals from navigating the University's administrative systems to focus on their studies.