Please note that not all of the courses mentioned below are offered every semester. The following information is entirely unofficial and was created as an aid to Psychology Majors and their advisors. The Boston College Undergraduate Catalog for the year you entered Boston College provides the official requirements. Use the following as “academic scratch paper” to help design your education. The requirements include a total of ten courses from within the Psychology Department.
- Survey and methods: These courses provide a broad introduction to the field and science of Psychology. PS 110 and PS 111 should be taken (in any order) as soon as possible after declaring Psychology as your major. PS 120 and PS 121 should be taken sequentially, preferably in sophomore year.
- PS 110 - Introduction to Psychology as a Natural Science
(freshman year best, sophomore year okay) - PS 111 - Introduction to Psychology as a Social Science
(freshman year best, sophomore year okay) - PS 120 - Introduction to Behavioral Statistics & Research I
(sophomore year best, junior year okay) - PS 121 - Introduction to Behavioral Statistics & Research II
(sophomore year best, junior year okay)
- PS 110 - Introduction to Psychology as a Natural Science
- Distribution: This distribution requirement extends the educational goals of the introductory courses. The distribution requirement guarantees that each student has some in-depth exposure to at least a few different areas within psychology. The specific courses that satisfy this requirement have been chosen to represent key areas within the discipline. Three 200-level courses are required and must include one course from three of the following four clusters:
- Biological:
PS 285 - Behavioral Neuroscience
PS 287 - Learning and Motivation - Cognitive
PS 271 - Sensory Psychology
PS 272 - Cognitive Psychology
PS 274 - Perception - Developmental & Clinical
PS 260 - Developmental Psychology
PS 264 - Abnormal Psychology - Social-Personality
PS 241 - Social Psychology
PS 242 - Personality Psychology
PS 254 - Cultural Psychology
- Biological:
- Electives: Three additional Psychology courses are required, at least two of which must be at the 300-level or higher.
- A number of courses can be used to fulfill this requirement. Ideally, a student uses the electives to incorporate genuine "depth" into his or her major by exploring in more detail an area of particular interest within psychology such as, for example, human cognition or perhaps developmental psychology, social-personality psychology, or biopsychology.
- Alternatively, the electives can be used to examine a particular topic, such as the psychology of women, from a number of related perspectives. While the two introductory courses and the distribution requirement guarantee breadth of exposure to psychology as a whole, the electives can be used to acquire state-of-the-art expertise in a narrowly defined portion of psychology.
- Students can take an independent study course or a "Research Methods Practicum" course in partial fulfillment of their elective requirement.