A Certificate of Advanced Study (CAS), also called an Advanced Certificate (AC), Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study (CAGS), or a Certificate of Advanced Professional Studies (CAPS), is a post-Master's academic certificate designed for professional and non traditional students, as well as practitioners who seek a continuing education program to enhance their professional development in fields such as

liberal arts Liberal arts education () is a traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term ''skill, art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically the fine arts. ''Liberal arts education'' can refe ...

education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...

library science Library and information science (LIS)Library and Information Sciences is the name used in the Dewey Decimal Classification for class 20 from the 18th edition (1971) to the 22nd edition (2003). are two interconnected disciplines that deal with info ...

software engineering Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining Application software, software applications. It involves applying engineering design process, engineering principl ...

area studies Area studies, also known as regional studies, is an interdisciplinary field of research and scholarship pertaining to particular geographical, national/ federal, or cultural regions. The term exists primarily as a general description for what a ...

data science Data science is an interdisciplinary academic field that uses statistics, scientific computing, scientific methods, processing, scientific visualization, algorithms and systems to extract or extrapolate knowledge from potentially noisy, stru ...

public policy Public policy is an institutionalized proposal or a Group decision-making, decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions to Problem solving, solve or address relevant and problematic social issues, guided by a conceptio ...

, and

management Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a Government agency, government bodies through business administration, Nonprofit studies, nonprofit management, or the political s ...

Examples

Liberal Arts certificates of advanced graduate study are offered by some institutions that offer master's degrees in interdisciplinary liberal arts. These certificate programs are designed to hone critical thinking skills and personal knowledge of a chosen field, in addition to encouraging professional development. They typically require 30 hours of graduate study beyond the master's degree. For some disciplines, this certificate requires a three-year post-bachelor's program equivalent to a

Specialist degree The specialist degree is an academic degree conferred by a college or university. The degree is formatted differently worldwide and may be either a five-year program or a doctoral level graduate program that occurs after a master's degree but befo ...

. For example,

School Psychologists School psychology is a field that applies principles from educational psychology, developmental psychology, clinical psychology, community psychology, and behavior analysis to meet the learning and behavioral health needs of children and adoles ...

must earn an MA/AC or CAS (Master's degree plus Advanced Certification) or Ed.S degree in order to practice in a school setting or be eligible for national certification. These are all Specialist-level degrees due to a required 1200-hour internship experience and 60+ hours of graduate study. Library and information science CAS programs are intended to allow students to closely focus on a particular sub-area of library and information science after earning a master's degree in the discipline. Some students advance directly to the CAS after finishing their master's degree, others return for a CAS after working in the field. The certificate generally takes one to two years to complete, including a culminating cumulative exam or extensive project. Such programs are offered by many, but not all, of the U.S. institutions of higher education that issue

American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world. History 19th century ...

-accredited master's degrees. At the

University of Lausanne The University of Lausanne (UNIL; ) in Lausanne, Switzerland, was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second-oldest in Switzerland, and one of the oldest universities ...

and EPFL, a Certificate of Advanced Studies is awarded upon completion of a programme comprising at least 120 contact hours (resulting in between 10 and 29 ECTS credits), a written examination and, in certain cases, a dissertation. Some CAGS are connected to an existing doctoral program such as PhD in Organizational Leadership: for example, PhD students receive a CAGS in Leadership Studies after completing their 2 years of doctoral study at Eastern University.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Certificate Of Advanced Study Academic degrees of the United States

Examples

See also

References