If, after high school, it is your desire to pursue a job in science or engineering, odds are that you will first attend a college or university where your studies will ultimately earn you a Bachelor of Science degree. As we saw in the article "Bachelor's Degree", however, this may not be the case; you could still be awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree. As the number of schools offering only Bachelor of Arts degrees is minimal, we will focus here specifically on the Bachelor of Science degree and the schools that offer them.

Despite the differences between bachelor's degree programs at various institutions, all agree that a Bachelor of Science degree, usually abbreviated B.S., is awarded for the completion of three to five years of undergraduate study. The length of time is dependent on the particular course of study and also on the number of courses a student takes at a time.

While many schools, particularly liberal arts colleges and universities, may not offer a Bachelor of Science degree at all, most offer a B.S. based on predictable criteria. At the extreme are universities like MIT and the United States military colleges whose programs are generally science-centric and offer nothing but Bachelor of Science degerees (or their derivatives) to their graduates.

For institutions that offer both Bachelor of Science degrees and Bachelor of Arts degrees, the type of degree earned is often predictable just by the subject studied. Traditional natural science fields like physics, chemistry and biology lead to a B.S. as do tangential subjects like mathematics, computer science, and engineering, whose students are usually in a lengthier undergraduate program at five to six years. Often students studying business and law will earn a Bachelor of Science as well.

There are, of course, specialized degrees under the generic Bachelor of Science umbrella, including: Bachelor of Engineering, Bachelor of Applied Science, Bachelor of Computer Science, Bachelor of Science in Education, Bachelor of Science in Forestry, among many, many others. Read the literature from the colleges and universities you are interested in attending to learn about the specifics of the degrees they offer. You will be thankful as you enter the thick of your studies that you did your "homework" ahead of time.