Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• MET CJ 710: Cybercrime Investigation
  How is digital evidence recovered and analyzed during cybercrime investigations? In this course, you will develop practical skills for conducting forensic examinations of computers, digital devices, and networks. Working in the Virtual Security Lab, you will learn how investigators identify, preserve, analyze, and document digital evidence related to cybercrime incidents. The course introduces industry-standard digital forensic tools and methods used in criminal investigations and legal proceedings. Through hands-on exercises and case-based scenarios, you will examine digital artifacts, reconstruct events, and prepare forensic documentation suitable for investigative and legal contexts. By the end of the course, you will understand the principles of digital forensic investigation and how digital evidence supports cybercrime enforcement and prosecution.
• MET CJ 711: Planning and Implementation
  How do justice leaders turn ideas and policies into real-world initiatives? Explore how criminal justice agencies and community organizations plan, launch, and manage programs designed to address complex public safety problems. You will learn how to conduct structured problem analysis, develop clear goals and objectives, and translate policy ideas into actionable implementation plans. The course focuses on the practical realities of planned change, including organizational resistance, political constraints, and operational challenges that shape whether initiatives succeed or fail. You will also examine strategies for monitoring and assessing new initiatives using performance and evaluation frameworks. By the end of the course, you will be better prepared to design and implement effective policies and programs in justice-system settings.
• MET CJ 720: Trauma and Crisis Intervention
  What happens when someone experiences trauma, and how can understanding those impacts help you make a difference in your community? In this course, you will explore the psychological, social, and cultural dimensions of trauma while developing practical trauma‑informed approaches for work in community, mental health, and criminal legal settings. You will examine the science of traumatic stress, the many forms trauma can take across the lifespan, and the ways individuals and communities adapt, cope, and heal. Through case studies, interdisciplinary readings, and real‑world examples, you will analyze crisis response, resilience, and the ethical complexities that arise when supporting people who have experienced harm. Throughout the semester, you will also learn from guests who are actively advancing this work. These voices bring field‑based insight, lived experience, and current practice directly into our conversations. This course equips you with skills for responding to crisis, supporting survivors, reducing vicarious trauma, and contributing to person‑centered trauma‑informed practice across diverse professional settings.
• MET CJ 725: Forensic Behavior Analysis
  What if you could better understand the “why” behind complex human behavior, especially when it brings people into contact with the justice system? Explore how insights from psychology and related behavioral sciences help justice professionals understand and respond to the diverse individuals who interact with policing, courts, corrections, and community-based programs. Examine how trauma, social context, neurodevelopment, and lived experience shape behavior and influence interactions with justice institutions. Through real-world examples, you’ll analyze topics such as risk assessment, victimization, trauma-informed practice, and the behavioral dynamics associated with serious violence. Learn how behavioral evidence and expert analyses inform investigations, court decisions, supervision strategies, and policy debates. The course prepares you to interpret behavioral information critically and apply behavioral science insights to justice-system decision-making and professional practice.
• MET CJ 750: Policing in a Democratic Society
  How can policing remain effective, legitimate, and accountable within democratic societies? Explore the complex role of policing in democratic systems, where agencies must balance public safety, constitutional authority, community trust, and political accountability. You will examine how policing strategies, organizational practices, and leadership decisions are shaped by law, public expectations, and evidence about what works to reduce crime and improve public safety. Drawing on research, policy analysis, and real-world examples, the course considers contemporary approaches to crime prevention, problem-solving, and police accountability. By the end of the course, you will be better prepared to critically evaluate policing policies and practices and understand the leadership and governance challenges facing modern police organizations.
• MET CJ 801: Special Project in Criminal Justice
  Individual faculty supervision of an independent student project demonstrating application of previous program coursework to a selected topic, issue, or theme in criminal justice. Approval of program director required prior to registration.
• MET CJ 810: Master's Thesis 1
  This is the first of two courses in the two-part thesis option available to Master’s degree program candidates in the Department of Applied Social Sciences. You must have completed at least four courses toward your degree and have a grade point average (GPA) of 3.7 or higher. You are responsible for finding a thesis advisor and a principal reader within the department. Please refer to the Department for further details on the application process. Both MET CJ 810 Master’s Thesis 1 and MET CJ 811 Master’s Thesis 2 must be completed within 12 months.
• MET CJ 811: Master's Thesis 2
  This is the second of two courses in the two-part thesis option available to Master’s degree program candidates in the Department of Applied Social Sciences. You must have completed at least four courses toward your degree and have a grade point average (GPA) of 3.7 or higher. You are responsible for finding a thesis advisor and a principal reader within the department. Please refer to the Department for further details on the application process. Both MET CJ 810 Master’s Thesis 1 and MET CJ 811 Master’s Thesis 2 must be completed within 12 months.
• MET CJ 840: Applied Crime Analysis Project
  Students in the Crime Analysis (CA) concentration or certificate program are encouraged to engaged in a supervised project as part of their degree. The project is supervised by an instructor, typically the concentration area coordinator. It can be used to fulfill a 4-credit elective course within the concentration or certificate. Project-based and experiential learning activities are central to graduate professional education and to our own program's learning outcomes. The project gives students an opportunity to enhance and synthesize skills learned in other courses, apply skills to real-world problems and settings, and make connections into the professional field. Projects in the CA concentration or certificate will focus applied research and analytical methodologies and/or organizational processes connected to analysis within criminal justice or related agencies.
