Tips for the Rationale Essay for Human Services Students

The rationale essay is the student’s explanation of the purposes, design and significance of her/his individual degree plan (from Policy statements, below). As listed below, there are several parts to the essay. Tips on how to include each of them in your essay are listed below:

• Outline your educational and professional experience, as well as explain what your goals are in earning a degree. 
• For example, where did you attend school before, what type of work have you done before coming to college, or why do you want your degree now?
• Students have discussed how they need a degree for a promotion, career change, to keep their current job, to serve as a role model for their children, or to fulfill a lifelong goal for themselves.
• Discuss how your proposed degree plan reflects your background. 
• For example, how does your degree meet your personal or professional needs?
• Students have discussed how and why this degree meets the requirements in their field.  For example, a student has worked at an organization for 10 years and wishes to become a supervisor, but needs a bachelor’s in human services to do so.
• For students who are changing careers or new to the workforce, many have looked at job postings and have noted that they needed a degree for the position. 
• Discuss how your degree plan reflects the educational expectations of the college (i.e., SUNY general educational requirements, level and breadth of learning and integration and progression of learning).
• Students need to discuss how they meet the general education requirements with the courses that they have taken.
• Many students mention how they earned credits toward general education requirements through their associate’s degree, as well as complete the remainder of the requirements at SUNY Empire.
• For breadth of learning, students have discussed how courses outside of human services benefit their learning.  For example, how do courses in human development, the humanities, and/or sociology influence your learning?
• Discuss how your learning reflects the Empire State College area of study and concentration guidelines for the degree.
• For human service students, this means you will need to discuss how you meet each of the area of study guidelines in human services.  These include: knowledge of human behavior, knowledge of service delivery, skills, ethics, diversity, and application and integration.
• Please make sure to consult the college's area of study guidelines.  Together you and your mentor will decide which courses will meet your interests and each of the guidelines. 
• For example, what courses/prior learning do you have that meet knowledge of human behavior?  Students should briefly discuss how and why the course/prior learning meets the guideline.
• Some may find it helpful, when talking about how a course meets a guideline, to briefly discuss how it helps to expand their knowledge in working with a certain population or age group. 
• Reflect on your awareness of external professional expectations.
• For example, students have researched expectations for a job that they are interested in, entry requirements into graduate school, job prospects in their field, or consult professional membership organizations.

Further Tips

• You will work with your mentor to develop your rationale essay.  Like any piece of good writing, you may need to do several drafts/revisions.
• The rationale essay accompanies your degree plan.  The degree plan cannot be submitted for approval without the rationale essay. 
• The rationale essay is an important piece of writing and needs to meet college-level writing expectations in terms of substance, presentation and academic integrity. Since this is an essay, you should write a short conclusion to the rationale.
• The rationale is not an autobiography, nor is it a listing of degree components or courses.
• Rationale essays tend to vary in length depending on the complexity of the degree program.
• You may submit one rationale for an associate and a bachelor’s degree program designed at the same time as long as the essay discusses both degrees.
• If you have difficulty writing the rationale essay, meeting with a learning coach or seeking writing support is beneficial.  The college website has many academic resources that can also be helpful to you in this process.