Psychology
Department Office: 315 Psychology Building, 603 East Daniel, Champaign, (217) 333-0631
Psychology is the scientific investigation of human and animal behavior. Psychologists study behavior in systems ranging from single cells to the individual person, from small groups of people to communities. Psychologists strive to describe behavior and to understand its underlying biological and social mechanisms. This enterprise, designed to better understand the human condition, accumulates knowledge that can help solve problems faced by individuals and by communities. Students that graduate with a major in psychology acquire a wide range of knowledge and useful skills that allows them to find employment in many different areas.
Undergraduate Program
The Psychology program of study is a broad-based curriculum within a research-focused department. The program is designed both for students interested in a liberal arts education with psychology as a focal area and for students who plan to attend graduate or professional school either in psychology or in a different field such as medicine, law, social work, business administration, counseling, labor relations and many others. Undergraduate students also have the opportunity to participate in current research projects by working in labs. Students should contact our undergraduate advising office for help in creating a plan of study that best meets their goals and interests.
The graduate preparatory work in psychology is designed to provide students with a solid academic background that will prepare them for graduate education in a number of psychology specializations. Career opportunities in these specializations vary, as does the required level of graduate school training. While a doctorate is needed for most areas of academic psychology, a master's degree is sufficient for careers in many applied psychology fields such as personnel psychology, measurement psychology, and engineering psychology.
Academic Advising
The psychology undergraduate advising office is open to help students choose patterns of courses relevant to their interests, as well as to help students explore graduate school, professional school, and career options. Advising is done by an award-winning staff of academic professionals along with mentoring by faculty for students with research interests. Peer registration assistants are also available to help with the registration process.
Major in Sciences and Letters Curriculum
E-mail: advising@psychology.illinois.edu
Degree title: Bachelor of Science in Liberal Arts and Sciences
Minimum required major and supporting course work equates to 44 hours including 32 hours of Psychology courses.
General education: Students must complete the Campus General Education requirements.
Minimum hours required for graduation: 120 hours
Department Distinction: To be eligible for graduation with Distinction in Psychology, a student must complete a two-semester research sequence in PSYC 494, submit a Senior Thesis, and maintain an overall 3.0 GPA at the time of submission. To be eligible for High or Highest Distinction, a student must first be admitted to the Honors Program (requirements: junior standing, 3.5 GPA in Psychology and overall, and completion of an introductory and two other psychology courses plus psychological statistics). The student then has to complete the three semester Honors Program (1 semester of PSYC 398 and 2 semesters of PSYC 498), submit a Senior Thesis, and maintain an overall GPA of at least a 3.0 to be awarded High Distinction or a GPA 3.5 for Highest Distinction.
| Hours | Requirements |
|---|---|
| 4 | Select one of the following: |
| PSYC 100 - Intro to Psych | |
| PSYC 103 - Intro Experimental Psych | |
| PSYC 105 - Psych Introduction | |
| 3 | PSYC 235 - Intro to Statistics or equivalent |
| 6 | Select two courses from the following: |
| PSYC 204 - Intro to Brain and Cognition | |
| PSYC 210 - The Brain and the Mind | |
| PSYC 220 - Images of Mind | |
| PSYC 224 - Cognitive Psych | |
| PSYC 230 - Perception & Sensory Processes | |
| PSYC 248 - Learning and Memory | |
| 6 | Select two courses from the following: |
| PSYC 201 - Intro to Social Psych | |
| PSYC 216 - Child Psych | |
| PSYC 238 - Abnormal Psych | |
| PSYC 239 - Community Psych | |
| PSYC 245 - Industrial Org Psych | |
| PSYC 250 - Psych of Personality | |
| 13 | Select any 300- or 400-level Psychology courses including at least one course from the following laboratory/research methods courses: |
| PSYC 311 - Techniques of Bio Psych | |
| PSYC 331 - Cognitive Psych Lab | |
| PSYC 332 - Lab Meth In Soc Psych | |
| PSYC 333 - Social Psych In Nat Settings | |
| PSYC 334 - Vision and Space Lab | |
| PSYC 350 - Personality Lab | |
| PSYC 363 - Developmental Psych Lab | |
| PSYC 379 - Clinical Psychology Lab | |
| PSYC 429 - Hum Comp Interaction Lab | |
| PSYC 437 - Advanced Psychology Lab | |
| PSYC 489 - Neural Network Modeling Lab | |
| PSYC 490 - Meas and Test Dev Lab | |
| 12 | Supporting course work outside psychology that will complement the core program. These courses must be approved by an academic adviser. These courses could be:
|
Twelve hours of 300- and 400-level courses in the major must be taken on this campus.
All foreign language requirements must be satisfied.
A Major Plan of Study Form must be completed and submitted to the LAS Student Affairs Office before the end of the fifth semester (60-75 hours). Please see your adviser.
Some areas of interest in psychology
- Biological psychology is the study of the biological mechanisms underlying behavior. Biological psychologists generally are interested in the brain and the nervous system, in the endocrine system, and in other organismic processes.
- Clinical psychology is the study of problems encountered by individuals, groups, and families — especially problems involving psychopathology. Clinical psychologists are interested in the application of psychological knowledge and techniques for the alleviation of these problems.
- Cognitive neuroscience is concerned with understanding the neuroscientific bases of cognition. Various methods are employed to assess the roles of different brain systems in psychological functions such as memory, attention, language, executive control, decision making, response processing, and emotion.
- Cognitive and neurobiological aging examine how the aging process affects memory, thought, and brain function, as well as how life experiences affect cognitive function.
- Developmental psychology is the study of intellectual development, emerging personality, and the acquisition of language, as well as psychophysiological and social development processes as individuals develop from birth through old age.
- Community psychology is the study of social processes and problems of groups, organizations, and neighborhoods, and the development and evaluation of progress for social change and social policy based on psychological understanding.
- Engineering psychology is the study of human behavior in the context of interactions between humans and machines.
- Cognitive psychology is the study of basic behavioral and cognitive processes, including learning, memory, problem-solving, motivation, and language.
- Language processing and psycholinguistics focus on how humans acquire and use language and how these processes are related to neural organization.
- Measurement and mathematical psychology specialists develop mathematical models of psychological processes and devise methods for quantitative representation and analysis of data about behavior. These are used in the study of differences between individuals in ability, personality, preferences, and other psychological phenomena.
- Personality psychology focuses on individual behavior. It is the study of ways to understand and describe an individual's behavior and to predict an individual's future behavior.
- Personnel psychology is the application of techniques of assessment, prediction, and intervention to areas of human resources in organizations, including, but not limited to, standard personnel selection and training, attitude assessments and interventions, and program evaluations.
- Social psychology is the study of attitudes, social perception and cognition, interpersonal relations, interpersonal interactions, and social and cultural factors affecting human behavior.
- Visual cognition is the study of attention, visual perception, visual memory, and human performance. Visual cognition research uses tools drawn from cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience to better understand how visual information is perceived and remembered.