Information for Majors

WHO SHOULD CONSIDER MAJORING IN PSYCHOLOGY?

A person should major in a field only if they are interested in it and reasonably good at it. Your experience in Introductory Psychology can be used to assess these factors. If you had a sustained interest in the subject matter throughout the course, that is a positive indicator. If you found only certain topics interesting and the others boring, that is a negative indicator. Because our department, like most undergraduate liberal arts departments, emphasizes research over applied work (and a research emphasis is the best preparation you can have to be competitive for applied graduate work), another positive indicator is that you find psychological research interesting.

Regarding aptitude, making a grade of "A" or "B" in Introductory Psychology (or obtaining a score of 4 or 5 on the AP exam) is a positive indicator. Students who receive a “C” in Intro Psych might find majoring in psychology more difficult than do other psychology majors. We do not encourage students who receive a grade below a “C” to major in psychology. At the time the major is elected, students must have completed at least one psychology course (includes AP or IB credit for PSY 151, but excludes PSY 100), and must have a minimum GPA of 2.0 or higher in all graded psychology courses.

Additional information about the major, and about opportunities and resources for our majors, are provided in sub-folders within this section.