Majoring in Psychology
The Psychology major partially fulfills requirements for the B.A. degree and satisfies a Social Science Divisional Requirement.
1. PSY 101 or the equivalent is the gateway to the major and must be completed before the student is accepted as a concentrator. Students are encouraged to seek advice at any time but may not become official majors in psychology until this requirement is met.
2. Passing performance in an acceptable statistics course, preferably by the end of the sophomore year. PSY 200, PSY 211, STT 211, or STT 212 are strongly recommended, but STT 165 or STT 202-203 may also be used to meet this requirement.
3. In addition to the above, at least ten courses comprising the following:
a) Four core courses, two in natural science aspects of psychology and two in social science aspects of psychology.
Natural Science: Two of the following: PSY 110, Neural Foundations of Behavior, PSY 112, Cognitive Psychology, or PSY 113, Biopsychology of Social and Clinical Behaviors.
Note: BCS 111, Foundations of Cognitive Science, may be taken in place of BCS/PSY 112. Students cannot receive credit for both BCS 111 and BCS/PSY 112.
Social Science: Two of the following: PSY 161, Social Psychology and Individual Differences; PSY 171, Social and Emotional Development, or PSY 181, Theories of Personality and Psychotherapy.
b) Six elective courses such that:
- A minimum of four are other than independent study courses (numbered 39x).
- As many as two may be from an allied field, i.e., courses that are not listed or cross-listed as PSY courses. Allied field courses are frequently bridges to a student's second major or a minor. Allied field courses must be supported by arguments showing their close, complementary, and supplementary relationship to the student's psychology courses. Supporting arguments are made to the faculty adviser who will be signing off on the program.
- The elective courses are chosen in consultation with the student's adviser such that the student's major moves toward the goals of increased coherence or specialization and includes some advanced or specialized work in Psychology.
4. In consultation with an adviser at the time the major is declared, students specify two courses in their program that meet or exceed criteria described below for including significant writing. At least one of the courses must be other than a core or Quest course.
Writing courses will stress formal writing, including literature review papers, research reports, and critical reviews of articles. The form of the document will vary among courses, but should conform generally to the appropriate guidelines in the American Psychological Association's Publication Manual.
The criteria for significant writing are the following minimum set of assignments and activities:
1) At least three formal writing assignments. (These could be linked components of a larger document. If so, the separate parts will be clearly identified.)
2) Each assignment is to be at least 5 pages in length.
3) Revision of at least one assignment with the benefit of instructor comments.
4) Meet quality standards of clarity, conciseness, and completeness.
Independent study, laboratory courses, seminars, and small lecture courses in psychology may often be negotiated with the instructor to be 'W' courses and carry writing credit although there will be exceptions. Many lecture courses will have small tagalong writing sections that carry 0.5 credits and are designated as W sections.
Students who have declared their major in psychology may seek admission to tagalong writing sections in the first two weeks of the semester and enrollments will be allotted on need and first-come-first-served bases. Students are encouraged to consult with the individual faculty regarding writing courses registration.
5. Pursuant to College rules, all courses in the major must be completed with a cumulative average of 2.00 (C) or better. Courses passed with grades of D- or better may be included in the major but the overall cumulative average must be 2.00 or higher.
Transfer Courses: As many as two psychology courses in addition to the introduction to psychology (see note at end of this paragraph) and an acceptable statistics course may be used in the major plan. These courses need to meet the college rules for acceptability. Students should realize that receiving college credit for a course does not automatically grant credit toward the major. In most cases, courses should be reviewed and approved by the instructors of the comparable courses. A course description will sometimes suffice, but often a syllabus or a copy of the table of contents of the text is needed to provide sufficient information for a judgment. The college has a transfer credit approval form, and courses in your psychology program can be approved on this form.
Note regarding transferable introductory credits: A score of 4 or 5 on the AP psychology test will result in 4.0 semester hours credit and waiving the requirement for introductory psychology. An AP score of 3 will carry no credit but will result in waiving the requirement for introductory psychology. To earn transfer credit, an introductory course must be taught at a college by regular college faculty. Courses taught in the high school will not be granted transfer credit.