The Portland MBA at Portland State University prepares purpose-driven leaders to drive positive change in business and society. Reflecting Portland’s values—creative problem-solving, community impact, and environmental responsibility—our program combines core business skills with sustainable practices, inclusive leadership, and ethical decision-making. We are also developing a new elective focused on the strategic use and implementation of AI to ensure students are ready for the rapidly evolving future of work.

Designed for both working professionals and full-time students, the program offers evening, daytime, and fully online formats. Students join a selective, diverse cohort on Oregon’s most diverse campus and benefit from strong connections to local industry leaders, startups, and nonprofit organizations—gaining an immersive experience grounded in real-world challenges and career advancement.

Two MBA Paths to Match Your Career Stage

At Portland State University, The Portland MBA offers flexible program formats—each designed to align with your professional goals. Options include on-campus and fully online choices to fit your schedule and learning preferences. Both tracks share a core curriculum built around business fundamentals, leadership development, and real-world application.

Evening MBA: For Career Accelerators
For experienced professionals ready to advance into leadership roles or grow within their current field.

• Designed for working professionals with 4+ years of experience
• Focus on executive presence, leadership growth, and strategic thinking
• Flexible hybrid format: attend in-person or join remotely via global classroom technology

Daytime MBA: For Career Explorers
For early-career professionals looking to switch industries or clarify their career direction.

• Ideal for students with less work experience or planning a career pivot
• Emphasis on personal growth, core business skills, and industry exposure
• On-campus experience supports strong peer connections and career exploration

Choose to study Russian and you will learn to communicate in a language spoken by over 200 million people in Russia and across Eurasia. From being able to read Dostoevsky in the original to discussing in Russian the politics and environment in Russia and Central Asia, you will gain insights into the rich history and vibrant cultures of the Russian-speaking world.

Participating in PSU's dynamic Russian program, you'll have opportunities to immerse yourself in Russian-speaking communities here in Oregon, where Russian is the third most widely spoken language.

Whether you want to study the Russian language and culture to get in touch with your family's heritage, immerse yourself in Russian culture and arts, or prepare for a career in government or international diplomacy, business, or technology, a bachelor's degree in Russian from Portland State will help you build professional proficiency in the language and gain experience in cross-cultural communication. A bachelor's degree in Russian from Portland State University prepares you for a variety of careers in the Portland Metro-area and all over the world.

The Comics Studies Program draws from theory and hands-on practice, preparing participants to work in the field of comics and cartoon art as writers, artists, and scholars. Portland is particularly well known as the home of numerous artists, authors, scholars, and publishers specializing in comic art, and this program seeks to enhance ties with the local comics community. Comics studies at Portland State University is a vibrant, dynamic program on the cutting edge of contemporary literature and art practice that serves our students, our mission as a university, and our local community.

Portland is one of the largest hubs for comics in the country. Dark Horse Comics, Inc., founder, and president, Mike Richardson, didn’t just get his degree at PSU, he also chose the PSU library as the home for the Dark Horse Comics archives.

In addition to Dark Horse Comics, the Portland area is home to Oni Press, Image Comics, Milkfed Criminal Masterminds, and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

The comics studies certificate is available to graduate, undergraduate, and postbaccalaureate students. It features an exciting mix of courses with exceptional faculty across the disciplines as well as special courses with highly-lauded comics industry professionals. Classes are taught by a mix of PSU professors, comics professionals in Portland, and guest writers and artists from companies like Marvel, DC, and The New Yorker. Competitive internships with local companies are also offered each term.

The comics studies certificate is a great complement to programs such as English, art, or publishing, but students from all majors and levels are able to complete the program.

A richly historic language that spans the entire globe, contemporary Spanish is the culmination of centuries of literature, art, music and culture.

In your Spanish degree from Portland State University, you’ll study a language with over 50 million native speakers in the U.S. and another 400 million abroad, making it the second most popular native-spoken language in the United States and the world.

Whether you want to study the Spanish language and culture to get in touch with your family's history, immerse yourself in Hispanic culture, or prepare for an international career, a bachelor's degree in Spanish from Portland State will help you expand your knowledge and build your fluency.

The Spanish major is a degree focusing on language, culture, and history. You'll take courses in language, linguistics, literature, film, and life in Spanish-speaking countries and communities. You will join a diverse community of students, some learning Spanish as a new language and others who are native or heritage speakers broadening their skills, all bringing unique perspectives and a wide range of skills to the classroom.

In the Spanish program at PSU, students explore the relationships between language, history, and art using an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates perspectives from across the humanities, sciences, and professions.

Earn your Communication bachelor’s degree or minor at Portland State University and build strategic, data-savvy communication skills. Customize electives in media literacy, family communication, and environmental campaigns. Learn research methods and analytics, gain hands-on experience with community partners, and fast-track with a bachelor’s + master’s option to launch careers in marketing, PR, public service, health, and media.

Learn to be an effective and strategic communicator with a bachelor’s degree in communication from Portland State.

Our flexible curriculum lets you customize your studies as you explore communication theory, research and methods. You’ll choose from a variety of electives — like media literacy, family communication and environmental campaigns — that connect classroom lessons to current issues. 

Our faculty will help you improve your written and oral communication skills and introduce research methods and statistics that apply to real-world situations. You’ll learn applied skills like how to prepare public engagement plans or how to use data to track advertising expenses for political campaigns. You’ll also have the opportunity to study current issues like the relationship between social media use and mental health.

