If you want to become involved in the growing area of intellectual property law (such as patent law and Internet law), the STS degree will provide you with an ideal background. You'll have a good menu of courses to choose from our tracks in law, values, and public policy; engineering and society; and information and society. Likewise, if you want to become an environmental lawyer, there is no better undergraduate degree than our Science, Technology, and Society major. The department offers courses in law, public policy, and the environment, and you can also take courses throughout the university in environmental science and engineering. Or, if you want to work on health law or health care policy, you'll find many courses that meet your needs. What's more, our location near one of the nation's major state capitals will give you a chance to get valuable experience in the legislative process, law firms, and various state agencies. Courses in the STS major track in law, values, and public policy will equip you for the courts of the twenty-first century. You'll study today's topics: the environment, medical technologies, and computer ethics, to name a few. And you'll have the opportunity to do a public service internship in a law department of a state agency. In addition to taking the traditional pre-law curriculum of history, political science, and other social science and humanities courses, you will also take the science core and earn the equivalent of a minor in a technical field (the "technical option" sequence). As a result you'll have all the pre-law coursework you need, but you'll be at an advantage because you'll also have the science and technology background that many of your fellow law students will lack. You may choose among several options. One is to pursue a traditional four-year program that will allow you room for experimentation, a dual major, or a minor in a pre-law field such as political science. Another is to pursue our accelerated five-year master's program in STS. This is especially valuable if you plan to go on and do legal work in a non-profit or government setting. A third possibility is the accelerated pre-law program. For especially well-qualified students, the STS Department offers accelerated programs with the law schools of Albany, Columbia, and Cornell. The flexibility of the STS degree allows you to complete all your basic requirements for a B.S. in STS in just three years. Usually, you spend seven years getting an undergraduate and a law degree--four for your undergraduate degree and three for your law degree--but with this program you earn both degrees in just six years.

Here's how it works:

1. FIRST YEAR FALL
   • Calculus I
   • Science Sequence I
   • Intro to STS
   • H&SS elective
2. FIRST YEAR SPRING
   • Calculus II
   • Science Sequence II
   • Law, Values, and Public Policy
   • H&SS elective
3. SECOND YEAR FALL
   • Environment and Society*
   • Computer Science I
   • Technical Option I**
   • H&SS elective
4. SECOND YEAR SPRING
   • Contemporary Political Thought*
   • STS Methods/statistics
   • Science Core elective
   • Technical Option II**
   • H&SS elective
5. THIRD YEAR FALL
   • Philosophy of Law*
   • Science Core elective
   • H&SS elective
   • Technical Option III**
6. THIRD YEAR SPRING
   • STS Public Service Internship
   • STS Senior Project
   • H&SS elective
   • Technical Option IV**
7. FOURTH YEAR
   • Law school, first year

*Or other approved STS course.

**The equivalent of a minor in a school outside the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, that is, in the Schools of Architecture, Engineering, Management, or Science.