This section is intended to be a useful and important guide to what you will find in these pages, but it is more than that. It should help you to understand something about the basic framework upon which we build our curriculum. We try to teach most of our courses for definite purposes, aimed at certain students, at certain levels, etc.
We recognize that there are a great many different reasons why a student might decide to major in psychology. To organize our thoughts we have pictured students as being of four "types". We are aware that there really are no "types" but it is more helpful to think of four different kinds of students than it is to think of just one kind, vaguely called "the student."
Type A. You want to work in some field that might be classed as one of the applied areas of psychology. You want to channel an interest in psychology into a career that does not require further formal training. You want to "work with children," or "with disturbed people," or "at some agency for social change," or "in business or in industry," or perhaps "with the aged," or "with problems of drug abuse or alcoholism," or "with the courts and with correctional institutions," or some such. You have no current plans to go to graduate school in psychology and will probably not decide to go in the future. Careers with a BA is written with you in mind. It is a capsule discussion of career opportunities in the field.
Type B. Some 10% to 15% of our psychology majors, want to become professional psychologists. You seek careers in psychology that require the M.A., the Ph.D., or the Psy.D. and you must obtain further schooling at some graduate school in psychology. Graduate Study is intended to help you. Along with some comments here are our considered recommendations as to which courses we think you should take. These suggestions are made with three thoughts in mind. First, we want to help you to meet the demands for entrance into graduate programs. Second, we want to help you to prepare for the Graduate Records Examination (GRE). Third, we want to tell you what we think will most help you be successful once you get into graduate school.
Type C. You have a career in mind that will require graduate school in something other than psychology. You hope that the major in psychology will be of use when the time comes for specialization in a different field. You might, for example, be thinking of Social Work, Law, Criminology, Vocational Rehabilitation and Counseling, Medical School, Dental School, Guidance and Counseling, Physical Therapy, Speech Therapy, etc. Other Careers is for you.
Type D. You are majoring in psychology simply because you are interested in the subject matter. General Psychology is our advice to you. We hope that this pamphlet, and the advising which will supplement it, will be of help.
Our curriculum has been planned with at least some attention to what we believe are the needs of our four types of majors. In these pages we are making some suggestions as to what courses might be of most interest and use to you whichever type you might most resemble. We want, in addition, to make the general suggestion that you avoid premature over-specialization. That is, we hope that you avoid taking courses in only one, perhaps two, areas of psychology. Instead, we would like you to experience as many different courses as possible in as many ways as possible. In doing so, we hope you are better prepared for your career aspirations when you graduate.You should, by all means, go beyond our suggestions and select courses that just sound good or that a friend tells you are good. The study of psychology should be a rounding out as well as a way to a career, and it should be fun.