Popular Fast Bachelor's Degree Subjects
Colleges and universities traditionally offer bachelor's degrees that take approximately four years to complete.
Increasingly, higher education institutions are offering accelerated online bachelor's degrees that can be completed in 12 months to three years. These fast online degrees include degree completion programs and work at your own pace competency-based degree programs.
Colleges are moving increasingly towards fast bachelor's degrees, for online and on-campus instruction. For example, Ensign College and BYU Idaho have received approval for granting a bachelor's degree that is three years to completion, according to Inside Higher Ed.
These two schools will offer online bachelor's degrees in various subjects that are 90-94 credits, instead of 120. These schools are accomplishing this shortened time to graduate by eliminating some or all Elective classes. These three year degrees have received approval by the The Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities accreditation body.
There are currently 12 colleges participating in a pilot program to develop three year degree programs. These 12 colleges are listed below.
There are also schools, such as Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), that also offer fast bachelor's degrees that can be completed in two years. SNHU accepts transfer credits from Sophia Learning, which allows students to take their basic classes as quickly as they can for flat fees within certain time. frames. Sophia Learning offers one month, six months, or a year, for students to take and pass as many classes as possible in those time frames.
Popular Fast Bachelor's Degree Subjects
1. Game Design
Game design is the subject and art behind creating games. These games can be on laptops, PCs, mobile devices, etc. They can be created for commercial game play, like Minecraft, or games to facilitate training purposes with businesses.
Game Design as an academic subject includes all aspects of game creation, from the idea to storyboarding, to computer science, mechanics and physics of the game worlds to bring the game to life, to character and art design and so on.
The Fastest Game Design Degrees Online: Bachelor's Programs
2. English
English is the study of writing and the English language, including literature. This is a common degree for students that may want to go on to get a teaching certificate and teach, or for aspiring writers and authors. These programs can teach creative writing, fiction or nonfiction writing, screenplay writing, and other kinds of literature instruction.
3. Criminal Justice
A Criminal Justice degree teaches online students the many facets of the law enforcement industry. This can include learning about the corrections departments and prisons, statistics on offending, recidivism rates, bias in the prosecutions of certain demographics, who is at risk for human trafficking, and other important topics related to the criminal justice industry.
The Fastest Criminal Justice Degrees Online - Bachelor's Programs
4. Health Sciences
The health and wellness industry is a business that needs professionals with industry-specific training, such as medical coding and billing knowledge. Health Sciences degree programs teach students the skills necessary to work in the health industry, which can include doctor's offices, hospitals, emergency clinics, and the like.
5. Business
Business degrees teach students the general and best practices across the business world. This includes teaching management, finance, accounting, and other business industry skills. Business Administration is the most popular online bachelor's degree, and also one of the most diverse, including many specializations from which students can choose.
Some of the many Business Administration concentration include:
- Marketing
- Entrepreneurship
- Finance
- Human Resources
- Industrial Organizational Psychology
- International Business
- Nonprofit Management
- Sport Management
Fast Online Business Degrees - Bachelor's Programs
6. Environmental Science
Environmental Science is the study of the environment, which includes new understanding of the natural world, but also how to conserve and preserve it, and create renewable and sustainable energy sources. Students can learn scientific fields including, ecology, biology, physics, geoscience, and chemistry.
There are a variety of specialization options available with online Environmental Science degrees, including:
- Data Analytics in Science
- Natural Resources and Conservation
- Earth and Ocean Sciences
- Environment and Society
- Chemistry
- Biology
- Geoscience
7. Graphic Design
Graphic Design is the subject of creating graphics, images, and depictions, usually for business purposes. It's an artistic side of marketing and business. Graphic Designers use state-of-the-art industry tools to create digital graphics and the like. The degree programs teach students how to create art for different purposes using industry standard tools, such as software and hardware relevant to creating graphics.
8. Marketing
Marketing is the discipline of learning how to inform and create interest in a product, brand, or service. Marketing degrees teach students best practices for generating interest and/or increasing profits for businesses and/or nonprofits. Marketing involves getting the general public, or a specific subset, interested in the object of a marketing campaign.
