An Overview of the Department

The Department of Psychology has vibrant undergraduate and graduate programs; and a very large number of active and well funded research laboratories. Brief descriptions of our undergraduate and graduate programs as well as of our diverse research and service activities are below. Please peruse our website further to learn more about each.

Undergraduate study. With approximately 1,000 undergraduate majors and a very selective honors program, we prepare students for graduate study in a wide variety of disciplines. Many of our best undergraduates go on to graduate school in psychology, while others pursue careers in a wide array of areas, such as medicine, law, business, social work, or a host of others.

We encourage undergraduates to participate in the faculty research activities. They can do so by enrolling in independent study courses or by working in faculty members' laboratories or field research (often in hospitals, clinics, businesses, schools, and elsewhere). Very selected undergraduates gain teaching experience by serving as assistants in lab courses.

Psychology is a limited enrollment program major and students must meet the gateway courses in order to be admitted. Students must have passed Psychology 100 with a grade of B or higher, Biology 105 and Math 111 with a grade of C or higher in order to be admitted to the department.

Graduate study. On the graduate level, we only accept students intending to earn the Ph.D. Some of our programs also require students to earn a Master of Arts or Master of Sciences on the way to their Ph.D. Students can apply to one of five training areas, but are welcome to work with their advisors or committees to design programs of study that cut across areas. The five areas are

• Clinical
• Cognitive and Neural Systems
• Counseling
• Developmental
• Social, Decision, and Organizational Sciences

The Ph.D. is a research degree and training excellent scientists is a primary goal of our graduate program. In addition, the Clinical and Counseling Programs, both APA approved, subscribe to the scientist-practitioner training model, which prepares psychologists to serve the public to meet increasingly diverse research and professional needs in academic and nonacademic settings.

We offer only a full-time (day) program. Students are required to attend classes, conduct research in an increasingly independent fashion, and to serve as graduate assistants. Each of these activities is critical to graduate education and is not possible when enrolled on a part-time basis. Thus, we guarantee five years of support and tuition remission (10 credits per semester) to all accepted students. At the same time, our students are not permitted to hold off-campus jobs unless they are directly related to their educational goals and have been approved by their advisor or committee.

Research. Research, led by the faculty, is a major part of our activity. They, along with graduate and undergraduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and other scientists, work in a very large number of highly specialized laboratories, as well as in field settings. Many of our faculty members collaborate with researchers in related disciplines, including but not limited to biology, criminology, computer science, economics, human development, linguistics, management, and political science on campus here, at NIH, and elsewhere around the world. Much of the research is supported by external funding from Federal agencies, foundations, and other sources. To learn more about specific research projects, please follow links associated with individual faculty names and specific departmental research centers and laboratories.

Service. Finally, our department serves the discipline and the nation via many of the faculty's activities. Some of our members serve on national advisory boards, are officers in national and international professional associations, and are editors or associate editors of major journals.