WHY MAJOR IN PSYCHOLOGY?

The Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences offers undergraduate and doctoral degree programs to educate critical thinkers who can contribute to the discipline and the community. As a department, our goal is for undergraduate majors and minors to understand the science of psychology and be able to interpret it to meet the needs of a changing world.  

The Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences offers a variety of experiences inside and outside of the classroom which contribute to these goals, including service learning opportunities, student organizations, opportunities to participate in research, professional academic and career advising, distance education courses, multiple writing intensive (WR) courses, a  departmental honors program, and an ongoing colloquium (speaker)series.  We have a Careers in Psychology/Orientation to the Major course and a summer internship program in which students are placed in one of several community organizations for hands-on application of classroom learning.

The Psychology major offers opportunities to acquire and develop a number of skills valued by employers, the community and graduate school admissions committees:

1)  Analytical  and statistical skills for understanding, interpreting and reporting on data

2)  Communication skills in writing and oral presentations

3)  Problem-solving and information-search skills

4)  Ability to work in and understand groups

5)  Familiarity with computers and database software

6)  Research and measurement/evaluation skills

7)  Social awareness and the ability to understand and monitor self

8)  Ability to apply psychological theory to individual, social and community problems

OUR DEGREE PROGRAMS

 We offer three undergraduate degrees and a minor: 

Bachelor of Arts with a concentration in the Social Sciences:  the standard and most common degree program, requiring students to take supporting courses in other social science departments to provide a broad social/behavioral context for psychology study

Bachelor of Arts with a concentration in Natural Sciences:  designed to facilitate use of pre-existing credits in the natural sciences for supporting classwork for transfers from other majors, and to provide students with a natural science background for focusing on the biological/mathematical context for psychology study

Bachelor of Science:  designed to meet the basic science/mathmathics requirements for application to health career post-graduate training while majoring in psychology, this program requires a demanding sequence of supporting classes in biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics and computer programming beyond the introductory level, as well as increased hours of electives in the major

Minor in Psychology:  to allow students majoring in other fields to acquire basic core knowledge of psychology