Even governments, including states, need marketing to attract visitors and tourists. Nonprofits use marketing to attract donations and involvements. Political campaigns use marketing to attract donors and garner votes.
The Best Fast Marketing Degrees: Bachelor's Programs
9. Finance
Finance is the subject of how to best handle money, such as investments, for creating wealth or other considerations, such as tax deductions.
Students learn to understand the world of investing and banking, and the many relevant investment vehicles and practices.
These fast online programs include training for careers such as Financiers, Financial Advisors, Personal Financial Advisors, and other roles.
10. Communication
All businesses, nonprofits, clubs, and governments need to have messaging to accomplish their purposes. Communication programs are designed to teach the art of communication, which has many applications.
Applied Communication, Public Relations, Journalism, Science Communication, Health Communication, and Technical Communication are a few of the specialization options available.
11. Mathematics
Mathematics programs involve learning calculus, trigonometry, or other sub-disciplines, and how to understand their applications to the science of math. Programs that show how math is applied to the real world are called Applied Mathematics.
Students learn how to solve problems and grasp theoretical issues, such as what does dividing by zero really mean? This includes learning theorems and can include abstract concepts.
12. Human Resources
Businesses need to have a mechanism in place to manage and have recourse around the interactions of its employees and how they may interface with the public.
Human Resource degrees teach students best practices and skills for navigating interpersonal and corporate interactions, and also hiring and training practices. The Human Resources department is tasked with maintaining harmony and coherency in organizations.
13. Psychology
Psychology is the study of the human mind and the brain and their interactions. Students in Psychology degrees will learn to better understand how humans think, why they think what they think, what their underlying motivations may be, and how to improve the thinking of themselves and others.
14. History
History is the record of events of the past. It's usually segmented by subject, such as American History, Military History, European History, African History, History of the Middle East, etc.
15. Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship degrees teach the fundamentals of how to start and run a business, and how to bring an idea or concept to fruition in reality. This involves targeting the audience for the product or service being considered, and learning the necessary steps to create a self-employed business.
16. Economics
Economics is the study of people and money and how the interact in society. Students will learn economic theories of what drives industry, innovation, and the interplay of capitalism, socialism, or communism with their societies.
Students learn skills such as math (including statistics), to better understand how people, governments, and corporations use their resources and capital, and to what ends these activities accomplish.
17. Data Science
Data Science is the study of large data sets and how their information can be made meaningful. More data is being generated now than ever before in the history of the world.
It is the job of the Data Scientist to gather, clean, interpret, and visualize large data sets, and use that information to provide insights and make more meaningful decisions.
18. Art History
Art history involves the study of different art through time. It can teach students when a particular epoch or era produced a particular kind of art, such as paintings, and what the social conditions and other factors were that influenced the art, and how the art influenced the social conditions and so on. It is the retelling in historical terms the artistic side of society.
19. Project Management
Project management is the subject behind how to manage large to smaller events, such as fundraisers, or any other project-based function, usually for business purposes. But project managers can also work for non-profits. It also means managing different goals for businesses, in managing the teams necessary to accomplish the tasks and bring a project to fruition.
20. Accounting
Accounting involves keeping track of the income and expenses of businesses or nonprofits, or really any entity that has income and spends it. Graduates with bachelor's degrees typically work as Accountants, or Certified Public Accountants (CPAs).
Certification is required for working as a CPA. These programs teach math, accounting procedures, attention to detail, and how to use industry tools such as accounting softwares.
Colleges with fast online bachelor's programs include:
- Western Governors University
- Arizona State University
- Southern New Hampshire University
- Indiana Wesleyan University
- University of Massachusetts Global
- Capella University
- Strayer University
- Lamar University
- University of Maryland Global Campus
- Colorado State University Global
- Thomas Edison State University
- Purdue University Global
- University of Florida
- North Carolina State University
There are other colleges and universities across the nation that also offer fast programs.
More resources:
Schools participating in the three-year bachelor's degree pilot program:
- Portland State University
- Indiana University of Pennsylvania
- Brigham Young University Idaho
- American Public University system
- Merrimack College
- Georgetown University
- New England College
- University of Minnesota at Morris
- Northwood University
- Utica University
- University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh
- University of Minnesota at Rochester