BA or BS degree?

Invisible

Which is considered the "better" degree? I thought it was the Bachelor of Science degree, but my advisor told me that the Bachelor of Arts was consider more prestigious on University grounds because it covered more material. She did mention that neither would really matter to an employer, but now I'm curious myself.

I meet the requirements for both, so it's not a big deal to change from a B.S. to a B.A. and it won't affect my graduation schedule. And since my degree encompasses both research and 'art' it's not likely to affect it either.

Thanatos

It depends on the school and program.

At my school, a B.S. in math was substantially better than a B.A. My friend who's getting a math graduate degree at another school got a B.A., because it was more prestigious where he went.

bsjezz

I'll refrain from making McDonalds jokes this time, but I've always been under the impression that based on the name of the degree alone, a BA was pretty much the bottom of the ladder. Don't get me wrong, I have a BA and had a wonderful education, but I've been the brunt (and purveyor) of many a BA joke.

I think the last thread about this came to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter unless you'd consider doing a Masters degree sometime down the tracks which would require one or the other degree.

Walter

A degree is a degree is a degree. Med schools don't differentiate between a BA and a BS and I would say they are rather judgemental. The only time I have heard of it actually making a difference is applying for PhD or masters programs where you're expected to know the material very well.

EggyToast

Generally speaking, a BA means you took more "liberal arts" classes, whereas a BS means you took more technical classes.

At the U of Mn, a BA meant "you gotta take 2 years of a language," and a BS meant "you gotta take 2 years of technical shit like mathematics or programming."

Which is better? Depends on what you're gonna do with it. If you're going to go into something that's very technical, a BS says "yeah, not only do i have a degree, but i took at least 1 or 2 technical classes." If you don't plan on doing much technical stuff, a BA is fine. or a BS.

But how YOU should decide is to look at what the differences are in the major you're looking at, and see which one is more interesting. If the BA track sounds more intriguing, then do that. If the BS sounds better *to you*, do that. It's not a life or death decision; most bachelor's degrees are pretty receipts that you can put on resumes, and are interpreted to mean "Yes, I can stick with something for at least 4 years and succeed at it."

Of course, if you're looking at a particular career path, you should be looking at what is desireable in that career path. A BA in "history of science" is not going to get you into science grad school.

Invisible

EggyToast wrote:

Generally speaking, a BA means you took more "liberal arts" classes, whereas a BS means you took more technical classes.

At the U of Mn, a BA meant "you gotta take 2 years of a language," and a BS meant "you gotta take 2 years of technical shit like mathematics or programming."

Which is better? Depends on what you're gonna do with it. If you're going to go into something that's very technical, a BS says "yeah, not only do i have a degree, but i took at least 1 or 2 technical classes." If you don't plan on doing much technical stuff, a BA is fine. or a BS.

But how YOU should decide is to look at what the differences are in the major you're looking at, and see which one is more interesting. If the BA track sounds more intriguing, then do that. If the BS sounds better *to you*, do that. It's not a life or death decision; most bachelor's degrees are pretty receipts that you can put on resumes, and are interpreted to mean "Yes, I can stick with something for at least 4 years and succeed at it."

Of course, if you're looking at a particular career path, you should be looking at what is desireable in that career path. A BA in "history of science" is not going to get you into science grad school.

At this point, I've taken enough classes that I can get either degree without it literally affecting anything (I have both the foreign languages and the science classes). If I change to a BA, I'll be taking the same classes my last semesters as I would be if I stayed with a BS. I don't have any particular aspirations to go to graduate school, even though my advisor suggested that I could.

I'll probably just stick with my BS. Thanks for the information.

Virum

Do you want a degree that has letters that are often used colloquially for "bullshit," though? Do you?

It's a serious thing to consider. :P

Like other people said, it doesn't really matter if you aren't planning to go to grad school.

Jimmy King

As has been said, it doesn't really matter. It also will vary from school to school and you may not even have much of a choice. When I went to University of Iowa majors were either a B.A. or a B.S. You couldn't decide between a B.A or B.S. in computer science, you got a B.A. Whatever you wanted to major in determined which you got. Generally a B.S. is going to be more tech and math heavy, but at U of I even things like the previously mentioned computer science, which was 4 years of programming, still got you a B.A.