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Undergraduate Program - Introduction

Since 1892, Brown University has offered both undergraduate and graduate degrees in psychology. From its inception as a branch of philosophy, psychology has evolved as the science that studies how we perceive, learn about, and remember the world around us, how we develop physically and socially, and how we interact with our fellow humans. Modern psychology studies both human and animal behavior, employs both observational and experimental methods, and incorporates many levels of analysis - including biological and neural, evolutionary, cognitive, developmental, and social.

The undergraduate program in psychology at Brown is both rigorous and flexible, offering a solid background for a number of later career and educational choices. For students not concentrating in psychology, the Department offers a diverse curriculum, from introductory psychology to a range of survey courses in the major subdisciplines of psychology, including physiological, cognitive, personality, social, developmental, and clinical. In a typical academic year, the Department offers about thirty courses. Although a few of the introductory courses have enrollment of over one hundred, these typically have weekly sections of twenty-five students or fewer. The curriculum puts a special emphasis on intermediate and advanced courses that have small enrollments.

For students who wish to concentrate in Psychology, the Department offers both A.B. and Sc.B. programs. Concentrators take advantage of a wide range of course options, including courses in quantitative methods, laboratory techniques, and senior seminars on specialized topics. Concentrators take upper-level courses in the major sub-disciplines in psychology, including perception and cognition, behavioral neuroscience, and social psychology. Concentrators choose the area in which they will specialize, and take additional courses in that area. Currently, the Department attracts about one hundred concentrators each year, with about sixty receiving A.B. degrees and forty receiving Sc.B. degrees.

One of the hallmarks of the undergraduate program in Psychology at Brown is close collaboration between undergraduates and faculty members. Qualified undergraduates may work as teaching assistants with faculty members. Students may serve as section leaders in courses such as Introductory, Personality, Social, or Abnormal, and as laboratory assistants in one of six laboratory courses. Students also have the opportunity to conduct independent research under the supervision of one of the faculty members in the Department.

Approximately one-third of the psychology concentrators at Brown choose to enter the Honors program, in which students work on a research project with a professor on a one-to-one basis for a full year. Honors students collaborate with their faculty advisor in all stages of the research process, from designing an experiment, to collecting and analyzing data, to writing a thesis, and giving an oral presentation on the research project. In a given year, about thirteen faculty members are available in the Department to serve as honors advisors. All of these faculty members are active researchers in their fields, with national reputations in their areas of specialization.

An education in psychology is not bounded by eight semesters in college. A number of students work in psychology labs in Providence each summer, some on research grants and others as paid assistants. Seniors who graduate with degrees in psychology pursue graduate training in a range of fields, including medicine, law, education, business administration, and both clinical and experimental psychology.

We encourage students who are interested in Psychology to examine the undergraduate program described in these pages. As you will see, our our program offers students a rich set of opportunities to sample from the field, to collaborate closely with faculty members who are dedicated to their work, to experience the excitement of scientific discovery, and to appreciate the special rewards of sharing knowledge with others through teaching.