<p>Hi, I am currently a junior in high school, and I believe I want to go into psychology. However, I've noticed I can usually get a B.A. or a B.S. in psychology at some colleges. What are the differences? I'd appreciate the help, thanks.</p>
<p>BS is more a research and applied degree. My ap psych teacher always told us he would hire 100 bs psych majors before he would hire a BA psych major.</p>
<p>Whether there’s an actual difference in a BS or BA depends on the differences in requirements between those two degrees at a particular school. There is no consistent pattern across schools, however, in whether their degrees are designated as BA or BS. Some schools only give a BA, even for science-oriented fields. For a job, it probably won’t matter at all. It will only matter for certain graduate programs if the BS requires more coursework in supporting sciences or more research experience. Depending on the particular school, a BA major (vs. a BS major) often gives more flexibility to take coursework outside the major or a broader range of coursework within the major. Occasionally, a BS designates a major program with a subspecialization (as opposed to a more general major), or a major with an applied focus.</p>
<p>I’ll give you an example of the program at my college (I have a BA in psychology). The BS track is more biology-based; you might take more advanced biology, neuroscience, and cognitive psychology courses. The BA course was more general, and you may take more social, clinical, and counseling courses. In terms of actual research experience, there was no difference between taking the BA or BS track - I have 2 years of research experience and did a year-long honors thesis study and my area of specialty was social psychology. I know people in the BS track that didn’t have that much experience, mainly because they didn’t care to take advantage of the opportunities they had.</p>
<p>It really comes down to what you want to do with your degree. Grad school? You don’t need a BS to get into a good program unless you are really interested in the biology aspects. Looking to get a job right out of undergrad? Then you should consider internships more than the research opportunities. If you do take on a BS track and decide you would prefer a BA due to program requirements and your interests evolving, it shouldn’t be all that hard to switch depending on the school you choose.</p>
<p>+1 to everything Zap said. The undergraduate institution I graduated from conferred both a B.S. and a B.A. degree for psychology. Both degrees pretty much shared the same core research class requires, though the B.S. required an independent study (i.e., basically a mini-thesis supervised by a single-person committee). Final grade requirements were higher for the B.S. than the B.A. for certain classes, which really didn’t matter to me because I was a straight A student; however, friends of mine who didn’t achieve as much, academically, did choose the B.A. due to its less stringent grade requirements. For the most part, the B.S. was geared towards students wishing to go into research or academia, whereas the B.A. was geared towards students wishing to get a Master’s in clinical or counseling psychology or perhaps pursue a Psy.d. But that doesn’t mean a B.A. student was typecast into being a clinical/counseling person or that a B.S. student wasn’t interested in clinical/counseling.</p>
<p>However, if a school only has a B.A. or a B.S. degree, then don’t get hung up on the name of the degree. A hiring manager who has a bias and no clue about psychology could be swayed by whether you have a B.S. or a B.A., but a graduate admissions coordinator isn’t going to care about the name of the degree. Look at the course listings of a program and make sure they have a strong research core with methods and stats classes, along with a well-rounded general psych core (e.g., social, cognitive, abnormal, personality, etc.). If you’re interested in clinical psych, see if the program has an assessments or measurement course.</p>