Asian and Asian American Studies

Fish pattern taken from a Ching dynasty (18th-19th century) porcelain dish.

Why Learn About Asia?
The Multicultural Society
The Faculty
Career Potential

AAAS and FALL 2006
Follow the links to....

Learn to speak Chinese in Fall 2006! NEW SECTION ADDED - TuTh 10 - 11:45 a.m.!!!
Consider these classes!
Asian Americans and Education
Examine: 'whiz kids', culture, identity, parental pressure, opportunity, inequality, etc.
Asian Americans and the Law
Examine: 'Who Killed Vincent Chen?', Hate Crimes, Civil Liberties Act,U.S.A. Patriot Ace, and more....
Great Special Topics classes for Fall 2006!

Why Learn About Asia?

We live in a continually shrinking world, yet international cooperative ventures in science, technology, government, and the humanities will continue to increase in the coming decades and provide greatly expanded opportunities for students with specializations in Asian Studies.

Increasingly, national and regional attention is focused on economic, political, and strategic relations with the Pacific Rim and Indian Ocean. Long Beach, California's fifth largest city and the largest port in the Western United States, is already a major link with Asia. The World Trade Center in downtown Long Beach helps to consolidate and expand these linkages. CSULB's Department of Asian and Asian American Studies provides a flexible framework for students to explore Asian societies from and interdisciplinary perspective.

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The Multicultural Society

We also live in an increasingly ethnically diverse society. Cross-cultural understanding and communication are necessary in California's and the nation's multicultural society, and the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies has a fundamental commitment to exploring the subject of the Asian experience in America, both in the international context as well as a distinct ethnic strand in American society.

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The Faculty

The faculty of the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies is comprised of over twenty-five members housed in over a dozen cooperating units at CSULB. The department has given the highest priority to the integration of international and interdisciplinary perspective to its curriculum, and its faculty has achieved a reputation for being committed and enthusiastic teachers and distinguished researchers. They represent a variety of geographic and disciplinary interests, and they are noted for being easy to get to know both in and out of the classroom and for encouraging students to express their views.

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Career Potential

The Asian Studies and Japanese majors are widely recognized as solid backgrounds for many jobs and professions. Job opportunities exist in a wide range of occupations, internationally and domestically, in a number of areas. For example,

International Occupations: United Nations; international lawyer; oil companies; publishing companies; import/export firms; banking; fashion buyer/writer/designer; technical writer for industry, science, engineering or government; bilingual secretary; hotel/motel management; telephone company; translator/interpreter; public relations; international education administrator.

Government Occupations: Foreign Service; Justice Department; U.S. Information Agency (USIA); State Department; Peace Corps; Agency for International Development (AID); Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); National Security Agency (NSA); National Archives; NASA; Department of Commerce; Customs Agent; Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS); Treasury Agent; military service; social work; public personnel administrator.

Teaching and Research Positions: Teaching at college, high school, junior high, and elementary levels; library work; museum work; business research and analysis (R&A); Teaching English as a Second Language (ESL).

Press, Radio, Science and Technology and Others: Foreign and domestic correspondent; T.V. and radio broadcaster, station manager or director; bilingual photojournalist; astronomer; biological scientist; demographer; chemist; geographer; geophysicist; meteorologist; physicist; oceanographer; travel specialist; educational outreach specialist; community health worker.

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