Colleges That Offer a Degree for a Child Life Specialist

Children in hospitals face minor and serious illnesses and conditions. Children often struggle through their medical procedures, viewing the hospital as a frightening place, or they simply are frustrated, saddened and weakened by their conditions. Child life specialists are professionals who help children and their families cope with their illnesses and procedures. There are top-ranked colleges across the United States that offer degrees in this area.
  1. Wheelock College

    • Wheelock College is a private, small college with only three departments, one of which is Education and Child Life. Their small size (about 750 students, as of February 2010) leaves students with a teacher/student ratio of 10-to-1. Although the institution is private, over 90 percent of both undergraduate and graduate students receive some form of financial aid. The child life program at Wheelock is dual degree, meaning that students may obtain both their bachelor's and master's degree in five years. The bachelor's degree is in arts and sciences, while the master's is in child life. The program provides approximately 600 hours of certified internship hours, with students having opportunities to work at such medical institutions as Boston Children's Hospital and the Massachusetts General Hospital for Children.

      Wheelock College
      200 The Riverway
      Boston, MA 02215
      617-879-2206
      wheelock.edu

    Mills College

    • Mills College is a liberal arts school on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in California. They accept only women as undergraduates, but accept both men and women for graduate work. The college has approximately 1,500 undergraduates, 585 graduate students and 180 faculty members, as of February 2010. The average grade point average at the school is 3.7, with about 95 percent of students receiving financial assistance. Their child development program (of which child life is an emphasis) is one of the top five undergraduate degrees at the school. The child life program is operated in conjunction with the school's Department of Psychology, with both majors and minors being available. Students in the child life program work primarily in the Mills Children's School for their observations.

      Mills College
      5000 MacArthur Blvd.
      Oakland, CA 94163
      510-430-2328
      mills.edu

    University of Georgia

    • The University of Georgia is a public university about 60 miles northeast of Atlanta. It is the only school in the nation to have received all four of the recognized prestigious scholarships (Rhodes, Marshall, Goldwater and Truman), which has brought the college recognition as a "public Ivy League" school. The child life program is offered as a joint venture between the Department of Child and Family Development and the Medical College of Georgia. Students of the program spend their first three years completing basic course work for the child and family development major. Students then complete the child life emphasis during their senior year by completing an internship at the Medical College of Georgia. Applicants to the program should have a grade point average of 3.0 or better. They are required to complete an interview with the Medical College of Georgia to be eligible.

      University of Georgia
      120 Carlton St.
      Athens, GA 30602
      706-542-4897
      fcs.uga.edu

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