UC Santa Barbara Extension will be offering degree-transferable courses this summer at its UCSB Extension Ventura Center, the first time since 2009, and a UCSB graduate student is among the UC-approved instructors. Nine degree-credit courses will be taught as part of this initiative, called UCSB Extension Special Sessions.
Degree-credit courses ceased to be offered in 2009 when the long-running Off Campus Studies Program was discontinued for financial reasons. In addition to the new initiative, UCSB Extension Ventura Center – which serves the communities of Ventura/Oxnard, Camarillo, and Thousand Oaks/Simi Valley – will continue to offer its regular curriculum of personal and professional development courses.
Communications Ph.D. student Stephanie Robbins will teach a communications class called “Relationships and New Media” (COMM XSB 160SC). The class will explore the growing influence that social networks, smartphones, email, and other such devices and means have on interpersonal relationships.
"The course focuses on the intersection of new media and relational communication, from co-workers to romantic partnerships to parents and children," Robbins said in a UCSB Office of Public Affairs press release. "I hope to take a practical approach. Research shows we can even have better relationships through new media than we do in person. Part of a student's job in this class is to learn to be a critical consumer of that type of media."
For more information about the UCSB Ventura Center and the other offerings on its Special Sessions docket, read the Office of Public Affairs press release and view the video interview with Michael Brown, dean of UCSB Extension, below.