Highline offers business-focused courses to give students an opportunity to continue their education with a Bachelor of Applied Science in Global Trade and Logistics.

Highline currently offers seven bachelor’s degrees: Cybersecurity and Forensics; Respiratory Care; Youth Development; Early Childhood Education; Elementary Education; Integrated Design; and Global Trade and Logistics.

The Global Trade and Logistics degree originates from 2014, when Highline partnered up with Central Washington University’s Supply Chain Management certificate program. The Global Trade and Logistics baccalaureate program seeks to place students in a position where they can help businesses deal more effectively with the growing demand for international trade and the supply chain.

According to Cambridge, the supply chain is “the system of people and things that are involved in getting a product from the place where it is made to the person who buys it.” That is to say, how products get from point A to point B.

Supply chain management, on the other hand, is defined by Cambridge as, “the activity of being in charge of and controlling the process of getting a product from the place where it is made to customers.”

The Suez Canal incident of 2021 is a prime example of the supply chain getting disrupted, and supply chain management had to get involved to overcome this new obstacle. 

To summarize that event, a large container ship horizontally blocked the Suez Canal in Egypt, preventing hundreds of ships from passing through for almost a week. According to a report by CNBC, “Around 12% of global trade flows through the Suez Canal on massive ships like the Ever Given, which can hold 20,000 containers.” More information from that report can be found here.

One of the Global Trade and Logistics program’s learning outcomes on Highline’s website is to, “formulate alternatives and tradeoffs in transportation, inventory, warehousing and supplier contracts to make informed decisions, while taking into consideration issues such as corporate social responsibility, environmental sustainability, and risk management.”

Another learning outcome students will be expected to learn is to, “apply professional ethics in a global context when dealing with confidential information, relationships with suppliers and customers, and pressures to develop a sustainable supply chain.”

The Russo-Ukrainian War is another event that disrupts the global supply chain. Having to work around this conflict and continuing to do business with either side grows increasingly more difficult, but solid supply chain management skills can be learned to at least attempt to handle situations like these.

Students interested in signing up for this program can learn more about the learning outcomes and application requirements here.