Bachelor of Science Degree
Human Resource Development, B.S.
Increase your professional impact and your earning power with an HRD degree from Oakland University.
Human resources development (or HRD) professionals help organizations and their workers reach their highest potential. If you’re well-organized and have strong interpersonal skills, Oakland University’s HRD degree provides an outstanding foundation for a human resource development career. As one of the nation’s few HRD degrees housed outside a business school, our human resource development program stands out for its emphasis on collaboration and service. You’ll earn a balanced, interdisciplinary HRD degree that equips you to solve problems constructively, build high-performing teams, and play a supportive role in your organization. Convenient class times make our HRD degree accessible to all students, including military veterans and working adults. And we have connections throughout Southeast Michigan, giving you extensive opportunities for professional internships, mentoring, networking, and human resource development jobs.
Human resources development (or HRD) professionals help organizations and their workers reach their highest potential. If you’re well-organized and have strong interpersonal skills, Oakland University’s HRD degree provides an outstanding foundation for a human resource development career. As one of the nation’s few HRD degrees housed outside a business school, our human resource development program stands out for its emphasis on collaboration and service. You’ll earn a balanced, interdisciplinary HRD degree that equips you to solve problems constructively, build high-performing teams, and play a supportive role in your organization. Convenient class times make our HRD degree accessible to all students, including military veterans and working adults. And we have connections throughout Southeast Michigan, giving you extensive opportunities for professional internships, mentoring, networking, and human resource development jobs.
Human Resource Development: The Oakland University Advantage
Southeast Michigan’s dynamic, competitive economy makes it an ideal place to start an HRD career. Employers of every type do business here, including megacorporations, family-owned businesses, nonprofits, government agencies, and nimble startups. This diverse community becomes part of your human resource development classroom, a unique benefit of Oakland University.
Our HRD degree also stands out for its:
- Practical, results-oriented skills. Our HRD degree puts extra emphasis on diversity, leadership, organizational development, workforce training, and related issues that have high value to employers. You’ll acquire skills that add measurable value, enabling you to cultivate productive partnerships between empowered workers and effective managers.
- Industry affiliations. We have partnerships with employers and human resources development professional organizations throughout Southeast Michigan, so you’ll get a practical HRD degree that’s aligned with industry standards. You’ll cap off the HRD degree with an internship, research study, or field project, getting hands-on experience that may lead directly to an HRD job.
- On-campus resources. You can develop human resource leadership skills via the Ken Morris Center’s advanced internships and field work opportunities. Oakland University also houses the Pawley LEAN Institute, which sponsors scholarly research and offers HRD consulting services in the community.
- Superior faculty. Most of our HRD professors have years of experience in human resource development. They combine high-level scholarship with professional insight, providing you with career guidance as well as academic preparation.
- Academic and career flexibility. If you’re a working adult, we offer convenient evening and weekend HRD classes to accommodate your work schedule. You can customize the human resource development degree by adding specialized coursework in lean organization, diversity, and leadership.
What can you do with a human resources development degree?
HRD Careers
As one of the job market’s fastest-growing sectors, human resources development offers tremendous growth opportunities. Whether you’re new to the profession, or seeking to take your HRD career to the next level, our HRD degree equips you to take on greater challenges, do more rewarding work, and earn higher incomes.
Our bachelor’s degree in human resources development can qualify you for work in fields such as:
- Compensation and benefits
- Employee training
- Executive development
- HR administration
- Recruiting
- Labor relations
- Diversity
- Compliance
- Performance assessment
- Project management
HRD Degree: What You’ll Study
Our human resources development degree includes a 32-credit core, plus an additional 32 credits drawn from four areas of concentration: organization development, training, career/leadership development, and employment systems and standards. HRD courses cover a wide range of subjects, including:
- Instructional design and delivery
- Program evaluation
- Hiring and promotions
- Recruiting
- Ethics
- Employment law
- Diversity
- Performance appraisal
- Labor relations