EC - The BA/BS Difference

[Exfactor]

This is all funny to me. I'm a dinosaur BSCE Northwestern '70 and all these years +30 married to by wife with a BA Chemistry CUA, I thought a Science degree was superior to Arts. It's only through this forum in the last years that I have come to realize that the specific requirements for a BA can be just as stringent as a BS. It all depends on the degree program selected. When you have a choice between a BS and BA you will always find the BS more flexible simply because you only have to have 50% of your credits specifically designated LA vs. typically 75% for the BA. It really doesn't make a lot of sense to us ordinary people, but within the pedantic academic community there is still some 400 year old history that LA is superior. It's like cats and dogs. We STEMs are the dogs, and LAs are the cats. Go figure! I'll take the money!

When I attended a private brick and mortar school a couple of years ago, BA degrees where frowned and look down upon. Most projected it as the easy way out (even by professors and the deans). I know particularly as a psychology major students in the department would spend their entire college career trying to attain a BS, yet when they were short of degree requirements come graduation time, they would switch to a BA just to graduate. On forums like studentdoctor the BA vs BS debate is strikingly huge, where BA degrees are frowned upon as being inferior.