Hello, my name is Victor Rodriguez. I am Chair of the Legal Studies and Political Science Department. And I'm here to talk to you about the Legal Studies program at the University of New Haven. We have very exciting initiatives in the program. Our program has three choices in terms of concentrations. You pursue a Legal Studies major, but then you can also pursue concentrations within that major.
We have the Public Affairs concentration, Dispute Resolution concentration, and the Paralegal Studies concentration. We have a very particular and unique, interdisciplinary approach to our program, there is a lot of emphasis in our major on not only completing the core curriculum of the university but also an emphasis on developing critical thinking skills, reading and writing skills, particularly in the area of legal writing.
And we also have an offer of a two-semester four-year internship, which would be part of the program you obtain credit for completing this internship. And it's actually eight credits, equivalent of around 300 hours. Most students complete [this] during their senior year and it should give you an excellent experience working at different types of venues. I mean, there's some people -- some students -- work within the court system, others work with law firms, others work with nonprofit organizations in the legislature. I mean, there are different venues where you can complete this internship program, which would be you know, which shouldn't be very exciting and give you practical experience while you're here in college.
We also have a very experienced faculty. The courses in the Legal Studies program are taught by Attorneys. All of them have had some experience practicing law. Some of them or most of them, are still are practicing Attorneys that are also teaching the program, or some of us that are full-time Attorneys that have practiced have been in private practice or in the public sector before coming to the university. And then we come here and our full-time faculty. We also have a major focus on you know, what is it that you're going to do in the future? What is it what are your interests that you want to pursue?
And and we continue to focus our advising to students throughout the four years. Based on that, those questions, and they're trying to help you find your areas of interest or pursue those areas of interest that you've already identified. Then finally, we have a that I should mention is that within the Legal Studies program, we have one of the concentrations that Paralegal Studies concentration is approved by the American Bar Association as the appropriate in the Paralegal education that a student should receive if they have an interested in pursuing a paralegal education.
We also offer our Paralegal certificate in addition to the major and that is also approved by the American Bar Association. And finally, we have the legal studies. Minor, right, you can also pursue a minor if your interest is to pursue other majors then minor can also be completed by completing 18 credits. I hope this has been informative. You can always reach out to our program. My email address is vrodriguez@newhaven.edu and you can reach me and you know, ask any questions. I would love to talk to anybody who has an interest in our program. And, I, again, I hope this information is useful and you know, have a great day. Thank you.