- Concentrations and course offerings may vary by campus and/or by program modality. Please consult with your advisor or admissions coach for the course availability each term at your campus or within your program modality.
- Certain options within the program may be required at certain campuses or for certain program modalities. Please consult with your advisor or admissions coach for requirements at your campus or for your program modality.
Bachelor's Degree Entrance
Complete all courses and requirements listed below unless otherwise indicated.
Milestones
First-year paper
Master’s proposal
Master’s paper
Master’s presentation
Annual review
Dissertation committee
Dissertation proposal
Dissertation
Dissertation defense
At least two assigned courses as teaching assistant
Core Requirements
All graduate courses within the Department of Psychology are graded S/U. A grade of S is required in each psychology department course.
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Fundamentals | ||
| Complete the following: | ||
| PSYC 5110 | Cognitive Science | 3 |
| PSYC 5170 | Social and Affective Science | 3 |
| Complete one of the following: | 3 | |
| Colloquium | ||
| Proseminar in Sensation | ||
| Proseminar in Perception | ||
| Proseminar in Biology of Behavior | ||
| Proseminar in Clinical Neuroscience | ||
| Research Dissemination | ||
| PSYC 5301 | Research Methods in Psychological Sciences | 3 |
| Quantitative Methods | ||
| PSYC 5180 | Quantitative Methods 1 | 3 |
| PSYC 5181 | Quantitative Methods 2 | 3 |
| Ethics | ||
| PSYC 7302 | Ethics and Professional Issues | 3 |
| Project | ||
| Take the following (repeatable) course three times: | 9 | |
| Research Project | ||
| Thesis | ||
| Take the following (repeatable) course twice: | 6 | |
| Thesis | ||
Electives
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Complete 14 semester hours from the following: | 14 | |
| Note: Proseminars not taken to fulfill core requirements and courses outside the department may be taken if approved by faculty adviser and Director of Graduate Studies. | ||
PSYC 7200 to PSYC 7300 | ||
| Proseminar in Psycholinguistics | ||
| Cognitive Science | ||
| Colloquium | ||
| Proseminar in Sensation | ||
| Proseminar in Perception | ||
| Proseminar in Biology of Behavior | ||
| Proseminar in Clinical Neuroscience | ||
| Social and Affective Science | ||
| Special Topics in Psychology | ||
Dissertation
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Dissertation Term 1 | ||
| Dissertation Term 2 | ||
| Complete the following (repeatable) course until graduation: | ||
| Dissertation Continuation | ||
Program Credit/GPA Requirements
50 total semester hours required
Minimum 3.000 GPA required
| Year 1 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall | Hours | Spring | Hours | Summer Full Semester | Hours |
| Complete the following: | Complete the following: | PSYC 8401 | 3 | ||
| PSYC 5110 | 3 | PSYC 5170 | 3 | Elective | 3 |
| PSYC 5180 | 3 | PSYC 5181 | 3 | Elective | 2-3 |
| PSYC 8401 | 3 | PSYC 8401 | 3 | ||
| Complete one of the following: | 3 | ||||
| 9 | 12 | 8-9 | |||
| Year 2 | |||||
| Fall | Hours | Spring | Hours | Summer Full Semester | Hours |
| Elective | 3 | Elective | 3 | PSYC 7302 | 3 |
| Complete the following: | Complete the following: | PSYC 7996 | 0 | ||
| PSYC 7990 | 3 | PSYC 7990 | 3 | Elective | 3 |
| PSYC 5301 | 3 | ||||
| 9 | 6 | 6 | |||
| Year 3 | |||||
| Fall | Hours | Spring | Hours | Summer Full Semester | Hours |
| PSYC 9990 | 0 | PSYC 9991 | 0 | PSYC 9996 | 0 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| Year 4 | |||||
| Fall | Hours | Spring | Hours | Summer Full Semester | Hours |
| PSYC 9996 | 0 | PSYC 9996 | 0 | PSYC 9996 | 0 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| Year 5 | |||||
| Fall | Hours | Spring | Hours | Summer Full Semester | Hours |
| PSYC 9996 | 0 | PSYC 9996 | 0 | PSYC 9996 | 0 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| Total Hours: 50-51 | |||||
- Concentrations and course offerings may vary by campus and/or by program modality. Please consult with your advisor or admissions coach for the course availability each term at your campus or within your program modality.
- Certain options within the program may be required at certain campuses or for certain program modalities. Please consult with your advisor or admissions coach for requirements at your campus or for your program modality.
The PhD program in the Department of Psychology covers a wide spectrum of contemporary behavioral science within a close-knit community of faculty and students. Advanced Entry is for students who enter possessing a master's degree in psychology or another acceptable field. The program offers four overlapping areas of experimental emphasis: behavioral neuroscience, cognition, perception, and social/personality. The program does not offer training in clinical or counseling psychology. The objective of the PhD program is to prepare students to become experts in research and teaching in psychology. To accomplish this goal, the department takes a mentoring approach whereby the graduate students are apprentices in faculty laboratories, working closely with their faculty mentors throughout their time in the program. The basic apprenticeship relationship is supplemented by other activities, such as required courses (concentrated in the first and second years), advanced seminars and/or course work in this as well as other departments or universities, a colloquium series, assignments as teaching assistants, the master’s project, and the dissertation and its oral defense. After the first year, the structure of the doctoral program, including course work, is flexible and assumes that the process of learning and scientific discovery must be individualized. Graduate students also have an opportunity to develop their teaching and research skills through close mentoring of undergraduate research assistants. The PhD program is a five-year, 12-months-per-year program.
For students who enter the program with a suitable master’s degree, degree candidacy is established through completion of a set of requirements determined on an individual basis. An additional 20 semester hours beyond the master’s degree are required for the PhD degree. The dissertation committee must include at least three tenured or tenure-track faculty members from within the psychology department—two from the student’s interest area and one from another area. The oral defense committee consists of the dissertation committee plus additional tenured and tenure-track faculty members from the psychology department.
Complete all courses and requirements listed below unless otherwise indicated. Individual programs of study will be tailored to acknowledge students' previous coursework.
Milestones
Master’s presentation
Annual review
Dissertation committee
Dissertation proposal
Dissertation
Dissertation defense
At least two assigned courses as teaching assistant
Core Requirements
A grade of S is required in each psychology department course.
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Consult your faculty adviser and director of graduate studies for acceptable coursework. | 10 | |
Electives
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Consult your faculty adviser and graduate director for acceptable electives. | 10 | |
Dissertation
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Dissertation Term 1 | ||
| Dissertation Term 2 | ||
| Complete the following (repeatable) course until graduation: | ||
| Dissertation Continuation | ||
Program Credit/GPA Requirements
20 total semester hours required
Minimum 3.000 GPA required
Note: The number of semester hours to complete this program may be more than 20. The number of semester hours and the specific required courses will be determined by a review of previous coursework by the graduate director and faculty adviser.