Degree Types: Associate – Bachelor’s Degrees, Introductory/Advanced Level Credit

Associate and bachelor’s degree have some different purposes and academic expectations.  Many associate degrees provide breadth of study, with a number of courses in different areas, while many bachelor’s degrees provide depth of study with more of a focus in one academic area.  Read about the differences more fully below.

Associate Degrees

In associate-level (introductory or lower-level) courses and degrees, you learn

  • the vocabulary of different fields, such as writing, business, history, math, and more.
  • the major theories and concepts of these fields.
  • basic critical thinking skills that can be applied to any field.

In associate degrees, you learn a variety of skills and perspectives through study of many different academic disciplines—different viewpoints and methodologies through which we can understand our world. You generally learn the basics of different disciplines (e.g., basic scientific method, the vocabulary of literature, the types of questions a sociologist asks, the purpose of studying statistics) in an associate degree. Through these introductory types of studies, an associate degree can also lay groundwork for more focused study in a bachelor’s degree.

You might choose to pursue an associate degree for a number of reasons:

  • to complete one step toward a bachelor’s degree
  • to acquire an initial level of academic knowledge in a particular field
  • to meet employer expectations or requirements
  • to acquire new knowledge in many areas of potential interest
  • to fulfill intellectual curiosity

Associate degree programs generally are expected to include a variety of foundational studies and studies that help develop and strengthen basic academic skills, such as college-level reading and writing, quantitative reasoning, analysis and critical thinking. Review ESC’s Individualized Program Design: Associate Degree Policy for fuller information about the nature about the learning goals of associate degrees.

decorative imageTo recap, Arthur Cohen and Florence Brawer, in an article on “The Collegiate Function of Community Colleges,” explain that:

There is no one, predetermined group of courses that is accepted nationwide as a standard associate degree (because there are different purposes for different types of associate degrees—a capstone to formal schooling, a preparation for transfer into a bachelor’s degree program, a preparation to enter a profession).

  • Different types of associate degrees (A.A., A.S., and A.A.S.) include different types of courses in different proportions (e.g., more “general education” courses in an A.A. or an A.S. degree; more “occupational” courses in an A.A.S. degree). But all associate degrees include some general education courses in areas such as humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, or mathematics.
  • All holders of the associate degree are expected to have the ability to think critically and to express those thoughts clearly in both spoken and written forms.

Cohen and Brawer don’t identify specific courses for an associate degree because the associate degree in the U.S. really can be structured in many different ways. The authors do, however, provide some basic expectations for associate degrees that are essential to understanding what to study and why:

  • They all contain some study in general academic fields (humanities, natural sciences, social sciences, mathematics).
  • Through study in general academic fields, students develop skills in critical thinking and communication.

Such general education courses, common to any associate degree, are things which, in Cohen and Brawer’s words:

are deemed basic to societal cohesion. The dominant American culture rests on literacy, shared values, common understandings, an appreciation for diverse points of view, respect for tradition…The liberal arts curriculum teaches principles of rationality, language, judgment, criticism, inquiry, disciplined creativity, sensitivity to cultures and the environment, and awareness of history…These disciplinary areas are considered useful for purposes as diverse as training for professions, strengthening the mind, broadening outlooks, and developing better citizens. (7)

Bachelor’s Degrees

In bachelor’s-level (advanced or upper-level) courses and degrees, you learn to

  • analyze information, using methods accepted by the field to break the information down into parts, re-structure those parts according to your own insights, and offer an informed opinion.
  • apply theories (e.g., explain an occurrence in terms of a theory in order to understand past actions and predict future outcomes).
  • synthesize information, coordinating data from many sources and understanding how your viewpoint compares with the viewpoints of others in the same field of study.

Bachelor’s degree programs are expected to include both introductory and advanced studies, to show progression from introductory-level to more advanced-level study in which topics are examined with increasingly greater complexity, sophistication and depth. To ensure depth, bachelor’s degrees at ESC require at least 45 credits of advanced-level study throughout the degree, with at least 24 of those 45 in your concentration.

You might choose to pursue a bachelor’s degree for a number of reasons:

  • to move on to graduate school
  • to fulfill requirements of an employer or a profession
  • to explore in depth academic topics that are of personal interest
  • to acquire new knowledge in areas of potential interest and to fulfill intellectual curiosity

Bachelor’s degree programs generally are expected to include a variety of in-depth studies that help you develop skills expected in the field and understand content in more depth. You hone and strengthen more advanced thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of information. Review ESC’s Individualized Program Design: Bachelor’s Degree Policy for fuller information about the nature about the learning goals of bachelor’s degrees.

To recap, the Association of American Colleges’ publication, Integrity in the College Curriculum includes a section on “Study in Depth” which explains a bachelor’s degree in terms of its special focus on an academic discipline:

  • Depth can be achieved through course work in any academic discipline or professional field, yet depth does not result simply from taking many courses in just one field of study.
  • Depth means that the student has learned the theories and methods and “analytical tools” which a certain discipline or field uses—a certain way of observing and gathering data, a certain method of thinking critically about the data, and a certain way of expressing the results.
  • Depth also is defined as the level of complexity the student achieves, which in turn is defined as how well the student understands the interrelationships among the concepts and methods of various, related fields of study. It is this coherence and relationship which develops the “complex structure of knowledge” that characterizes depth. In other words, depth is more like an outward spiral than a straight line. Depth allows the student to view his or her field in increasingly wide contexts (whereas the straight line—the piling of one course on top of another in the same field—ultimately just digs a hole straight down into the ground without fostering the ever-widening insights that characterize depth).
  • Methodology, complexity, and coherence—all of the characteristics of depth—can develop through working with primary sources (i.e., original, first-hand documents such as research studies, creative works, diaries and letters, or interviews). Primary sources require the student to apply and evaluate the discipline’s methods of analysis and interpretation (as opposed to secondary sources which do the applications for the student and contain the results of others’ interpretations).

Example of the Difference between Associate and Bachelor’s Degrees

The difference between associate and bachelor’s degrees can be seen in the language used to describe each one: note the difference between “you learn” (associate degrees) and “you learn to” (bachelor’s degrees). In associate degrees, you learn foundational information to get a sense of the scope of the field.  In bachelor’s degrees, you learn to think more specifically and critically about content by using primary sources, and you learn to apply the methodologies of the field to manipulate that content (e.g., formulate and complete a scientific investigation, critique literature, do a sociological study, apply advanced quantitative methods in a management setting).

For example, in an associate-level course in macroeconomics, you may focus on learning terms such as “money supply” and “planned economies” and concepts such as “supply side economics.” You may learn to use the Business Index to find articles written by professional economists on these subjects, and you may learn to question what they say and offer your own interpretations in writing.

On the other hand, in a bachelor’s-level course in Money and Banking, you may be asked to apply the field’s methods and types of questions to analyze the strategies available to the Federal Reserve and offer opinions about the effect of those strategies on the money supply in the larger economy. You may be asked to apply time series data in order to explain the effect of supply side economics and predict future Federal Reserve strategies. You may be asked to write a research paper using information from many articles, books, and original federal publications to support your own analysis.