The career-oriented Secretarial Science Program offers the interested student an opportunity to acquire keyboarding, communications, computer software, machine transcription, and office skills, along with work attitudes, essential for successful secretarial employment either in the business world or the allied health field. Secretarial Science is planned to include additional important learning experiences within other relevant liberal arts areas of study.

Students are able to begin taking Secretarial Science Program courses as soon as course prerequisites have been met. The length of time it takes to complete the Program will depend upon the initial English placement of the student at the college. Students who initially test into ENG 1302 Expository Writing are able to complete the program in two years with a summer internship. Students who test below ENG 1302 Expository Writing will take two-and-one-half years or more to complete the Program.

Courses in keyboarding, machine transcription, and computer software are sequential in nature and must be taken in order. Students must meet course prerequisites, which are listed in the catalog, for all courses before being able to register for them.

Students must be able to register for ENG 1302 Expository Writing in order to take MSS 5669 Business English. Students must be able to register for ESL 1322 Intermediate English as a Second Language in order to take MSS 5600 Keyboarding/Word Processing for ESL Students. Students must be able to register for ENG 1300 Basic Composition in order to register for MSS 5601 Fundamentals of Typing. Students must be able to register for ENG 1302 Expository Writing or must have successfully completed MSS 5600 Keyboarding/Word Processing for ESL Students or MSS 5601 Fundamentals of Typing in order to register for MSS 5602 Elementary Keyboarding I.

Students are expected to attend all classes. Credits in each course are earned by successfully completing the stated success criteria of the course. Credit for previous experience in skill courses is given on the basis of performance on proficiency examinations.

Upon completion of either the executive or medical options, students will receive an A.A.S. degree from the Secretarial Science Program and will be prepared for productive secretarial employment within the business world or allied health field or will be able to transfer to a four year college. Upon completion of the Word Processing Certificate Program, students will be prepared for employment in the area of word processing.

All students are invited to participate in the Secretarial Science Club. An award is given at graduation to the most outstanding Secretarial Science student.