Beginning this semester, the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences is offering intensives: a new option that will allow students to specialize in a topic area and receive a credential for it on their degree.

The 12-unit intensives — which are “not a major or a minor,” the school wrote — are made up of three classes in a specialized area.

The idea began when James Bullock, the dean of Dornsife, was interviewing for the job. At the time, there were a lot of conversations within Dornsife about how to better prepare students for the early job market and graduate school. Bullock said they recognized that students were picking up marketable skills in classes, but didn’t necessarily have a way to document them.

“Students from [humanities] majors are often at a disadvantage when they apply for that first job,” Bullock said in an interview with the Daily Trojan. “It’s like, ‘Okay, great, you understand the scope of history, but what are you going to do for me tomorrow?’”

Although the conversation began with Dornsife students at the center, Bullock said they have now shifted to make sure students within any college at USC can benefit from the intensives.

To decide which intensives they were going to offer, the school talked to departments, students and alumni to understand what Dornsife has to offer and what students and employers find valuable, Bullock said.

Intensive options
The school plans to introduce more intensives in the future, Bullock said, and has so far released three: AI for molecular biology, survey design and data analysis, and writing and responsible AI.

“These were the first three we launched because they were the [ones that] had the least roadblocks — the courses existed, there was a lot of excitement and people were ready to teach them,” Bullock said. “Secondly, they were the ones that resonated most with our focus groups.”

Since the goal for the intensives is to offer students access to in-demand skills, the program stipulates that the intensives must be renewed every five years, Bullock said. Then, ones that are less relevant to the job market will be pulled off and replaced with intensives that are more current.

Two of the current intensives focus on artificial intelligence, and that’s by no mistake, Bullock said. When the school talked to employers, they heard over and over again that they wanted people with expertise in their field, but who also knew how to use AI tools “to enable their expertise.”

“[The writing department] has] really been on top of this well before the [AI] wave broke, and it kind of got into the psyche of everybody,” Bullock said, in reference to the writing and responsible AI intensive. “How do you enable rhetorical and creative excellence, and still use [AI] tools to help you do it faster or more effectively?”

Program eligibility

Any student at USC is eligible to add an intensive by scheduling an appointment with a Dornsife advisor.

Bullock said he has already been in communication with the other deans to help spread the word to their students. The goal is that one day, intensives become commonplace at the University.

“We don’t have to do intentional advertising of all of our minors. Students know that we have minors, and [the intensives are] going to be the kind of thing that eventually will just be known,” Bullock said.

Though there are no numbers on how many students have signed up yet, Bullock said he’s heard from advisors that there’s a lot of student interest in the program.

As the intensives grow and take their place at the University, Bullock said he hopes that students continue to be at the center of the program.

“The thing I do want to do is really be intentional about engaging with students to figure out what they want, what kind of intensives would be interesting and attractive to them,” Bullock said.