Program Requirements
Departmental faculty members have cultivated individual areas of expertise covering the primary segments of the field. By coordinating their personal scholarship, Hiram psychology faculty have designed an academic program that helps students develop a thorough foundation in the biological, experimental, human service, and theoretical aspects of the discipline. All psychology majors are required to successfully complete a core body of courses that introduce fundamental topics, including the scientific study of behavior and experimental methodologies. To further enhance breadth of knowledge, majors must also select one course from each of the following four course groupings:
• behavioral neuroscience
• developmental psychology
• social, clinical, and personality psychology
• research methods and applicationsStudents are encouraged to enrich their understanding of a particular area of psychology by taking more than one course in the course grouping of their greatest interest. For independently motivated students, department faculty strongly advocate enrollment in an internship. In their final year of study, psychology majors enroll in the senior seminar. Discussions in the senior seminar address contemporary and historical issues within the field of psychology research, and students complete an independent research project which is then presented for review and discussion to faculty and peers.