College Life
College Life
Private Schools That Are Well Known for This Major
- University of Pittsburgh
- St. John's University
- Ball State University
- University of La Verne
- Webster University
State Schools That Are Well Known for This Major
- University of Central Florida
- University of Alaska—Anchorage
- University of Illinois—Springfield
- University of Maryland—College Park
- American Military University
Classes in the Major
Policing and Society. The first step in the legal system is the police. They're the ones who investigate and arrest people, which we're only telling you in case you've never seen any TV show or movie ever. Even though lawyers aren't involved until a little later on, it's valuable to understand where it all begins. If only because this is where the first mistakes get made. That's useful for the prosecution or defense to know.
Foundations of Legal Studies. This is the basic course, the one that's like, "What's going on with all this law?" It's going to tell you where everything starts by giving you a historical and cultural framework for the rest of it. The rest of your major is going to be built on top of this course. That's why it's called a "foundation." They have a whole metaphor thing going on. It's beautiful. No one has ever successfully built the top floor of a house before the bottom one.
Theories of Justice. This debate goes all the way back to the time when one caveman knocked another one over the head, and a third caveman was all, "Thag, that's not cool." What's the difference between justice and revenge? How do you even figure this out? This course is a whole lot more complex than that. You'll be getting an earful about a bunch of crazy smart guys who tried to figure out the answer to questions like those. We all like fairness, sure, but what does that mean? Hopefully, this class will give you a satisfying answer.
Legal Discourse. There are a whole bunch of these, and they're each marked by a time period. Basically, you're learning how the law developed over time and what influenced it. You're also going to see that some of the laws we use today have ridiculously ancient origins, proving that once humans stopped getting eaten by cave bears all the time, we had good ideas.
International Human Rights. Did you know that there are laws all over the world? Seriously. Would we lie to you? There's even something called international law, which applies, well, internationally. It's right there on the label. These are tied up in the idea of human rights, which, if you recall, the founding fathers were pretty keen on. You'll need to understand the rights of all human beings, including those who have committed a crime.