Psychology - B.A.

Location(s): River Forest Campus

Students are offered a variety of courses that introduce them to the wealth of information that psychologists have discovered about behavior and mental processes. Psychologists have studied nearly every behavior in which human beings engage. As the science of behavior, psychology includes the study of both human and animal behavior in laboratory and real-world settings. Students collect and analyze research data as a way of understanding the methods that psychologists employ to answer the significant questions that attract us to the study of ourselves and our behavior. Students may major or minor in psychology as well as choose courses to enrich their understanding of behavior or to supplement other areas of study.

Required Courses

Major Requirements

Thirty-eight (38) semester hours in psychology including:

Psychology Core (18 credits)

Psychology Electives (16 credits)

Students take an additional 16 credit hours from the psychology curriculum; at least 8 credits must be at the 300 level.

Developmental Psychology Requirement (4 credits)

Departmental Comprehensive Examination

All students earning a major in psychology are required to complete the comprehensive examination in the discipline. The examination is administered by the department to graduating seniors at the end of their final semester. All psychology majors must earn a passing score on the comprehensive examination as a condition for graduation.

Additional Requirements

A minimum of 14 semester credit hours in the major field must be completed at Dominican University.

Psychology 290/291 Requirement

Psychology majors need to complete PSYC 290 Behavioral Research and Statistics I and PSYC 291 Behavioral Research and Statistics II at Dominican University and must earn a minimum grade of C- in both. These courses are central to the psychology major/minor, and unless there are extraordinary circumstances, the department will not approve transfer credit for these courses. The learning outcomes for PSYC 290/291 foster the development of the skills and knowledge psychology students need in order to be successful in upper-level psychology courses at Dominican. Although some other four-year colleges may offer integrated research methods and statistics courses for their psychology majors, these courses typically do not cover all of the essential learning outcomes taught in PSYC 290 and PSYC 291.

DOMINICAN UNIVERSITY

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