A Bachelor of Science in Psychology degree can provide you with the building blocks for a rewarding career in the psychology field. Many people continue with psychology school after completing the B.S., going on to get a master’s degree or a PhD in order to provide specialized services to patients or to teach psychology at the university level. A psychology program can be a great undergraduate choice even if you don’t plan on continuing with graduate school to become a specialized psychologist or professor, though. The requirements for psychology programs make it well suited to a number of career choices.

If you choose a psychology major as an undergraduate student at a four-year university, you will receive experience and knowledge in professional and scientific psychology. You will be required to complete the general education courses including math, science, English, history and others before you can begin taking your upper division psychology courses. You will also be advised to take some basic psychology courses during your lower division course load. Some students complete their general education requirements at a community college and transfer into a four-year university; some go in straight out of high school, and others do it all online. There are typically pretty high GPA requirements to get into a good psychology program at a top four-year university.

As you work towards your psychology degree, you will be required to take a variety of courses, many of them in a specific sequential order. Comparative Psychology, Elementary Psychology, Environmental Stress, Intro to Child Development, Loss and Trauma, Principles of Behavior Analysis, Psychopharmacology and Social Cognition are typical courses.

You can use a Bachelor of Science in Psychology degree for many careers, but you will be best off if you go on to achieve advanced professional training after completing the undergraduate degree. The employment of psychologists is expected to grow at a faster than average rate through 2014, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. School psychologists appear to have the most lucrative future. But the first step is starting psychology school at the undergraduate level; then you can see where the career road takes you.

Institutions offering quality Child Psychology Programs include University of Phoenix, Argosy University, South University, Brown Mackie College and Hesser College.