By Tabitha Redder/managing editor

TCC and Tarleton State University have paved a simple path allowing TCC psychology students to transfer to the four-year university’s Fort Worth campus. 

In addition to transferring the entire TCC core curriculum, the university will accept all psychology courses taken at TCC and apply them toward the 120-hour Bachelor of Science and Psychology degree.

Tarleton State University recruits NE students April 15.
Photo by Katelyn Townsend/The Collegian

“There are some courses TCC students take that have a reference of PSYT and DAAC,” Tarleton’s education director Juanita Reyes said. “Those are more technical courses for vocational programs. Those will transfer to the university. They will just not count toward the program.”

Ryan Dickerson, outreach specialist at Tarleton’s Fort Worth campus, said he thinks the psychology degree lessens the headache many students endure when transferring credits to another college.

“We have our general education requirements, the basics, and outside of that are 17 elective hours that can be anything,” he said. “Since it already has room for electives, it’s going to make it easier for transfer students who might have taken a bunch of random classes. It’s one of the easier degrees to work with.”

Tarleton associate professor Kimberly Rynearson said the university is open to answering questions and offers information to inquisitive students.

“We are willing to send advisers and faculty and outreach specialists over to do presentations in classrooms to talk to TCC students,” she said.

Ashley Magers, a TCC graduate and a current psychology major at Tarleton’s Fort Worth campus, said cost and location were prime factors in her decision to transfer to the university.

“It was amazingly smooth,” she said, describing the transfer process. “They accepted all of my TCC credits, with the exception of the mental health and substance abuse program because it’s more of an applied science. Every single class I took for my AA including my electives, they accepted, so I walked into Tarleton with almost 90 credit hours.”

Though the Bachelor of Science and Psychology degree offers a streamlined transfer process between the colleges, South Campus academic adviser Sandra Bermejo said students should not procrastinate meeting with a counselor to discuss the future.

“Counseling and advising is keeping up and tracking where students are with their credit hours,” she said. “Generally, students wait until the semester they’re graduating, even the week after they’ve graduated to visit the transfer center. We’re working hard to change that culture.”

Dickerson echoed this advice.

“It’s important early on in your first couple of semesters going to TCC to start that conversation with the university you plan on transferring to,” he said. “That’s where you’re going to find which courses are going to transfer into your specific concentration.”