We highly recommend completing all these core courses before senior year, for several reasons:

(1) Students who take their core courses earlier tend to do better in other psychology classes.
(2) This takes some of the stress off in senior year, allowing you to take courses entirely of your own choosing.
(3) People who need to repeat a class will have enough time to do so.

Transfer students and students who change majors to psychology should still have plenty of time to complete all coursework.
 

Three-Year Plan

Same basic plan, but you start a year later. Or better yet, take the two-year plan but start a year earlier.

Two-Year Plan

Transfer students or students changing to Psychology from some other major may need this. Assuming you've already had General Psychology (after all, you had some reason for choosing Psychology as your major at this point in the game), you could go this way:

	Fall	Spring
Junior Year	PSY 2023 Abnormal Psy.(maybe spring)   PSY 2143 Statistics   PSY 2533 Learning   PSY 2541 Learning Lab	PSY 4343 Advanced Statistics (B.S.)   PSY 4433  Tests & Measurements
Senior Year	PSY 4733 Experimental Methods	PSY 48?3 (advanced research)

 

One-Year Plan

Okay, this is a tough one, yet possible. It has happened before. Assuming you've already had General Psychology, you either need to take Statistics during the summer or the professor teaching Experimental Methods would have to be thoroughly convinced that you can handle taking Statistics at the same time you take Experimental Methods. We recommend specific psychology electives for the summer so that you will be better prepared before entering an advanced course in the fall. For the person cramming the degree into one year, the best options for the three psychology electives might include Cross-Cultural Psychology or Multicultural Mental Health.
 

Summer	Fall	Spring
PSY 2023 Abnormal Psych.  PSY 2143 Statistics	PSY 2533 Learning   PSY 2541 Learning Lab   PSY 4733 Experimental      Methods	PSY 4343 Advanced Statistics (B.S.)   PSY 4433  Tests & Measurements   PSY 48?3 (advanced research)

 

Majoring students must take 9 hours of psychology electives for the B.A. or 6 hours of electives plus Advanced Statistics for the B.S. 9 hours of coursework will mean at least 3 additional classes from more than a dozen elective courses we offer.

2000 level courses: These are typically taken during the sophomore year, although some students will take one during spring of freshman year if they took General Psychology during the fall. Many students take Abnormal Psychology for their second course in the major. Specific material in it is not excessively difficult, but you do have to work and keep up because it covers a lot of information -- which makes it a good choice for the second course in the major. General and Abnormal together lay a strong foundation for subsequent studies in psychology. Students should take Statistics and Principles of Learning early, preferably during their sophomore year.

3000 and 4000 level courses: Typically these are taken junior or senior year.

Students considering graduate school are strongly advised to take Social Psychology, Physiological Psychology, Advanced Statistics (recommended for B.A., required for B.S.), and History & Systems. One of our summer sources (Critical & Analytical Thinking) includes material useful for GRE and LSAT preparation.

Summer courses: Some classes are offered during both the summer and the regular school year (e.g., General Psychology, Abnormal Psychology, Statistics, Developmental Psychology). We also offer special courses that, when offered, are taught only in the summer (Critical & Analytical Thinking, Psychology in Literature, Love & Sexual Behavior, Verbal Behavior).

 Updated August, 2007.
© copyright Travis Langley, Henderson State University

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