BA, BFA, or BS-please educate me

Parents Forum
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Trying to begin to get some clarity in order to help my son make his college decision even while he’s still waiting on some more schools. It’s new territory for us all, so I would welcome experienced parents’ input.

Does it matter whether one gets a BA, BFA or a BS degree, or does it vary greatly depending on the degree?

My son has been accepted to three Industrial Design programs:

Purdue (which we know is affordable) offers a BA. (And my son would also be in the Honors College)
SJSU offers a BS in Industrial Design (still waiting on the f. aid)
CSULB also offers a BS in Industrial Design (still waiting on aid)

Would the BS be preferable to the BA? Or in Industrial Design, does it really matter? Can you get a job with just the bachelors?

He’s also been accepted to UCSD for a BA in ICAM (Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts). (This is affordable) Would he need a masters to do something with this degree?

He’s been accepted to SDSU and UAH (Univ. Alabama, Huntsville) for Mechanical Engineering. (Both affordable) He now doesn’t think he wants to do engineering, though, because of the heavy math requirements. It’s possible he could switch to another major, but not sure what. CS still seems to have pretty heavy math requirements. UAH has a game design minor as of this past fall.

He’s been accepted to Cal State Fullerton for (hopefully) a BFA in Art, emphasis in Entertainment Art/Animation. He’s interviewing for the Presidential Scholarship. If he got it, it would be affordable. Without it, not sure. We understand that there are a lot of companies that hire Fullerton Animation graduates, so can I assume a BFA would be all that was needed? Or would it require post grad work?

Waiting on f. aid package for University of Rochester, where he would he would be a Digital Media Studies major. It says you can go either humanities or natural science/engineering emphasis. I think he would lean towards the science/engineering side, but it would still be a BA. Would he need to get a masters to do something with that degree?

Also waiting on f. aid for Univ of Colo, Colorado Springs, where he’d get a Bachelors of Innovation in Game Design.

He’s appealing for a higher scholarship at UT Dallas, where he’d get a BA in Arts and Technology. He might also appeal WPI for more scholarship since the Game Design program he’s in looks amazing, but likely, it will remain unafforable.

My son seems to really want to do something along the lines of design, game design, animation, CS, etc, something multidisciplinary since he’s got multiple areas of creative interests/abilities.

He’s a serious cellist, so continuing that in college would be good (and Purdue and UAH don’t seem to offer much in this area, unfortunately; Rochester would be amazing for this).

He doesn’t care about rankings or prestige whatsoever. He visited UAH and enjoyed his time.

Sorry so long, but I think this will be a very difficult decision for him. Oh, and he had hoped to take a gap year, but I don’t think any state school will allow it, so it might not happen.

Input on BA vs. BFA vs. BS, as well as input on school choices would be most welcome.

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I don’t know anything about design or arts so I can’t comment on the BFA. I know that for CS various colleges confer BA and BS and sometimes both and it really doesn’t matter. In CS and related degrees you do not need a MS to get a good job.

I can’t imagine he would need an advanced degree with the UCSD degree. Computing and arts are about talent and skill.

I can’t really comment on these admissions as they are really all over the place! I found this article pretty interesting, you can ignore the stuff about ‘for profit’ colleges, and just see what this guy has to say about the art and CS side of games as a long time person in the industry, hope you aren’t offended by his byline, there is food for thought.
http://codesuppository.blogspot.com/2013/04/so-your-teenager-tells-you-they-want-to.html

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Congratulations to him!

My son majored in CS and showed me a little game design work (lots of math), and a friend’s son just graduated in animation (BFA I think) but otherwise I don’t know much at all about any of the fields you described.

In general, can your son determine what he really wants to study and work at, and match that to a program? If he is not sure or has multiple interests, then it might be wise to go to a program with a broader focus versus the narrower ones (such as game design).

Small point: it is possible that if he is not in the conservatory, Eastman, at Rochester, he may have less access to musical opportunities there. Check that out.

Obviously a BS has more courses in a major versus a BA, but the BA’s focus can vary in intensity. I think of a BFA as also having more courses in the specific field. Have you looked at the various required curricula at these schools for the majors he wants, and the actual courses? I would print out the program requirements for each school with his desired major and line them up and compare.

Of course there are other factors like money, location, size and “vibe.” Music is another.

Since he has multiple areas of interest, and they are creative interests, and he is not keen on math, I would think he would try for one of the broader options. Meaning, not doing industrial design, engineering or specific game design. So UCSD, Rochester. UT Texas, look like the best for him, to me. But that is just my take and not based on intimate knowledge of the fields or the programs!

