Skip to content

First Four Year Degree Program at FRCC

In the fall of 2019, Front Range Community College will be offering its first four-year degree, a Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.S) in Geospatial science.
front range community college
Front Range Community College-Longmont Campus (Photo from FRCC Facebook)

This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

In the fall of 2019, Front Range Community College will be offering its first four-year degree, a Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.S) in Geospatial science.

Students will graduate from the program prepared to enter the workplace with a skill set applicable to more than 400 occupations; including environmental science, engineering, and fire protection.

Very few degrees specific to GIS or Geospatial Science are currently offered within Colorado and its surrounding states, despite the overwhelming number of job opportunities.

According to Deborah Craven, the Dean of Instruction for FRCC’s Boulder County Campus, “Employers have asked FRCC to develop a higher-level program,” since, “there are hundreds of GIS job openings per year in Colorado that this program will help to fill.”

Front Range Community College plans to fill this deficit through the implementation of this program and satisfy the need for skilled GIS professionals. The new program will build on a pre-existing two-year program. Students have the option to continue on to complete an additional sixty credits to attain the full four-year diploma.

Access to higher level courses will give students the chance to grow their skill set beyond what has previously been available. It is FRCC's goal to prepare students for careers as GIS professionals without the need for extensive additional training.

Some of the high-tech fields that graduates of the program will be able to find careers in include:

  • - Geographical Information Systems (GIS);
  • - Global Positioning Systems;
  • - Cartography;
  • - Satellite Remote Sensing; and
  • - Photogrammetry and LiDAR Data Analysis.

The Bachelor’s degree program will accompany nearly one-hundred other certificate and degree programs currently offered by Front Range Community College. This new addition to the school will allow both current and prospective students to learn at a new level and graduate with a higher level of preparedness than ever before.