UTAH TECH UNIVERSITY'S STUDENT NEWS SOURCE | February 16, 2025

The road less traveled: five unconventional majors at Utah Tech

Utah Tech offers a wide variety of majors from associate to a newly added doctorate. With all the majors currently offered, there are five majors many seem unaware of. I Madisyn Bishop Sun News Daily

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Utah Tech University offers a variety of degrees, and these degree programs cover a wide range of in-demand fields of study from hotel management to surgical technology. Below are five of the lesser-known degrees Utah Tech offers.

Hotel and resort management

The hotel and resort management degree allows students to learn about resort management, human resource management, ethics and leadership. As of right now, there are only four students enrolled in this program. Utah Tech began offering this degree two years ago as a part of managing and marketing.

This newly offered program offers students the chance to not only learn about what it means to manage a resort, but also get internships from local resorts for that hands-on experience Utah Tech specializes in.

Utah Tech has partnered with Black Desert Resort to address the demand for resort managers and other positions, and this program will help students prepare to work. 

Saeed Vayghan, assistant professor of hotel and resort management, is working as the program’s coordinator to ensure that students will get experience in order to enter the workplace as soon as they graduate.

“It’s a really fun program. There is demand [and] great opportunities in the market,” Vayghan said. “We can prepare them very well to take management position levels in jobs available in our community.”

Hotel and resort management offers specialized classes that apply to the hospitality industry, for example, Principles of Food and Beverage Operations, Event Management and Intercultural Communication. 

Mechatronics

The mechatronics degree integrates engineering, embedded programming and electronics. The ultimate goal is to combine all three into automation.

Bru Reynolds, an instructor of mechatronics, talks about the rarity of the program within Utah. As of right now, the only other mechatronics program is at Utah Valley University, which Reynolds started.

He also highlighted the importance of having this program offered here at a polytechnic university.

“I often hear a lot of students sit there and say, ‘We want to make [something],’” Reynolds said. “Mechatronics is exactly that. We work on the design side and the practical side. We are touching the components and building the automation process from the ground up.”

The mechatronics degree requires a variety of classes including Prototyping Techniques, Circuits and Circuits Lab, and Semiconductors and Mechatronics. 

Humanities, philosophy and religious studies, philosophy emphasis

This brand new emphasis, commencing in the fall of 2025, offers students an opportunity to explore complicated questions with interdisciplinary focuses. 

John Wolfe, associate professor of philosophy and department chair of history, humanities and modern languages, talked about this brand new degree program.

“It’s meant to allow our students to take the skills, the critical reasoning skills, the critical thinking, critical reading, communication skills that they learn in our philosophy of humanities courses and apply them,” Wolfe said. 

The purpose is to offer students the chance to apply skills learned in philosophy and humanities classes to a range of disciplines. The degree requires students to first take courses in humanities, philosophy and religious studies, and then each student gets to pick their interdisciplinary engagement courses, which range from Art History to Sociology of Religion.

“The idea here is to give our students the skills to not just be able to leave with a philosophy degree, but also leave with training to converse between disciplines to address complicated real life issues,” Wolfe said.

Theatre directing

This degree emphasis allows students to get active experience by participating in and directing theatrical performances. During the program’s production season, students have the opportunity to experiment with design, performance and technical aspects of theatre production.

Theatre directing offers a combination of real theatrical experiences as well as a liberal arts education. Students will examine the history of theatrical writing and analyze scripts, then use those learned principles in a direct application to productions.

Some classes within this program’s curriculum include Costume Construction, Lighting Design, Set Design and Directing. 

Surgical technology

Surgical technology is an applied science associate degree that allows students a direct pipeline straight from graduation into a job in the field as an operating room technician. Once students graduate from this program with their associate degree, and if they pass the national board exam, they are certified to work in all 50 states.

Students in this program are in hands-on clinicals as soon as they start school. They start with observation and then move on to assisting with surgeries. 

Heather Osness, the program director, said this program is unique and important.

“It’s a huge need in the area,” Osness said. “We’re the only program that offers certification through the National Board of Surgical Technology and Surgical Assisting.”

This degree is great for students who may want to work in the medical field, more specifically in the operating room, but aren’t sure what to specialize in. Utah Tech provides this course to those who are interested in active participation in a clinical environment.

All five of these degrees, and more, are available for students to look into further if the degree program fits into future career goals. Degree programs at Utah Tech cover a wide range of in-demand fields of study that offer direct application that students can’t find anywhere else.