Human Development and Family Science, BSHHS
Human Development and Family Science equips students to understand lifespan development, family systems, and social services. It prepares graduates for careers in case management, youth services, advocacy, and community programs, or for advanced study in counseling, social work, or related helping professions.
Program overview
Our BS in Health and Human Sciences, with a major in Human Development and Family Science (HDFS), focuses on understanding human development and family systems in context and enhancing the health and well-being of individuals, families, and their communities. Inside and outside of the classroom, HDFS students learn knowledge and skills that can be applied to working with individuals and families. The major is designed to be interdisciplinary in nature in order to accommodate the special interests and strengths of students, while also allowing for flexibility and individualization.
Minor in Human Development and Family Science
Counseling and Human Services minor
Why study Human Development and Family Science?
Students in HDFS have opportunities for careers working with individuals and families across the lifespan, with a range of possibilities. This major is unique in that it offers opportunities to explore multiple interests across a range of populations, making students adaptable and marketable.
Students who graduate with a degree in HDFS often pursue careers in fields such as early intervention, non-profit programs, adoption/foster care, wellness in rehab, among many others. Our students work with individuals from birth through aging in home and center-based settings. Many HDFS graduates further their education in disciplines such as child life, counseling, pediatrics, and family law.
Learn more about careers in family science
What can you do with a BSHHS in Human Development and Family Science after graduation?
A BSHHS in Human Development and Family Science prepares you for careers focused on supporting individuals, children, and families across the lifespan.
Community outreach coordinator
Child welfare worker
Family support specialist
Adoption or foster care specialist
Featured Courses
Development in Infancy and Childhood
Development from conception through middle childhood in various ecological contexts. Interrelationships among cognitive, emotional, social, and biological aspects of ontogeny. Normative and non-normative development. Includes observation.
Family Interaction
Dynamics of family interactions and influences of diversity, including parent-child relations, development of parenting skills, and intrafamily verbal and nonverbal communication processes, patterns, and problems.
Marriage and Family: Roles and Relationships
Emerging and declining roles. Changing relationships among family members across the life cycle from various theoretical approaches. Impact of gender roles on marital relationships. Marital quality, power, decision-making, communications, conflict management, and combining work-family roles.
Family Life and Parent Education
Emphasis on skills required to develop family life education programs implemented in community settings. Overview of current approaches to the process of parenting and parent education programs.
