About the Major
Psychology seeks to understand human cognition, emotion, experience, and behavior. The
Psychology Program at Ramapo College educates students
in both the science and profession of psychology. It teaches
psychology in a liberal arts context that makes clear the interconnections
between psychology and other disciplines, promotes critical
reasoning skills, and emphasizes the ethical issues involved
in psychological practice and research.
The program nurtures learning by immersing students in a variety
of theoretical orientations, research methodologies, and human diversity issues. Students also gain hands-on
experience in the practice of psychology through fieldwork or through an independent research project.
Students are trained to appropriately apply their psychological
knowledge to issues in the world and to become discriminating
readers of social and behavioral research.
To attain these goals, the program requires that students complete
three basic courses: Introduction to Psychology, Research Methods
in Psychology and Data Analysis in Psychology. The remaining requirements are structured around
a number of courses that are grouped into six categories. Students
are required to take at least one course from each of these
categories. This structure allows some flexibility and choice,
yet insures that each student will be exposed to content in
the areas of social, developmental, experimental, and personality/abnormal
psychology. Majors also take a course that presents a cultural
or historical perspective on the discipline and an elective
course in psychology.
Students gain hands-on, applied experience in psychology
through a fieldwork course or an independent research course.
In fieldwork courses students generally work in a mental health or educational
agency in the community such as a school for special children;
in the independent research course they design and implement
a piece of original research. The final psychology requirement
is a 400-level seminar in the senior year: Advanced Topics in
Psychology. