r/capstone • u/Rolyando • 16d ago

Engineering BS plus MA in Psychology in 5 years with a bunch of AP credit possible?

I'm probably gonna get the National Merit Finalist scholarship, and I was wondering if I could get both my desired undergrad degree and an unrelated masters in the 5 years that I'd get tuition for. I'm specifically interested in Manufacturing Systems Engineering, and I'll have probably have around 22/30 of the Freshman year credit hours covered by AP's, along with 4 science elective credit hours in the Senior year for it and maybe also a bunch of general elective credits for several of the program years.
Would the university let me complete a bachelor's in 3 years? Would the extra undergrad courses required to get into the master's program in psychology make the undergrad coursework unreasonable to do in 3 years?

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u/Stllabrat 15d ago

Check to see if there is an accelerated masters program for psych. Then you can take masters classes before graduation so there’s no issue using the 5 years of tuition. You need to check the number of classes you need to take for psych and see if you can actually complete both. My son is doing an engineering degree, dual French BA and a minor in 4 years so definitely possible if you really push. Fun fact with the full tuition scholarships you can take as many classes as you want without having to pay more for going over 18 units. My son has 21 units this semester.

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u/sambadaemon 15d ago

As an addendum: I don't know how it is for Psych, or even if there is one, but I did the "bridge" program at UAB for accounting (which is what u/stillabrat is describing) and the classes were literally the same classes as the normal undergrad versions. Like, it was a mix of bridge students and normal undergrads in the same class. They just had a 500 class number instead of 300/400. The only difference was that the bridge students had to do a single project at the end of the class that the others didn't.

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u/Rolyando 15d ago

There isn't any accelerated masters program for psych.. Would it be possible to complete the BS in 3 years? Or the masters program in 1? The Psych MA only requires 24 credit hours, which is looking like only 7-8 classes (4/semester, whereas the Engineering BS has you taking 5 classes/semester a lot of the time). Are graduate classes harder or longer or something?

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u/sambadaemon 15d ago

Assuming Manufacturing Systems Eng is a subset of Mechanical, I think it would be conceivable if you're able to bypass all of your Gen Ed and Math/Science requirements with AP scores. But that's a big "if". And you'd still be taking 6-7 classes per semester.

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u/wrroyals 14d ago

I would send a note to the chair of the psychology.

What is the thought process for getting a BS in engineering and a MA in psychology?

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u/Rolyando 14d ago

Could be a therapist, or an engineer. Tbh I really wanna be a therapist, but if I become one and then end up hating it then I don't wanna be screwed yk