Need advice with degree plan for TESC. Human Services vs. Psychology

[sanantone]

OP, another option you may want to consider is an LDAS degree. I am currently looking into that now. Its basically a "create your own degree" type of plan, so there is a lot of flexibility. I have a pretty varied background, & do a lot of volunteer work, & have worked in human services. The problem I see is that everyone & their brother seems to go for psychology. Unless you plan to get either your masters &/or PhD in psych then its not a very useful degree. Human services is great & has tons of jobs, but the pay for human service workers is generally very low... less than what I made without any degree. For the life of me, I don't know why TESC doesn't offer a degree in Social Work... because honestly of the three it is probably the most useful. Social work jobs won't often hire people without a social work degree, but human services jobs will almost always hire people with a human services, social work, or psych degree. I do notice though that most social work positions pay a lot better than human services positions... & a bachelors more related to social work will give you a lot more exclusive job options.

One thing though is if you want to look at a BA LDAS geared more towards social work, check your local state licensure requirements. After that, I'd recommend also looking at degree program requirements for any graduate degrees that you might consider doing later, so you can make sure your bachelors covers the necessary courses rather than having to play "catch up" later.

Almost every state will require a CSWE-accredited social work degree, so the LDAS would be useless. There are only two small advantages to getting a BSW:

1. It will give you advanced standing in an MSW program if you're even interested in going that route.
2. You can become a licensed social worker at the baccalaureate level.

From what I've seen in my job searches, most social worker jobs require a masters degree. Whenever I see a bachelor's degree in social work listed as a requirement, it's usually for a non-licensed, social services job that also accepts related degrees in psychology, counseling, sociology, etc.