By graduating from our strategic communication program, you’ll better understand human behavior and communication and have the skills to start a professional career or attend graduate school in a wide range of fields.

Discover the limitless possibilities of science and its real-world applications with a bachelor's degree in Science from Portland State University. The flexible major can be tailored to fit your goals and will provide a basic mastery of multiple scientific fields.

We believe that even the world’s most destructive conflicts can be resolved to create a more peaceful future. With a bachelor’s degree in conflict resolution from Portland State University, you will be able to participate and contribute to this important work locally and globally.

As a conflict resolution major, you will learn to analyze conflict, uncovering the underpinnings of conflict dynamics in a wide variety of settings and scales. You will develop perspectives and gain skills to defuse and deescalate destructive conflicts that arise among individuals, groups and countries.

The courses in the program encompass the practical and theoretical bases of mediation, negotiation and an array of peace-enhancing perspectives and strategies. The program includes research, theory, and competency-based education focusing on building the necessary personal, social and institutional conditions necessary for positive peace, conflict transformation (from destructive to constructive), and universal respect for context-sensitive human rights. Students are encouraged to pursue their own particular interests in the study of conflict resolution.

PSU’s Elementary Education bachelor’s degree offers you a direct path to become a teacher in Oregon and gives you the opportunity to make an impact in the lives of children and their families.

In our immersive program, you’ll learn to work with youth and discover how to take an anti-racist approach to teaching. You’ll develop specialized expertise in social emotional learning, the science of reading, and working with multilingual learners. As you gain the skills and knowledge to enter the education field, you’ll learn to lead in the classroom.

You’ll also:

• Get hands-on experience working with students through a year-long student teaching placement and additional opportunities to observe and help in classrooms.
• Receive valuable instruction and mentorship from faculty who are also experienced elementary school teachers.
• Learn how to design and implement lesson plans that encourage creativity, build community, and help students make meaningful progress toward learning goals.
• Discover practices to build partnerships with families and community members.
• Engage in a teaching style that honors the strengths, culture, and background of your students and their families.

Whether you’re a returning student seeking a career change or a high school student exploring your options, our elementary education program will give you the opportunity to do meaningful work, and stand out in a high-demand field. It will also prepare you to earn your Oregon Teaching License when you receive your undergraduate degree, helping you begin a meaningful career as soon as you graduate.

Our elementary education program is one of many ways you can become a teacher at PSU. The elementary education minor will benefit you if you plan to enter human service careers or are interested in understanding education systems.

Learn how you can become a teacher and view other teacher pathway programs at PSU.

In addition to being admitted to PSU, you must also apply separately to the Bachelor's in Elementary Education program. The Elementary Education program only admits students once a year for fall term. We encourage you to start planning your application to the program in your sophomore year. Review the admissions information for more details.

 If you have already earned a bachelor’s degree, your path to becoming an elementary teacher is through PSU's Master’s in Elementary Education.

Social science helps us understand how we relate to others in an increasingly diverse, polarized, and multicultural society. A bachelor's degree in social science from Portland State challenges you to be informed about what's going on in the world, to think about how it could be better, and the role you play.

As a social science major, you'll develop a broad knowledge-base about the world around you and gain valuable skills that will equip you to make an impact in a wide range of careers, including writing and presentation and public speaking skills, critical reasoning, social and environmental consciousness, research and analysis, and creative problem-solving.

Online Social Science Bachelor’s Degree Option

Earn a social science degree online and build skills you can use your whole life in any career. Designed for students who have completed the first two years of a bachelor's degree, our online program offers a flexible academic structure that you can modify to fit your own interests, schedule, and goals. You will:

• Work closely with outstanding faculty. You'll take your online courses from the same instructors who teach on our campus.
• Connect with other students. PSU's easy-to-use online course platform encourages direct interaction among classmates.
• Take award-winning courses. Our online bachelor’s degree includes core coursework in PSU’s nationally recognized University Studies program.
• Plug into Portland. No matter where you live, our online programs let you in on Portland's energetic and innovative spirit.

Finish your degree online and develop adaptable skills that employers value in every field. The social science program offers particularly good preparation for careers (and graduate school) in teaching, social work, and counseling.

The Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) in creative writing is your first step toward a career in writing, editing, publishing, journalism, teaching, arts administration, advertising, and other creative fields. It will also prepare you to apply to graduate programs in creative writing.

The degree provides you with a comprehensive and intensive curriculum of classes and workshops in craft and technique, exposure to the work of established writers, and opportunities for you to work closely with peers and published writers as they develop and hone their creative work and critical skills.

You get the opportunity to learn from distinguished faculty who bring their real-life experience and expertise as published authors into the classroom. Faculty are deeply engaged with creative writing students and act as mentors and advisors. Students in the program enjoy small class sizes, access to internship opportunities in a vibrant literary city, and a supportive community of peers. Students complete a final portfolio project that they can use alongside a resume. There are active creative writing student groups and writing events, including an annual reading series that brings writers of national and international reputation to campus. The B.F.A. requirements are designed to provide introductory-level experience writing in the three customary genres: fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. This is followed by intensive work in one of those genres.

The creative writing major is highly flexible with an elective structure that allows you to pursue your interests in literature, literary theory, film, screenwriting, and publishing. The department also offers an undergraduate degree or minor in English, a minor in film studies, and a certificate in comics studies.