BA vs BSc in psychology

irish-anabel

What's the difference? I was always under the impression that it is only possible to get a fully accredited psych degree if it was Arts.
Thanks in advance for answers.

hotspur

I'm pretty sure it's just a matter of which faculty psychology happens to fall into in a university. There's really no difference, but as anyone who has looked for psychology schools on university websites knows sometimes it's under arts, science, social sciences, health science etc. They are all the same degree and it isn't relevant for accrediting purposes which it is, what's relevant is whether the particular institution's psychology degree is accredited.

Here is the PSI's list of accredited undergraduate psychology degrees:
http://www.psihq.ie/accred_UnderGradList.asp

MysticalSoul

The course I am doing is a BSc in Psychotherapy. A friend of mine who is doing the same course in a different college is doing it as a BA - she seemed to feel threatened by the fact mine was a BSc, despite me saying there was no difference

Spartan09

irish-anabel wrote: »

What's the difference? I was always under the impression that it is only possible to get a fully accredited psych degree if it was Arts.
Thanks in advance for answers.

In reality, it makes very little difference in the long run if you plan to stay in Psychology as a career, when you do interviews you assign points for various qualifications and the points you assign for BA /BSc are the same as its having the undergraduate qualification that is important.

eth0_

BA/BSc makes no odds as long as the degree is accredited by the PSI, BPS or both.

Some uni's award mostly BA's for some reason, I guess it's just tradition.

Trinity award their computer science degree as a BA, and you could hardly say comp sci is an arts subject :-)

Liquorice

I didn't realise there were any psych BSc courses in Ireland, but looking at the PSI link it looks like all of the major universities except Trinity offer a BSc. Is that based on how you enter psych (through direct entry, arts or science) or on what modules you take?

It definitely doesn't matter which you do here 'cause to be accredited by the PSI you have to take courses from 5 different streams, and like eth0_ said the kind of bachelor's degree you get is often based on tradition. I often worry that in the future when applying for postgrad/postdoc abroad my BA Mod (if I get it, of course) will look bad next to someone else's BSc but I guess at that stage people care more about your research than the specifics of the alphabet soup after your name.