Prepare for the helping professions
It’s amazing how easy it is to change a life. The right question or a well-timed suggestion can be all it takes to start someone on the path to wholeness. At Eckerd College, a Human Development degree combines active classwork, hands-on research and your pick of fieldwork and internships to train you for counseling, social work, child advocacy, education, law, business or more.
Only@Eckerd
Real-world relevance
Courses in human development allow students to explore specialized interests while building practical skills and knowledge that support diverse career and graduate school pathways. The courses are organized to help students align coursework with personal and professional goals with elective offerings that complement the major by offering depth, flexibility, and real-world relevance.
Early experience
Students in our three practicum courses—Peer Counseling, Group Process, and Creative Arts Therapies—do supervised counseling with real clients. That means you’ll leave Eckerd with skills most students don’t learn until graduate school.
In Their Own Words
“Human Development provides the gift of critical thinking and empathic reasoning. The professors challenge an individual to explore their personal and interpersonal roles in both micro and macro contexts. They continue to guide me as I forge my own path. Human Development is not for everyone—but if compassion drives you, human nature interests you, and advocacy/activism ignites your passion … I think you have found your major.”
—Olivia von Mering ’16
Master of Social Work, Mental Health and Addiction, Simmons University
Beyond the Classroom
Opportunities include:
- Child Life Practicum
- Johns Hopkins/All Children’s Hospital Case manager
- Empath Hospice Patient/Family Support
- Planned Parenthood Organizing Fellow
- Public Defender’s Office Abuse Investigator
- Department of Children & Families Counselor
- Perkins Elementary School Grant writer
- Juvenile Welfare Board Best Initiative Shelter Counselor
- Community Action Stops Abuse Events Coordinator
- Westminster Shores Retirement Home Intake Counselor
- Turning Point of Tampa Group Counselor
- Women’s Resource Center
Interested in something’s not on the class schedule? Do an independent study. Recent projects include Play Therapy, Dance/Movement as a Healing Art, Computer Literacy by Age and Photo-Elicitation and Photovoice as Research Methodologies in Human Development.
You may also do research with one of our professors and present your findings at a national or international conference. For example, Haley Kurian ’25, Sofia Salko ’26 and Assistant Professor of Human Development DeAnna Bay-Markins attended and presented their research at the 2025 International Society for Anthrozoology (ISAZ) conference in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Eckerd College offers 300+ study abroad destinations every year but we can also design a study trip just for you. One student worked with a native community in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, for example. Another traveled to Haiti to help children coping with trauma, poverty and abandonment.
Study Abroad Pics on FlickrService is big here and you’ll have lots of choices. You could lend a hand at an orphanage in Jamaica, Costa Rica or Guatemala. Or teach English to refugees living right here in St. Petersburg, Florida. Or volunteer with Humane Borders in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. The list is long.
Service Pics on FlickrPopular classes
Counseling Strategies
This course provides an overview of counseling processes and career exploration in the helping profession with a focus on psychotherapeutic approaches. This course is instructive for students planning to use counseling-related skills in their careers.
Human Sexuality
This course explores developmental and biopsychosocial aspects of human sexuality in terms of sexual functioning, health, and variation of individuals and across relationships. Appropriate for students entering human service, health professions, or medical fields.
Outcomes
What can I do with a human development degree?
Advocacy and Non-Profit Work
- Care advocate
- Community health program specialist*
- Community non-profit director*
- Crisis center specialist*
- Grant proposal writer
- Humanitarian assistance manager*
- Outreach advocate
- Victim advocate
Healthcare
- Audiologist*
- Child life specialist
- Dietitian and nutritionist**
- End-of-life doula
- Healthcare administrator
- Hospice care provider*
- Nurse
- Occupational therapist*/assistant
- Physical therapist*/assistant
- Physician
- Recreation therapist
- Speech language pathologist*
Education
- Career Counselor**
- Childcare program coordinator
- College student affairs*
- Family life educator
- Health educator*
- School administrator*
- School counselor**
- School psychologist**
- Teacher
Social & Public Service
- Activities coordinator
- Case worker
- Clinical Social Work **
- Community support clinician *
- Correctional officer
- Family advocate
- Family policy specialist*
- Lawyer**
- Probation officer
- Public relation specialist*
- Social worker (generalist practice)
Research/Multidisciplinary
- Applied behavior specialist**
- Archivists and curators*
- Child therapist*
- Clergy/chaplain*
- Clinical and counseling psychologists**
- Creative arts therapist*
- Developmental researcher**
- Epidemiologist
- Gerontologist*
- Grief counselor*
- Hotel/tourism manager
- Human resource specialist*
- Librarian*
- Marriage and family therapist**
- Mental Health
- Mental health counselor*
- Museum technicians*
- Program evaluator
- Project manager
- Substance abuse counselor*
- UX researcher
* grad school preferred
** grad school required
Where our human development majors go to graduate school
- Antioch University
- Boston College
- Boston University
- California School of Professional Psychology
- Colorado State University
- Columbia University
- Cornell University
- DePaul College of Law
- Durham University School of Business
- Emory University
- Florida School of Professional Psychology
- Florida State University
- George Mason University
- George Washington University
- Georgetown University
- Goldfarb School of Nursing at Barnes Jewish College
- John Jay University of Criminal Justice
- Kansas State University
- Lesley University
- Medical University of South Carolina
- Mercer University
- Michigan State University
- New York University
- NOVA Southeastern University
- Regis University
- Rush University
- Tulane University
- University of California, Santa Barbara
- University of Colorado, Boulder
- University of Colorado, Denver
- University of Denver
- University of Florida
- University of Hawai‘i
- University of Massachusetts, Boston
- University of North Carolina, Wilmington
- University of Pittsburgh
- University of South Florida
- William James College
Where our Human Development majors go to work
- Anatolia College of Greece
- Bay Pines V.A. Hospital
- Best Buddies, International
- Boys and Girls Club
- Brown University
- Cincinnati Children’s Hospital
- Community Action Stops Abuse
- Denver Public Schools
- Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital
- National Center for Children in Poverty
- Powell Tate
- Public Defenders’ Office
- Theater of the Sea
- Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
- Youth Haven, Inc.
