Athletic Trainer

Types of Degrees Athletic Trainer Majors Are Getting

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

Education Level	Number of Grads
Master’s Degree	1,889
Bachelor’s Degree	960
Basic Certificate	180
Associate Degree	107
Doctor’s Degree	97
Graduate Certificate	19
Undergraduate Certificate	3

What Athletic Trainer Majors Need to Know

In an O*NET survey, athletic trainer majors were asked to rate what knowledge areas, skills, and abilities were important in their occupations. These answers were weighted on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the most important.

Knowledge Areas for Athletic Trainer Majors

Athletic Trainer majors often go into careers in which the following knowledge areas are important:

• Medicine and Dentistry - Knowledge of the information and techniques needed to diagnose and treat human injuries, diseases, and deformities. This includes symptoms, treatment alternatives, drug properties and interactions, and preventive health-care measures.
• Therapy and Counseling - Knowledge of principles, methods, and procedures for diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of physical and mental dysfunctions, and for career counseling and guidance.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• 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.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.

Skills for Athletic Trainer Majors

When studying athletic trainer, you’ll learn many skills that will help you be successful in a wide range of jobs - even those that do not require a degree in the field. The following is a list of some of the most common skills needed for careers associated with this major:

• Monitoring - Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
• 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.
• 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.
• Writing - Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.

Abilities for Athletic Trainer Majors

Athletic Trainer majors often go into careers where the following abilities are vital:

• 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.
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• 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.
• Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.

What Can You Do With a Athletic Trainer Major?

Below is a list of occupations associated with athletic trainer:

Job Title	Job Growth Rate	Median Salary
Athletic Trainers	22.7%	$47,510

Who Is Getting a Bachelor’s Degree in Athletic Trainer?

This major is dominated by women with about 61% of recent graduates being female.

Racial-Ethnic Diversity

At the countrywide level, the racial-ethnic distribution of athletic trainer majors is as follows:

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Grads
Asian	19
Black or African American	62
Hispanic or Latino	181
White	615
International Students	17
Other Races/Ethnicities	66

Geographic Diversity

Athletic Trainer appeals to people across the globe. About 1.8% of those with this major are international students.

Amount of Education Required for Careers Related to Athletic Trainer

Some degrees associated with athletic trainer may require an advanced degree, while others may not even require a bachelor’s in the field. In general, the more advanced your degree the more career options will open up to you. However, there is significant time and money that needs to be invested into your education so weigh the pros and cons.

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

Education Level	Percentage of Workers
Bachelor’s Degree	23.9%
Master’s Degree	70.1%
First Professional Degree - awarded for completion of a program that: requires at least 2 years of college work before entrance into the program, includes a total of at least 6 academic years of work to complete, and provides all remaining academic requirements to begin practice in a profession.	3.7%

Online Athletic Trainer 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)	6	0
Certificate (2-4 Years)	0	0
Associate’s Degree	33	0
Bachelor’s Degree	4	2
Post-Baccalaureate	0	0
Master’s Degree	245	7
Post-Master’s	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Research)	2	0
Doctor’s Degree (Professional Practice)	5	2
Doctor’s Degree (Other)	1	1

Majors Related to Athletic Trainer

You may also be interested in one of the following majors related to athletic trainer.

Major	Number of Grads
Emergency Medical Technology/Technician (EMT Paramedic)	27,986
Physician Assistant	12,477
Radiologic Technology	10,598
Surgical Technology	7,433
Respiratory Care Therapy	6,800
Diagnostic Medical Sonography/Sonographer and Ultrasound Technician	6,280
Medical Radiologic Technology/Science - Radiation Therapy	3,991
Other Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, and Treatment Professions	1,970
Cardiovascular Technology/Technologist	1,420
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Technology	921
Electrocardiograph Technology/Technician	611
Nuclear Medical Technology/Technologist	588
Electroneurodiagnostic/Electroencephalographic Technology/Technologist	384
Polysomnography	235
Perfusion Technology/Perfusionist	183
Mammography Technician/Technology	110
Radiation Protection/Health Physics Technician	71
Gene/Genetic Therapy	41
Cardiopulmonary Technology	39
Hearing Instrument Specialist	14
Orthopedic Technology	6

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

More about our data sources and methodologies.