• MET CM 702: Advertising and Society
  Analyzes the impact of advertising on individuals and society and evaluates the ethical, moral, and legal questions relating to the advertising industry. The history of advertising and the rise of consumerism will be studied to create a paradigm for understanding the social effects of advertising. Students will study the issues of advertising in cyberspace and questions of privacy and protection from intrusive communication messages.
• MET CM 704: Contemporary Mass Communication
  Overview of and current trends in the contemporary mass media labor force. Topics include career opportunities in print, film, broadcast, and digital media; changing relationships between media; contemporary patterns of ownership and audience attention; how the media select their content, how they are financed, and how they are related to agencies of control; and ethical issues and controversies regarding media content and influences.
• MET CM 707: Writing for Media Professionals
  Introduction to basic formats, including news releases, editorials, features, profiles, scripts, and basic copy qualities such as readability, clarity, crispness, color, and organization. Emphasis on developing the ability to write copy for varied audiences. Regular writing assignments; considerable rewriting. Includes lead writing, editing, and interviewing.
• MET CM 708: Principles and Practices of Advertising
  Overview of the nature, function, practice, and social, economic, and behavioral aspects of advertising. Student teams develop advertising plans, create campaigns, and explore problems of account management, creativity, production, and ethics.
• MET CM 710: Special Topics
  Special Topic: In today's diverse workplace, it is critical for organizations to incorporate diversity and inclusion (D&I) into their communication strategies - to both internal and external stakeholders. Organizations having a D&I program is not enough to foster inclusive workplaces, customers, or reputations. Students will learn how to effectively communicate D&I in the modern workplace, along with and creating impactful external (integrated) communication strategies. Key concepts will include:
  * Communicating the value of diversity
  * Inclusive messaging
  * Leading conversations with stakeholders
  * Talk, but also listen
  * Accountability.
• MET CM 711: Consumer Insight and Account Planning
  Grad Prereq: MET CM 708 Explores how to arrive at consumer insights that lead to better advertising and promotion. The course focuses on the set of skills necessary to create breakthrough advertising, including qualitative research, observation, interviewing skills, mapping, and presentation tools. Students learn to write effective creative briefs.
• MET CM 714: Video in the Digital Age
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: (METCM716 OR METCM717 OR METCM744) - The role of video has become even more significant in terms of the digital environment for branded content, webisodes, viral video, corporate micro-documentaries, and instructional/educational website content. How this is integrated with, and disseminated by, social media is key. In addition, budgetary constraints in relation to work for the web often require a different creative approach than traditional broadcast media. This course explores the creative development of video concepts and introduces students to basic production techniques as they relate to the development of video geared for the web. This is mainly a writing and concept development course. Some rudimentary editing techniques are discussed throughout the semester.
• MET CM 716: Digital Communication
  This course is designed to introduce students to using new media tools for creating media communication. Students build an integrated campaign and web site using software, which includes Photoshop, InDesign, iMovie, Dreamweaver and Flash. Students develop an understanding of the process of design consisting of: ideation, strategy and execution. Permission required for non-MET students. Contact Metropolitan College, 1010 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 124 (617-358-5643) for more information.
• MET CM 717: Fundamentals of Creative Development
  Examines the creative process in advertising, including concept development, copywriting, layout, and campaign strategies. Emphasis is on print advertising, but radio and television commercials are also included. Assignments include consumer and trade advertisements for both new and mature products.
• MET CM 718: Creating Video Campaigns
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: MET CM 708 - Over the past fifteen years the TV commercial has evolved into multiple media channels. Today video campaigns take on many forms, including interactive, mobile, podcasts, cinema, branded content, user-generated and on-demand. In this course student learn basic techniques of conceptualizing, writing, art directing, presenting and producing radio and video in many formants. You'll see examples in many styles such as Branding, Emotional, Interactive, Retail, Direct, Demonstration, Humor and more. This real world learning will be accomplished through lectures, discussions, screenings and class projects. You'll work in teams in and outside of class and learn how to present'and sell'you ideas as well. You don't have to be proven art directors or writers to do well as long as you make the effort to learn. You'll detail (through scripts and story boards) what the actors are doing, how the product looks, the continuity, and the story line. With hard work, you'll have experience of creating a big idea, plus and scripts and storyboards that bring it to life. (Formerly MET CM 718 Creating Broadcast Advertising)
• MET CM 719: Interactive Marketing Communications
  An overview of the theories, practices, and techniques in the emerging field of interactive marketing communications (IAMC). Students gain an understanding of the strategy and tactics of IAMC and its place in the more comprehensive field of marketing communications. In addition, students review IAMC's relationship to and its effects on society, culture, and the economic system. The course will explore almost all the ways interactive marketing can be practiced via the Internet: historical introduction, dotcom era, basic principles, database marketing, etail, email, search (SEO & SEM/PPC), display advertising, social networking, gaming, mobile, et al.