Animal Health

Types of Degrees Animal Health Majors Are Getting

The following table lists how many animal health graduations there were for each degree level during the last year for which data was available.

Education Level	Number of Grads
Bachelor’s Degree	84
Associate Degree	16
Graduate Certificate	14
Master’s Degree	8
Undergraduate Certificate	6
Basic Certificate	2

What Animal Health Majors Need to Know

O*NET surveyed people in occupations related to animal health and asked them what knowledge areas, skills, and abilities were important for their jobs. The responses were rated on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being most important.

Knowledge Areas for Animal Health Majors

Animal Health majors often go into careers in which the following knowledge areas are important:

• Biology - Knowledge of plant and animal organisms, their tissues, cells, functions, interdependencies, and interactions with each other and the environment.
• Food Production - Knowledge of techniques and equipment for planting, growing, and harvesting food products (both plant and animal) for consumption, including storage/handling techniques.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
• Mathematics - Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.

Skills for Animal Health Majors

The following list of skills has been highlighted as some of the most essential for careers related to animal health:

• Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
• Speaking - Talking to others to convey information effectively.
• Judgment and Decision Making - Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
• Reading Comprehension - Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.
• Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.

Abilities for Animal Health Majors

Some of the most crucial abilities to master while a animal health student include the following:

• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.

What Can You Do With a Animal Health Major?

People with a animal health degree often go into the following careers:

Job Title	Job Growth Rate	Median Salary
Agricultural Sciences Professors	7.9%	$84,640
Animal Scientists	4.9%	$58,380

Who Is Getting a Bachelor’s Degree in Animal Health?

This major is dominated by women with about 96% of recent graduates being female.

Racial-Ethnic Diversity

At the countrywide level, the racial-ethnic distribution of animal health majors is as follows:

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Grads
Asian	1
Black or African American	6
Hispanic or Latino	2
White	68
International Students	0
Other Races/Ethnicities	7

Amount of Education Required for Careers Related to Animal Health

Some careers associated with animal health require an advanced degree while some may not even require a bachelor’s. Whatever the case may be, pursuing more education usually means that more career options will be available to you.

How much schooling do you really need to compete in today’s job market? People currently working in careers related to animal health have obtained the following education levels.

Education Level	Percentage of Workers
Less than a High School Diploma	1.3%
High School Diploma - or the equivalent (for example, GED)	12.9%
Post-Secondary Certificate - awarded for training completed after high school (for example, in agriculture or natural resources, computer services, personal or culinary services, engineering technologies, healthcare, construction trades, mechanic and repair technologies, or precision production)	8.1%
Some College Courses	0.7%
Associate’s Degree (or other 2-year degree)	3.9%
Bachelor’s Degree	21.7%
Post-Baccalaureate Certificate - awarded for completion of an organized program of study; designed for people who have completed a Baccalaureate degree but do not meet the requirements of academic degrees carrying the title of Master.	2.2%
Master’s Degree	10.9%
Post-Master’s Certificate - awarded for completion of an organized program of study; designed for people who have completed a Master’s degree but do not meet the requirements of academic degrees at the doctoral level.	0.2%
Doctoral Degree	28.5%
Post-Doctoral Training	8.8%

Online Animal Health Programs

The following table lists the number of programs by degree level, along with how many schools offered online courses in the field.

Degree Level	Colleges Offering Programs	Colleges Offering Online Classes
Certificate (Less Than 1 Year)	0	0
Certificate (1-2 years)	1	0
Certificate (2-4 Years)	0	0
Associate’s Degree	2	0
Bachelor’s Degree	1	0
Post-Baccalaureate	0	0
Master’s Degree	2	0
Post-Master’s	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Research)	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Professional Practice)	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Other)	0	0

Majors Related to Animal Health

You may also be interested in one of the following majors related to animal health.

Major	Number of Grads
Animal Sciences, General	7,680
Animal Sciences, Other	204
Poultry Science	177
Dairy Science	154
Livestock Management	33
Animal Nutrition	10
Agricultural Animal Breeding	8

References

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

• College Factual
• College Scorecard
• National Center for Education Statistics
• O*NET Online
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers First Quarter 2020
• Image Credit: By Billy Hathorn under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.