Recreation and Sport Management

Choose your adventure with the Recreation and Sport Management (RSM) program

Whether you envision yourself shaping communities through public parks and recreation, diving into the world of sports, enhancing lives through therapeutic recreation, organizing unforgettable events, or helping others explore the outdoors, our caring, connected faculty and our hands-on curriculum will set you up with the skills you need to succeed in a wide variety of dynamic careers.

Explore Our Sequences

Recreation Management

Hone your skills in designing, leading, and evaluating recreation, sport, and leisure experiences in a wide range of career settings.
Therapeutic Recreation

Utilize your skills as a means to increase health, well-being, and quality of life for people with disabilities, injuries, illnesses, or other conditions.

Be part of a community.

We are students and faculty who are passionate about Recreation and Sport Management.

Our students say our faculty members are one of our program’s greatest strengths. They say their RSM professors are accessible, well connected to the profession, and care about their students’ success. Our faculty bring their classrooms to life with real-world projects, networking experiences with industry experts, and experiential learning opportunities so our students can be ready to thrive in their chosen career path. Given our small class sizes and collaborative classroom environments, RSM students get to know their fellow classmates and their faculty well so they have a robust support system to succeed.

Turn your passion into your career.

The RSM program is designed for students who want to be active, want to help people, and want a major with lots of career options.

Our graduates leave our program with transferrable skills in management and leadership and two professional internships. Our past graduates have gone on to a broad range of careers in public park districts, event planning companies, youth sports organizations, hospitals, collegiate athletics departments, behavioral health centers, professional sport teams, senior living communities, university campus recreation departments, tourism agencies, resorts and hotels, outdoor recreation agencies, and more.

What makes us stand out:

Transferrable skills like leadership, management, budgeting, marketing, and more
Preparation for a wide variety of career settings
Two professional internships
Strong connections to working professionals
Experiential and applied learning
Tight-knit, student-centered faculty

Testimonials

"I remember taking my final program project with me to interviews and the hiring supervisors being impressed and wanting to hear more. I felt prepared coming out of school and going into the full-time work force because of the professors in the program."

-Rosie Edwards, Assistant Superintendent of Recreation St. Charles Park District, 2014

"My best memory of the program is the relationships that I formed with my fellow classmates. I am still GREAT friends with many of my former classmates, and our initial connection was this program. The great professors, and the amazing knowledge I gained while at ISU has helped me excel in my career today. The program turns into a mini family, and I am always proud to be a Redbird!"

-Brandon Cotton, Chicago Park District, Park Supervisor of Recreation – Ping Tom Park, 2007

"This program has helped restore my enjoyment for learning. I have become much more confident in my abilities to complete a task and I feel ready to take the next step. My classes, and most importantly professors were crucial in setting me up to get my internship and future jobs."

-Recent RSM graduate

"I love how hands on the major is. Not only do I get the opportunity to learn doing fieldwork, but I am also building my resume at the same time."