Psychology
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Kathleen C. Chen, Department Chairperson
The bachelor of science degree program in psychology provides students with a strong grounding in the discipline of psychology, integrated with a technological focus. Upon entry, each student is assigned a faculty adviser to mentor his or her progress throughout the duration of the program. Students also are provided with academic advising, discipline awareness, curriculum planning strategies, and career counseling through the program’s Freshman Seminar.
Curriculum
The BS degree in psychology is unique and encompasses three key elements: the technical/professional concentration requirement, a choice of four interdisciplinary tracks, and a cooperative education requirement.
Technical/professional concentration requirement: The program seeks students with an aptitude for technical and quantitative reasoning as well as an interest in psychology. Students are required to complete a technical concentration and may choose from the following areas: science, mathematics and statistics, information technology, imaging science, business, criminal justice, or an individualized concentration developed with an adviser’s assistance.
Four interdisciplinary tracks: Students choose one of the following interdisciplinary tracks: visual perception, information processing, biopsychology, or clinical psychology. Technology is integrated with psychology in these tracks to produce a nontraditional and career-oriented psychology major.
The visual perception track focuses on the human perceptual systems. Vision is presented as an integration of anatomy, physiology, and psychophysics. The track covers rapidly developing topics such as the retinal mosaic and the sensory system’s amazing plasticity. It stresses the most recent work showing that visual perception is a living and growing field.
The information processing track uses an interdisciplinary approach to study cognitive processes such as judgment and decision making, memory, learning, language and problem solving, attention, and perception. The track explores the interaction of human factors, psychology, and technology.
The biopsychology track studies the brain as the biological basis of behavior. It focuses on topics such as the right and left brain with their specific functions, brain injury, and neuropsychological testing. Students perform laboratory work on the brain and its relationship to attention, memory, language, perception, and psychological disorders.
The clinical psychology track emphasizes the scientific and empirical foundations of clinical and applied work. Empirically based methods are introduced to understand and modify human problems. This track prepares students for future graduate programs in mental health.
Cooperative education
The program requires that students complete a cooperative education experience between the sophomore and senior years of course work. The co-op experience is in a psychology-related field and does not carry academic credit.
Transfer admission
The psychology program provides excellent transfer opportunities for students from other institutions, as it requires a core of psychology courses for which transfer students may receive credit. The point of entry into the program is highly flexible, since there is only one fixed sequence: Introduction to Psychology (0514-210), Psychological Statistics (0514-350), and Experimental Psychology (0514-400). The technical concentration component shares a number of common courses with other programs, providing internal flexibility for students from other RIT programs who may retain credits from some of the technical courses they have completed previously.
Career opportunities
The unique requirements of this program ensure that each student should be well-prepared for advanced study in psychology, employment in industry or in a human service agency, or other career opportunities.
Psychology, BS degree, typical course sequence |
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| Qtr. Cr. Hrs. | ||
First Year |
Freshman Seminar 0514-201 | 1 |
| Introduction to Psychology 0514-210 | 4 | |
| Scientific Writing 0514-315 | 4 | |
| Psychological Statistics 0514-350 | 4 | |
| Childhood and Adolescence 0514-440 | 4 | |
| Social Psychology 0514-444 | 4 | |
| Human Biology I, II with Lab 1004-211, 212, 231 | 8 | |
| Algebra for Management Science 1016-225 | 4 | |
| Web Foundations or Higher 4002-xxx | 4 | |
| Liberal Arts* | 12 | |
| First-Year Enrichment I, II 1105-051, 052 | 2 | |
| Wellness Education† | ||
Second Year |
Experimental Psychology 0514-400 | 4 |
| Psychology of Personality 0514-446 | 4 | |
| Abnormal Psychology 0514-447 | 4 | |
| Industrial/Organizational Psychology 0514-448 | 4 | |
| Data Analysis I, II 1016-319, 320 | 8 | |
| Liberal Arts* | 16 | |
| Technical/Professional Concentration | 4 | |
| University Elective | 4 | |
| Cooperative Education (summer quarter) | Co-op | |
Third Year |
Interdisciplinary Courses | 12 |
| Technical/Professional Concentration | 8 | |
| Liberal Arts* | 16 | |
| University Elective | 12 | |
| Cooperative Education (summer quarter) | Co-op | |
Fourth Year |
Interdisciplinary Course | 4 |
| University Elective | 16 | |
| Senior Project in Psychology 0514-597 | 4 | |
| Liberal Arts* | 12 | |
| Total Credit Hours | 183 | |
*Please see Liberal Arts General Education Requirements for more information. †Please see Wellness Education Requirements for more information. |
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