Program Overview

Fashion Merchandising and Management Associate in Applied Science Degree

The Fashion Merchandising and Management Associate in Applied Science Degree program is designed to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the fashion industry and its global reach. The program aims to familiarize students with fashion history and milestones, key business categories within fashion, including women's, men's, and children's ready-to-wear, plus consumer behaviors, marketing, product development, and retail sales.

College and Program Learning Objectives

The program learning objectives are designed to provide students with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in the fashion industry. These objectives include:

• Understanding the fashion industry and its global reach
• Familiarity with fashion history and milestones
• Knowledge of key business categories within fashion
• Understanding of consumer behaviors, marketing, product development, and retail sales

Course Requirements

The program requires the completion of 60 semester credit hours. The course requirements are divided into major core courses, business core courses, and liberal arts and science core courses.

Major Core Courses

The major core courses include:

• FAS1101 Introduction to the Fashion Business (3 Credits): Provides an overview of the fashion industry and its global reach, familiarizing students with fashion history and milestones, key business categories within fashion, including women's, men's, and children's ready-to-wear, plus consumer behaviors, marketing, product development, and retail sales.
• FAS1111 Photoshop and Digital Graphics I (3 Credits): Explores the role of designing visual graphics, introducing Adobe Photoshop, digital concepts, processes, and creativity, with a focus on creating original graphics for promotion and marketing materials.
• FAS2230 Fashion Textiles for Apparel and Home (3 Credits): Provides an overview of the textiles industry, covering fibers, yarns, cloth construction, finishes, and embellishments necessary to determine quality and make appropriate fabric choices for contemporary fashion apparel and home furnishings.
• FAS2245 Merchandise Planning and Buying (3 Credits): Covers contemporary inventory control systems, sales records, and projections, teaching students the retail method of inventory, how to read operating statements, techniques for planning, and formulas to determine mark-ups, markdowns, open-to-buy, and terms of sales.
• FAS2222 Product Development (3 Credits): Examines how color, fiber, and style trends are determined, researched, and analyzed to develop fashion products appropriate to a brand's unique selling proposition and target market, including the product development process, product lifecycle management fundamentals, and strategies to achieve profitability.

Business Core Courses

The business core courses include:

• ACC1111 Financial Accounting I (3 Credits): Introduces the basic structure of accounting terminology and procedures of a business organization, covering recording and reporting functions, adjusting entries and closing entries, the preparation of financial statements, accounting for merchandising operations, valuation of inventories, purpose and significant features of internal controls, and preparation of bank reconciliation.
• CIS1115 Computer Applications (3 Credits): Provides an introduction to computer technology with an emphasis on applications, teaching students to use software such as Microsoft Windows, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.
• CIS2201 Advanced Spreadsheets (3 Credits): Offers experience using spreadsheet applications like Microsoft Excel, covering topics such as building complex worksheets, importing and exporting data, using mathematical, financial, and statistical functions, developing macros, consolidating spreadsheets, creating templates, and utilizing "what if" analyses.
• IBS2201 International Business (3 Credits): Explores the diverse environment, management concerns, financial issues, and marketing questions faced by international business organizations, aiming to heighten global awareness and provide the knowledge and skills needed to function competitively in an increasingly interdependent world.
• MGT2220 Principles of Management (3 Credits): Examines operational theories of management under the functions of planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling, emphasizing the manager's role in creating and maintaining an internal environment for performance.
• MKT2220 Principles of Marketing (3 Credits): Introduces fundamental principles and practices in the marketing process, including a detailed study of each marketing mix tool (product, price, place, promotion), along with an introduction to marketing research, target marketing, SWOT construction and analysis, strategic marketing planning, and consumer behavior.

Liberal Arts and Science Core Courses

The liberal arts and science core courses include:

• ENG1105 Writing and Research (3 Credits): An introduction to expository writing through a comprehensive survey of forms of composition, teaching students to use words with precision and strengthen their understanding and application of grammatical and rhetorical principles.
• ENG2205 Writing Through Literature (3 Credits): Further develops writing, reading, and interpretive abilities through critical engagement with literary texts from a myriad of genres.
• ENG2215 Public Speaking (3 Credits): Designed to help students improve oral communication skills, emphasizing good and poor speech habits, techniques for improving speech, oral interpretation, effective speech planning and delivery, and interpersonal communication.
• HUM2225 Introduction to Ethics (3 Credits): Introduces the study of ethics and moral philosophy, including its historical development, major figures, and ethical and moral issues, presenting the ideas of great thinkers and encouraging students' own thinking on various ethical and moral issues.
• MAT2215 Statistics I (3 Credits): Introduces statistical methods and procedures, acquainting students with the collection, analysis, and presentation of quantitative data, covering basic concepts of probability, frequency distributions, binomial distributions, sampling theory, hypothesis testing, and regression and correlation.
• SOC1123 First Year Experience (3 Credits): Explores challenges students face in pursuing and achieving a college degree, helping them identify perceived challenges, share critical insights, and implement a plan to address and overcome such challenges.
• SOC2231 Human Relations (3 Credits): Develops interpersonal skills for successful everyday interactions, focusing on challenges of workplace relationships, including making a good impression, managing conflict, working on a team, providing exceptional service, and managing on-the-job stressors.

Electives

The program also includes electives in Mathematics/Science, Business, and Fashion, each requiring 3 credits.