Is he committed to a major at any of these schools?

I would focus more on the educational experience and worry less about employability. Chances are he will get a job after any of these programs. A narrow focus may limit his job choices but that is balanced by the specificity of the field: for instance, if he does game design, he may be able to get a job easily in that field, but might be limited to it. If he did Arts and Technology, Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts, or Digital Media, he might have a less specific job target but might have broader choices. Just a thought.

I am curious myself about the 3 degrees that I thought looked most interesting. Some of them intersect with music as well as art, I would imagine. Again, I think it would be good to print out course requirements and even course descriptions, visit again, and decide on the broadest program that addresses his multi-faceted interests and talents.

The BA will include more general education classes but again, that can provide a broad and deep education, and more job choices in the end. Those three programs are all BA programs. Unless he wants to do very specific work in a very specific field, the BA programs look great.

Exciting for him!

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I have a kiddo studying Industrial Design. The advice you have gotten is good, to look at the course requirements. The challenge with a BFA may be the lack of core type classes that will impact him if he changes his major. (But check, because every school is different.)

As to UAH, he needs to see if there are other majors there that he finds appealing that aren’t heavy on math. My son looked at mechanical engineering programs, but thought they were too heavy on math as well.

My impression with ID is that it is the skills you learn, master, have that help you land that first job. So the coursework you take is probably pretty important in terms of the first job/career, so it is important that your degree plan offer a path that appeals to you.

State schools don’t allow deferments generally, but you can reapply the next year.

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Your son should email Career Services at each college that’s a viable option and pose this question. There are many ways to get internships and full time jobs after graduating, but the companies that recruit on campus for specific degree programs is a good proxy for how the outside world (i.e. employers) view these programs.

If your kid is the world’s greatest networker and extrovert, then ignore my advice. But for most students, by FAR the easiest way to launch is to show up at campus presentations by employers, then hand in your resume/transcript/portfolio depending on what they ask for, then get a first round interview on campus before heading to their offices for the next round.

If your son discovers that aprox. zero students in the programs he wants are getting hired this way, it’s a possible red flag that either kids need a Master’s, or that the programs aren’t viewed as rigorous, or that there is a geographic mismatch (companies in silicon valley are likely not heading to a tiny college in a rural area requiring three changes of flights in order to meet the 6 kids graduating from the relevant degree program).

Many kids do very well getting internships and jobs on their own. But a good datapoint would be who comes to campus and which programs are they hiring from for which roles…

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“Obviously a BS has more courses in a major versus a BA, but the BA’s focus can vary in intensity.”

Not necessarily true. At some places that offer both a BA and a BS in a math/science field, those who graduate with a BS may have more courses in that math/science area. Then again there are universities like Happykid’s where everyone got a BS except for students who took at least one year of a foreign language as part of their major requirements (or as electives) and were awarded a BA.

Each college and university decides for itself whether to call its program a BA or a BS or a BFA or any number of other bachelor’s degree names. Employers know that, and they aren’t looking at the specific letters. They are looking at the classes the student has taken, the grades in those classes, and any work/research/internship experience that the student has related to the job on offer.

If you want to know about career placement from University X and College Y, it is perfectly OK to contact the major department and the career center and ask.

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Ok, that is such great advice and makes total sense to contact department heads and ask point blank about job placement after graduation! Thanks so much for suggestion that! I will have him get on that ASAP.

I know my son heard back from the dept. head at Fullerton and their grads are regularly hired (ok, at least according to him; should he be asking for an actual data point somewhere?) by LA companies in animation, game design, film, etc. That sounded very promising.

@BrownParent, I had seen that article before. I do realize “game design” seems like a flaky major in some ways, but what I think my son is looking for is the chance to develop a multitude of skills so he can go in a number of directions-CS, animation, and design. He even applied as a film major at two schools!

He is an “ideas” guy, and he always talks about seeing his ideas come to fruition. Wherever he goes, my hope is that he’ll get the support for his many ideas for games, animated videos, products, and improvements to existing technology.

@compmom, thank you! It is exciting, but very daunting since these are all such varied majors, locations, sizes, and so forth. Whereas during the application process, my son was very blase’, now that he has acceptances and has visited one school overnight, each day, he starts a conversation with me as a sounding board about what he thinks he might or might not want in a college. There are just so many variables.

Rochester, in their letter of acceptance, mentioned to him that he could take lessons at Eastman. Apparently, you have to audition for a spot, but he’s gotten very positive feedback from the orchestra director at Rochester, so I think he’d probably get into a studio for lessons.

@lastminutemomtwo, is your child in a BA or BS industrial design program? What do you/your son think is better? More enjoyable? More employable?

Am I right in assuming (besides the little school in a rural town that’s inaccessible) that the undergraduate school name doesn’t really matter? I mean, if the UCSD major isn’t all that good, does it really matter that it’s UCSD? Or Purdue? Or Rochester? over other schools like UT Dallas?

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I have an “idea” girl too who is interested in a similar path and while I have nothing to add on the BA/BS front, from what I can see the BFA’s tend to require some hands on, artsy studio stuff. I don’t know about yours, but mine has about zero interest in throwing a pot or painting a nude (she’s all digital) so I would suggest really clarifying what the courseload would be and if there are reasonable, useful alternatives…unless he truly wished to expand his horizons with a few charcoal still lifes :slight_smile:

I give you credit-we are finding it a difficult path to figure out what exactly the right degree path is too…and it feels like each U calls their program something different.

I wish it was as simple as “Accounting” or “Geology”!

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LOL! @kac425, that is totally my son! He doesn’t feel he has the natural ability to be an artist. He loves digital animation, though. He has had zero formal art classes, but he has been sketching for his whole life and has dozens of sketch notebooks filled with characters, game moves, poems about characters, and storylines for games/animation/movie, etc.

And yes, the BFA at Fullerton has more art. I think he could just do a BA. Would that be a better choice? I guess we better look into that, too.

It is hard-I agree! Trying to do the best I can to help him since so many schools seem to want you to have it all figured out.

The most selective schools are more flexible, but are also pretty impossible to get into! I am definitely expecting no’s from the few highly, highly selective schools he has left to hear from. I do hope U Rochester is affordable.

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I can’t comment on BA vs BS…but I can comment on MA vs MS. I have a BS in my field. I have an MA in the same field. I have friends with MS degrees in the same field. We took exactly the same courses. My degree happened to be in the college that awarded MA degrees. Theirs were in the colleges that awarded MS degrees.

I have that BS in my field, and also know folks with BAs in my field. Same exact course of study. Dofference was the college within the university that housed the program.

This was for speech pathology. YMMV with other majors.

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My son recently declared his major and had to decide between a BA or a BS in engineering (both are offered at his college, although the BS only is ABET certified), or a BA in CS. Because of his school’s gen ed requirement, the BS in engineering would leave him with only two electives (assuming a normal course load), something that was quite dismaying. Fairly quickly, he eliminated the BA in engineering because it lacked the ABET certification that many employers require. Although the BA in CS (no BS offered) lists far few requirements, his advisor told him that all of the top CS majors go WAY BEYOND the course requirements and typically take 18-20 CS classes - top employers expect this and look at the transcript. So, he felt that a rigorous BA in CS is really no different than the BS in engineering, and he ended up doing a BS in EE with a focus on CS engineering electives.

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I tried to qualify my general statement by saying that BA programs " vary in intensity." But in many programs a BS has more courses specific to the major, fewer electives and sometimes fewer gen ed requirements.

My son recruits at his alma mater for CS jobs in his company. The college he went to is 3k miles away from his workplace. You could check where alumni/ae work. (He got a BS and had very few electives.)

I still think the most basic question is how narrow a focus your son wants, That can equal easy access to a specific career right out of the gate, but sometimes some limitations over time- not always though. Your son can probably make many paths work if he does internships and summer jobs. I hope he finds a program he loves.

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At my university, certain colleges issued a BA others a BS. Arts and Sciences issued a BA, and required two two-seater science course combos plus a “202” level foreign language, while the BS degrees didn’t. Recreation was a BS but physical education was a BA. Journalism a bs, English a ba. Whether employers care would be up to the employer. A physics major would get a ba, but an engineer who a have taken very similar classes received a bs.

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Flakey major? No, I linked that article because of the skill and talent level is very high for those in that field, and the CS side take a ton of high level CS skills that are extremely transferable to a number of areas. I don’t even think you must have read it to get ‘flakey’ from it–I get ‘hardcore’.

I don’t really think he should pick based on which is the ‘more’ employable particularly. He will really want to be employed in the area he prefers and that may be a harder major to get a job in or not. I think he has to go for it. If he has an interdisciplinary major he will have enough skills to be employable. Anything that gives him CS skills is going to help with employment but it may or may not be what he wants, it may just be a business job. So I think he should go for it and try to either get as broad and flexible as possible or just go for it if he wants the design major. And he really should do the work about who is working in Design and if the industry prefers a Master’s. I suspect jobs like that it is all about the talent and the portfolio. But that field is low growth
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/arts-and-design/industrial-designers.htm

I just would worry more about the art/animation because he didn’t yet explore art more formally and will likely have to compare portfolios against people who have been skilled and trained for a long time and are assured about their artistic talent. I think the more interdisciplinary exploration like the ICAM sounds more like he can do his own thing with music, art, sound engineering, visuals, etc.

Hope he can figure it all out. People with a lot of interests and talents will do well, don’t worry too much about jobs just yet. Go for the internships though.

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Really good point about comparing his portfolio with kids who’ve been doing formal art for years, @BrownParent. He did have a portfolio when applying to colleges, but it was almost all animation. This is really something to think about.

He’s stressed about the interview tomorrow. He has come a long way (was hugely shy and wouldn’t even talk to people when he was younger), but is still an introvert. I am telling him to just have fun since he has a number of good options, so not getting the scholarship isn’t a deal breaker.

Really good point about ICAM, too. I was also wondering if he could take more programming classes as his electives at UCSD. He’ll bring in four transferable courses, I believe, (Java, Italian, Calculus I, and English), so he will have a little bit of flexibility.

The downside is, of course, the size, and the possibility of his getting lost.

I’m still fuzzy on the difference between BA and BS since it seems some people are saying same requirements and others are saying BS has more.

I guess we really have to go program by program.

And yeah, I see that Industrial Design has slow job growth. This concerns me. That’s why I wonder if a BS (which presumably has a few more of the hard science/math classes) in ID might be better than Purdue’s BA. Or is the Purdue name worth anything?

And I was just told this evening that here in San Diego, CS jobs are going to explode, so it sounds like getting a lot of CS experience would be valuable. I think he’s ok with that as long as it’s tied to creativity in some way.

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Yes, just print out each program and compare. Websites will usually have a list of major requirements for each degree and will also have course descriptions. Both are important. The terminology varies between schools for what are possibly similar areas of study so doing that kind of detailed comparison might help.

My son is in CS (BS) and does new product development, so there are creative opportunities within the field.

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Yes, you really do need to look at the specific program and see what is offered. If both are offered within the same program, then the BS is more rigorous. If only a BA is offered, you may need to see what specific classes students are taking and what top students are doing to differentiate from the middling.

If both the BA and the BS are offered, the BS typically requires additional classes. For example, BS in engineering at Harvard has 20 requirements, while a BA in the same engineering discipline has 14-16. Harvard only offers a BA in CS (no BS), and the requirement is 10-12 courses, however, most top students (according to S based on lots of delving into the topic) take 18-20 CS classes.

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Son’s long-term GF received her BFA concentrating on animation/game design. She is now getting her masters at USC’s cinematic arts program (3 year program). She was offered some jobs upon graduation after her BFA but what she really wanted would be better attained after her masters. She initially started off in CS, basic engineering but the math was just too difficult. My son, her boyfriend, graduated with a BS in mech E, and he did just fine with the math.

Her opportunities through her grad program include some great internships with animation firms, ie Pixar and others and her classes have been taught by Disney animators. Being in southern CA has really helped, specifically for this area of interest. She is more than half-way done and her work has really changed and become so much more professional. So this may be an area where grad school would be pursued by your son. Something to keep in mind.

Kat

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@katwkittens, is there a lot of debt involved in the masters? I really worry about that simply because we don’t have the income to provide nor to back up that debt should there not be a job waiting on the other end. Does she have a focus/concentration, or do they get training in various areas-game design, film, animation, script writing, etc.?

I’ll share what you said with my son. Heading out to Fullerton shortly. (BTW, I forgot-where did she get her BFA? You can PM me if you’re comfortable sharing)

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Sbjdorlo- good luck on the interview.
I think all your research will be a big help to parents and students down the line. Not so much on specific programs but the decision to pursue arts centered education or a technology centered education. The different threads have provided a lot of great insight and advice from so many CCers.
My S faced similar decisions and in the end went with the BFA. He could have handled the Math of engineering or Industrial design but with severe Add I doubt he could have been organized enough.
My S is a good not great artist but his foundation classes have helped him become a more cultured person and also his drawing and painting classes I think have made him a better designer. His BFA was weak in computer based design but he has learned that along the way on the job.
My S would like to get a MFA in some form of design from RISD or similar program but the cost is high and I don’t think it will result in a significant jump in salary.