Before you enroll in college, you may be wondering whether a BS is a better degree option than a BA, or vice versa. In truth, neither of these degrees is better than the other. Earning any type of baccalaureate degree can provide you with invaluable opportunities to expand your knowledge base, acquire new skills or become qualified to pursue careers relevant to your area of focus.
Instead of trying to figure out whether a BA or BS is better for you, consider what your career aspirations are. Then, look for a degree program — whether BS or BA — that aligns with your intended career outcome.
In many cases, you won’t be able to choose whether to enroll in a BA or BS for any given major. For example, if you want to pursue a career in nursing, athletic training or chemistry, you’ll have to enroll in a BS in one of those fields. Similarly, if you wish to explore the humanities, such as history, you’ll enroll in a BA.
In a few cases, however, you may have a choice between a BA and BS program for a certain field or subfield. For instance, let’s say you intend to pursue some sort of career in marketing. Any of these BA and BS degrees may align with your career goals:
Some of these degrees are quite similar, but there are differences between a BS in Marketing and Advertising and a BA in Advertising and Graphic Design. For instance, the former includes courses in accounting, business statistics and economics alongside marketing-specific courses, whereas the latter emphasizes the fundamentals of design, methods of production and copywriting.
If you have a choice between a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science degree in your intended field, you should know that one path isn’t necessarily better than the other. To guide your decision, take a closer look at the curriculum for each degree program to figure out which degree best fits your needs, goals and interests. You might even download the school’s academic catalog to get more detailed descriptions of courses and academic programs.
