Major Requirements
A note on course sequencing: An important aspect of your progression through the major is proper course sequencing. For example, some advanced courses would be inappropriate to enroll in until after you have completed other courses containing foundational information. In addition to paying attention to the pre-requisites listed for each course and discussing course sequencing with your faculty advisor, please review the suggested guidelines for sequencing the major requirements that can be found at the bottom of this page (click here to go directly to this information).
New Requirements for the Psychology Major:
The requirements for majoring in Psychology have recently
changed. The new requirements
for the major include the completion of eleven courses in the field, including Introductory
Psychology (PSY11). The new major also allows additional flexibility in the
selection of courses completed for the major.
- Students matriculating in Fall 2009 or later must complete the new requirements for majoring in Psychology. Please click
here for the requirements.
- Students who matriculated prior to Fall 2009 may complete either the original or the revised requirements. For a listing of the original requirements of the Psychology majors, please click here for the requirements.
- Students who matriculated prior to Fall 2009 and who wish to complete the revised major should contact Robin Dunn.
- If you enrolled before Fall 2009 and will be declaring your major in psychology, you will need to complete your long range plan based on the former major requirements. Once you have declared, however, you can inform Robin Dunn if you wish to switch to the revised major and the change will be made on ACES for you.
Requirements for the Minor:
All students interested in the minoring in Psychology should click here for the requirements.
Suggested Guidelines for Sequencing Requirements
To provide students with flexibility in navigating the major,
there are few courses which list "hard" prerequisites (e.g., courses that you
are absolutely required to have taken before being permitted to enroll). In most
cases, the prerequisites listed for particular courses are recommendations about
prior course work that will provide important background knowledge for the
course. Although it is therefore often possible to enroll in upper-level courses
prior to having taken introductory courses in that area, it is strongly
recommended that you complete the introductory courses first. If you ever have
questions about your preparation for a particular course, please contact the
course instructor to discuss it. The following two specific guidelines will help
you to schedule a constructive progression of courses.
Complete the introductory/survey courses as soon as possible. These courses provide broad surveys of specific areas of Psychology, and will serve as a foundation to later courses. Indeed, some upper-level courses require completion of one or more of these survey courses as pre-requisites. If you wait to take these courses until late in your academic career:
- You may find the intermediate and upper-level courses you take more difficult because of missing foundational material covered in the core courses.
- You may also find very little challenge (and hence, interest) in the
completion of the core courses later on. Past students taking the core courses
in the senior year have reported difficulty in maintaining motivation for these
courses.
Complete the Statistics and Laboratory Methods requirements prior to upper level seminars. The bulk of the readings assigned in seminar courses are recently published primary journal articles. In order to effectively digest these readings, it is important to have a solid understanding of experimental and quantitative methodology. By completing courses in Statistics and Laboratory Methods prior to enrolling in seminar courses, you will be better equipped to:
- Understand the data analysis presented in the papers.
- Identify possible confounds in the study's conclusions based on problems with experimental design.
- In addition, knowledge of these areas will be very important for students
who plan to conduct their own research in an Independent Study class as a junior
or senior. Thus, delaying taking these classes until senior year should be
avoided whenever possible.