美國許多教育及各方面的專家預測，為因應學生的需求以及為企業提供可用的人才，未來大學將有五大結合不同專業領域而產生的新興科系。這五大跨領域的科系為：消費服務科學系，健康醫療資訊系，應用電腦科學系，綠化生活品質系，公共衛生系。

消費服務科學系

雖然消費服務相關產業占了80%的經濟活動，但是一般來說過去在大學裡卻沒有開設相關的科系。不過現在情況已經改變了。現今在美國大約有250所大學開始開辦相關課程，並請各大學，公司，以及研究機構共同商研課程的大綱內容。這類的課程通常是開設於研究所，不過也有大學部設立此類科系，例如威斯康辛大學史道特（Wisconsin-Stout）分校以及密西根科技大學。威斯康辛大學史道特分校的服務管理課程以商業為主，學生畢業後的就業取向為各行業的管理部門。密西根科技大學的課程則以產業工程為主，強調產業服務而非產品製造。學者表示未來此類科系應緊密地將服務科學與商業及工程結合以培養能涉獵各領域知識並能深入解決問題的人才。

健康醫療資訊系

醫藥管理科系本已存在於大學教育中，但隨著市場的需求，美國現今已有270個科系開設將醫藥記錄管理與電腦數位結合的課程。此新課程帶領許多大學開始修改他們的課程大綱，以培養學生們不但有電腦資訊技能，更對醫院管理及公共醫療有深度的了解。擁有這雙項能力才能有效正確分析數位醫療資料。

應用電腦科學系

大部分的人常混淆了應用電腦科學系與電腦系。傳統的電腦系是培養學生對於電腦的知識， 而應用電腦科學系則是教導學生如何以電腦為工具來完成事情。電腦的應用涉及各行各業，例如預測天氣，基因分析，測量尿布吸收度，甚至洋芋片的彎度等等。電腦可以說是解決問題的好幫手。應用電腦科學系的課程一般來說包含了高等數學，電腦科學，模型模擬，以及特定的專業課程，例如化學或工程。

綠化生活品質系

為了跟上保護地球的腳步，美國各大學都開始"綠化"他們的課程，開設和"綠化生活品質"相關的科系。此類科系能廣泛地和一些傳統科系結合，例如，經濟系，商學系，建築系，生態環境系，營養系等等。政府單位例如美國太空總署也投入了6.4億美元發展這個新興科系，提供讓對地球天氣變化有興趣的大學相關資源。這個新興的科系將能幫助畢業生在現今的世界綠化潮流中走出自己的一片天。

公共衛生系

美國政府最近的醫療保險改革計劃讓許多大學及學生重新注意起公共衛生系的課程，有些大學開始新增此科系，至少有100所大學則因應潮流擴增原有的學程或增設輔系。大學部的課程能提供給學生基礎科學知識，這樣的知識可以讓學生在將來順利進入大部分的醫療健康相關領域。然而僅有大學部而無研究所的公共衛生課程將面臨沒有足夠的教學資源來支持一個系的形成。但一個有系也有所的公共衛生課程也有其問題，那就是如何將系與所的必修選修課程清楚界分。

資料來源：The Chronicle of Higher Education
http://chronicle.com/article/5-College-Majors-On-the-Rise/48207/
摘譯者：波士頓。吳青璇

