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Helping People, Changing Lives

Our Human Services bachelor’s degree program empowers you to make an immediate impact in your community.

You’ll have the opportunity for extensive, hands-on field experience with a variety of human service agencies, finding your niche within a diverse field and building practical skills employers value. Human services professionals assist individuals and communities in functioning more efficiently and will give you the knowledge of various community and social services fields such as child care, mental illness, support for people with disabilities, elderly support and more.

Degree Option

B.S. in Human Services

UNC’s program stands out for its superior professional opportunities. Human Services provides a comprehensive understanding of the techniques and theories in the helping professions. You will master the skills needed to solve real-world problems using a variety of human services methods. Human Services helping skills, foundations of health promotions, program planning and evaluation and community resources are integrated throughout the curriculum. Required courses include Introduction to Human Services, Helping Skills, Program Planning and Evaluation, and a full-time, community based internship. 

Major Requirements

Your Future in Human Services

UNC’s Human Services degree provides outstanding career preparation. Develop skills in applied research and program evaluation, organizational administration, service learning, ethics, entrepreneurship and more. Our graduates do well in the job market and graduate school placements. You’ll begin your career with extensive experience, professional references and a network of relationships.

Consider UNC's B.S. in Human Services if you:

  • Want to make an impact in your community.
  • Have a passion for helping people.
  • Love pursuing knowledge.
  • Are interested in a broad based, applied education
  • Want to be involved in solving real-world problems.

You'll learn:

  • Basic helping skills
  • Client intake and evaluation
  • How to navigate service organizations
  • How to work with diverse populations
  • Creative problem-solving and programming

Sample courses:

  • Case Management
  • Client Assessment
  • Health Promotion and Health Education
  • Issues in Drug Abuse
  • Psychiatric Rehabilitation
  • Perspectives on Aging
  • Working with Families

Beyond the Classroom

UNC's Human Services bachelor’s degree provides extraordinary learning opportunities outside the classroom. You’ll gain hundreds of hours of supervised, hands-on experience via internships and volunteer service. UNC’s Human Services program maintains relationships with dozens of service agencies and organizations, enabling you to sample a broad range of professional environments, work with many types of populations and get experience in settings that closely match your career interests.

Where can your degree take you?

  • Social services agency
  • Nonprofit organization
  • Social science research
  • Public policy
  • Graduate Education

Current Research in Human Services

David Greene, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Program Coordinator

David Greene is collaborating with psychology professor emeritus (University of Saint Mary) Nancy King on an interdisciplinary research project. They are examining the relationship between humor and diabetes. Early results suggested that people living with diabetes are able to maintain their sense of humor despite living with a chronic disease, and that people with A1Cs under 7% had higher levels of positive humor. Current research is examining if there is a causative relationship between positive humor and control (as measured by A1C).

Diabetes and Humor

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