BS in Human Services
The BS in Human Services degree program is a 45-credit-hour multidisciplinary program that draws courses from five Loyola departments: criminal justice, political science, psychology, sociology and social work.
Emphasizing Loyola's Jesuit, Catholic mission of knowledge in the care and service of others, coursework focuses on laying a strong foundation in the liberal arts and sciences while sharpening students' applied skills. Located near numerous human services organizations and professionals, the program takes full advantage of Chicago's many resources for students.
Degree Requirements
The human services major requires 45 credit hours of coursework, including:
- Thirty credit hours of basic courses from a set taken by all students.
- Nine credit hours from one of three areas of concentration:
- Six credit hours of electives from an approved list in these two categories:
- Social Solutions and Social Change, focusing on such topics as social inequality, interactions, policies and change strategies
- Human Diversity, exploring racial, ethnic and cultural differences among human services recipients
In keeping with Loyola's principles of values-based education, students take two service-learning courses. These classes, which pair classroom learning with active service in the community, may be selected from the list of basic, concentration or elective courses, or from courses outside the major.
Students obtain hands-on experience through two required fieldwork courses. A three-hour course introduces students to the operations of human services agencies, the mechanics of service delivery and the fundamentals of client contact. A six-hour course immerses students in agencies for more extensive and in-depth skills training and direct client contact.
To further ensure that the education of students will be both well-rounded and content-specific, all human services majors are required to minor in one of the major's five constituent fields: criminal justice, political science, psychology, sociology or social work. Also, students must take at least one course from each of these five departments; and for students who double major in human services and one of these departments, no more than six courses may count for both majors.
In addition to fulfilling major requirements to earn an undergraduate degree (usually 120 credit hours), students complete Loyola's Core Curriculum, which teaches them important skills and values, and develop their own interests by taking general electives.
