Psychology is primarily a "liberal arts and sciences" major, most closely related to social science majors such as sociology, anthropology, political science and history, but not very different than literature, languages, and philosophy. The curriculum is very flexible and students are encouraged to obtain a good understanding of their major while at the same time gaining a very broad education.
Psychology majors are expected to become knowledgeable, sophisticated, critical thinkers rather than learn a specific skill or trade. It is this strong liberal arts education that prepares psychology majors for post-graduate studies and makes them desirable to many business and service organizations. Psychology majors begin their college education by taking primarily non-psychology courses, including writing, humanities, math, and science, taking proportionally more psychology-oriented coursework as they progress. By their senior year, their course load is about half or more psychology. The early classes are very general in nature, around the middle of their curriculum they take survey courses in the subfields of psychology, and towards the end they take advanced courses in one or two of these subfields
Nature of Psychology Index |
