BA in Psychology 2nd Degree

[vanglorious]

I'm considering extending my enrollment for 3 months to get a 2nd Bachelor's degree in Psychology. I would study for courses while waiting for my 1st bachelor's degree (and AAS) to be conferred up to the deadline for exams to be taken for the the next conferral date. Because my 1st Bachelor degree would be a BS in AST my thought was that a BA in Psychology would look better to grad schools. But, since my graduate degree would be in the health field (Physician Assistant) I'm not sure the BS in AST would be a hindrance to entrance. I originally started out pursing a BS degree in Cognitive Science (Biopsychology) with a Computer Science minor and I've always loved the field of Psychology. But, if the BA wont help I won't spend the extra time and money on it.

Btw, I looked up the degrees offered at TESC and Psychology was listed as both: BA in Psychology and BA in Liberal Studies with a focus on Psychology. Which is it? I hope just the BA in Psych.

Aside: I would love to take some of the 24 additional credits for the second degree via online community college courses (for UL credit) but was told that I couldn't start any coursework until my degree is conferred. Is there a work around for this? If I complete coursework for my degree(s) by July 1st do I actually have to wait until September 1st to start courses for my 2nd bachelors or could I start in July?

[ryoder]

There is no workaround. You have to wait until it is conferred.

Do the psychology undergrad courses serve as prereqs for the PA grad degree? If not then I don't know if its worthwhile doing it other than the intrinsic value of having a psychology degree along with the knowledge gained. Psychology is interesting and learning it will probably help your career at some point but doing a second degree takes time because you have to wait before starting classes. I know this from experience. So I began my MBA before completing my second bachelors degree because I couldn't just sit and wait for conferral.

[sanantone]

Where are you seeing that TESC has a BA in Liberal Studies with a focus in psychology? As far as I know, there is only a BA in Psychology. Your undergraduate degree won't matter, just have the PA prerequisites. All you need is one or two psychology courses for the prerequisites and the rest will be science and math. PA programs will pretty much only focus on your volunteer hours, the amount of time you've spent shadowing or working in the healthcare field, your overall GPA, your science prerequisite GPA, and your GRE scores. The more natural sciences courses, the better. Extra psychology coursework is not going to help you much for a degree that's geared toward the life sciences. Although, I know medical schools get tired of seeing biology majors because they like diversity among their student bodies. Not having a biology degree should be good enough to differentiate yourself. I don't know if PA programs feel the same way about biology majors.

[vanglorious]

Thanks sanantone and ryoder. I am considering being a PA in the Psychiatric field and know the BA in Psych would help. I wanted to take classes to meet the 2nd bachelor's degree requirements but ECEs graded exams seem like the only option due to the conferral requirements. Are the DSSTs graded by the organization? Are Excelsior's transcripts free with exams? I also need to check which DSSTs exams Excelsior provides grades for (hopefully Fund of Counseling) and how much it would cost for them to bank the exams for me.