英文全文如下：
For the most part, tomorrow's bachelor's-level majors will look very much like those offered by colleges today. But in interviews with The Chronicle, academic experts, business analysts, and economic forecasters helped identify five emerging areas of study.
Some new majors arise in response to student demand, while other degree programs are meant to provide an industry with workers. Many cross disciplinary boundaries, such as combining environmental science with agriculture or bringing together chemists and computer scientists.
"Most of the interesting work today is done at the interstices of disciplines," says Robert B. Reich, a former U.S. labor secretary and a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley.
Here is a look at five up-and-coming majors you are likely to see at more colleges in the coming years.
Service science
On the average day, the typical American uses services 40 times, from turning on the faucet in the morning to turning out the lights at night. "The new service economy is not just people flipping burgers," says Roland T. Rust, executive director of the Center for Excellence in Service and a professor of marketing at the University of Maryland at College Park.
Although the service sector makes up fully 80 percent of the economy, there has been little effort to study service as a science or to prepare workers who can improve productivity and increase innovation in the sector.
That's changing. Now 250 colleges and universities in 50 countries offer degrees or courses in a nascent field known as service science, management, and engineering. A coalition of companies, universities, and research institutions is developing content standards for such programs, says James C. Spohrer, director of global university programs at IBM, one of the lead partners.
So far, most of the offerings are at the graduate level. But a pair of undergraduate programs at U.S. institutions highlight two approaches to the study of service.
The University of Wisconsin-Stout's bachelor's of science in service management takes a business-centric tack. Students take courses in service operations, service marketing, and electronic services, says Joseph W. Holland, the program director, and typically go on to management-track jobs in fields such as finance, hospitality, and information technology.
Service-systems engineering at Michigan Technological University is more akin to industrial engineering, says Dana Johnson, an associate professor of operations management who teaches in the program, which focuses on service instead of on the production and manufacture of goods.
Graduates, the first of whom will earn their degrees next spring, could find ways to streamline emergency-room operations at hospitals, shorten lines at bank-teller windows or tollbooths, or improve the delivery of products worldwide. One of the biggest potential service-engineering challenges, says Amlan Mukherjee, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, could come with the passage of health-care-reform legislation.
Mr. Spohrer, of IBM, argues that future programs need to more closely link the business and engineering approaches to service to prepare "deep problem solvers" who understand the economic, human, and technical dimensions of complex systems.
Health informatics
There are few attention grabbers like a pledge of $19-billion.
That's the amount included in the economic-stimulus package passed this year to computerize every American's medical records by 2014. Some of the federal funds will go to doctors and hospitals, but a share will go to colleges to train health-care workers who will use the electronic databases.
"I talked to three programs just yesterday," says Claire Dixon-Lee, executive director of the Commission on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management Education. The commission has accredited 270 programs, including 53 at the bachelor's level, and Ms. Dixon-Lee expects the number to rise to 300 by the year's end.
With the proliferation of degrees has come great variety in the curricula and even in what such course work is called, Ms. Dixon-Lee says. Health-information management has been around for decades, with bachelor's-degree programs at institutions like East Carolina University that train medical-records administrators and librarians.
But the move to bring those records online has led to significant curricular changes. The digitization of medical information has spurred growth in data analytics. Walgreen's headquarters, near Chicago, employs eight people in health-data analysis, Ms. Dixon-Lee says.
David D. Potenziani, senior associate dean for planning, coordination, and administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Public Health, says he hears regularly from physicians and hospital directors who want to hire information-technology workers with a strong understanding of health-care delivery systems, and from public-health agencies who need specialists who can make sense of data, such as medical-reimbursement records, to ground policy recommendations. The university is considering what kind of health-informatics program it might offer.
"We're drowning in data," Mr. Potenziani says, "and we don't know we're wet yet."
Computational science
What does the design of a potato chip have to do with weather forecasting? Both are products of computational science, the use of computer modeling and simulation to advance other fields.
Computational science is sometimes confused with computer science, says Robert E. Tuzun, an associate professor and chair of computational science at the State University of New York College at Brockport. But in computer science, the computer is the object of study, Mr. Tuzun says, while in computational science, the computer is the tool.
Meteorologists and atmospheric scientists use computer modeling to predict weather, study severe storms, and better understand climate change. In biology, computers are used to map the functions of different organs, learn about genetic abnormalities, and help conceive new medicines. Companies have used computational analysis to increase the absorbency of disposable diapers and to tweak the shape of potato chips so they drop into packages rather than fly off the conveyor belt.
"It's a modern way to solve problems," says Rubin H. Landau, emeritus professor of physics at Oregon State University, who started the computational-physics program there. (See article, Page A14.)
Programs typically include advanced mathematics, computer science, and simulation and modeling, along with courses in specific scientific fields, like chemistry or engineering. Indeed, a number of current undergraduate programs, like the one at Oregon State, are focused on particular fields of study or are offered as concentrations or minors.
Sustainability
Colleges across the country have embraced sustainability, seeking to make their campuses more environmentally friendly. Now, spurred in large part by student demand, colleges are greening their curriculum, too: Some 70 institutions have sustainability-related academic programs, according to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.
There is no single approach to a sustainability degree, says Julian Dautremont-Smith, the group's associate director. Some colleges have married sustainability studies with traditional liberal-arts majors, like economics, while others have developed green architecture and business degrees. Still other institutions prepare graduates to become sustainability scientists or environmental professionals. And beginning last fall, students at the University of New Hampshire can enroll in an undergraduate program in ecogastronomy, combining the fields of sustainable agriculture, hospitality, and nutrition.
The federal government has also gotten involved. This spring NASA awarded $6.4-million in climate-change-education grants to higher-education groups, as well as elementary and secondary educators, that make use of the agency's earth-science data and resources. One recipient, the National Council for Science and the Environment, a nonprofit group, is crafting a virtual tool chest of lesson plans and resources for colleges interested in teaching about climate change.
At Unity College, in Maine, the three-year-old program in sustainability design and technology has a practical bent. "We didn't want to take an ivory-tower approach," says Michael (Mick) Womersley, the program's coordinator and an associate professor of human ecology. "We focused on jobs that are being hired for, now."
The major is heavy on applied skills, like learning how to assess the feasibility of installing wind turbines, and is grounded by a core of physics, biology, and math. Mr. Womersley expects that his students-he has 12-will go on to become energy auditors, environmental-compliance officers, and sustainability coordinators, as well as enrolling in related graduate programs.
Public health
In a 1987 essay titled "Epidemiology as a Liberal Art," David W. Fraser, who was then president of Swarthmore College, argued that the study of public health offered an ideal way to teach about medicine in an undergraduate setting.
Two decades later, Mr. Fraser's essay seems prophetic. At least a dozen institutions have recently created undergraduate public-health majors. (Some of these, including fledgling programs at Yale University and the University of Virginia, are five-year hybrids that lead to both a bachelor's and a master's degree in public health.) Between 2003 and 2007, the number of bachelor's degrees awarded in public health doubled, increasing from 1,322 to 2,639.
"What I like about this major is that it will give me the science background I need to go into almost any health field," says Sarah D. Ali, a junior in the University of South Carolina's bachelor-of-science program in public health, which enrolled its first students in 2008. (See article, below.)
The major will almost certainly continue to expand. But there may be a natural ceiling on its growth, says Richard K. Riegelman, a professor of epidemiology at George Washington University. Dr. Riegelman is a prominent advocate of undergraduate public-health education. His enthusiasm, however, focuses on minors and concentrations in public health, which have exploded recently. At least 100 institutions now offer such minors, according to a 2008 survey by the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
"The major itself is trickier," Dr. Riegelman says. "Institutions without graduate programs in public health generally don't have the infrastructure to support a major. ... And there still isn't a solid sense of how to articulate course requirements between the undergraduate majors and M.P.H. programs." (The master's-level programs generally require upper-level courses in statistics, public policy, and research methods that go beyond anything in the undergraduate majors.)
But G. Thomas Chandler, dean of public health at South Carolina, says he expects such programs will continue to sprout. "Our undergraduate courses are very well subscribed," he says, "and I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from students. They see public health as something relevant. And the national health-care debate has helped us immensely."