Program Overview
B.A. or B.S. in Professional Studies

A bachelor’s degree (B.A. or B.S.) in professional studies is available to students with a technical or professional associate degree from a regionally-accredited junior, community or technical college in the United States. The Professional Studies Program is designed to count credits from your technical degree as your “major." With rare exception, students enter SPU with 90 credits and junior standing.

You’ll obtain your bachelor’s degree at SPU by taking liberal arts (i.e. general education) courses, 10-15 credits in foundations courses (including Christian Scriptures and Christian Theology), and completing a minor to complement your technical or professional degree. For example, a student with a computer network specialist degree may wish to complete the bachelor’s degree with a minor in computer science.

Required general education courses to complete the bachelor’s degree are drawn from writing, humanities, fine arts, social sciences, natural and physical sciences, mathematics and SPU Foundations (e.g., theology). More than thirty academic minors are available, including an electrical engineering minor that can be completed through an online/flex plan.

Length of Program
The amount of time it takes to complete your bachelor’s degree at SPU depends on factors such as:

• how many general education courses you have already completed through your associate degree
• how many classes you wish to take each quarter

Many technical and professional programs include courses that will count toward SPU’s general education and/or minor requirements. SPU will evaluate your transcripts to see which requirements still need to be completed and how many elective credits you may need to take. Elective credits are classes you choose to meet SPU’s minimum total credit or upper division credit requirements.

Credit Requirements
Requirements for the B.A. or B.S. degree in professional studies include:

• A minimum of 180 college-level credits
• 60 upper-division credits
• 63-68 credits in general education education (some of which already may have been completed at the two-year school)
• A minor (generally 30 credits)
• Demonstrated proficiency in writing and mathematics