Academic Accelerator - Bachelor of Science - Urban Ecology

Program Description

The Academic Accelerator Program (AAP) is a balanced first-year program for international students with good English-language skills. It supplements immersive classes taught in English with just the right amount of support.

Students in the Academic Accelerator receive:

• The right amount of support for their academic and English-speaking needs
• A full year’s worth of college credits
• Access to courses exclusively for international students
• English-language help with words they need to know for their classes
• A mix of classes with international and U.S. students

Urban Ecology is an interdisciplinary field concerned with the interrelationships among social, environmental, and economic systems, with the goal of enhancing the vitality and sustainability of places and communities. The University of Utah’s Urban Ecology program is designed to respond to problems and opportunities that exist in cities, suburbs, small towns, and rural places, for example, environmental management, fragile landscape protection, recreation and tourism, public lands planning, rapid population growth, regional transportation, energy production, and sprawl. Students of the Urban Ecology program take classes in urban ecology, planning, field studies, economics, law and social justice; they can also choose from a variety of electives topics, such as green infrastructure, sustainable development, community leadership and cities in literature. In their senior year, students will do an internship and take on a real-world problem in the Ecological Planning Workshop.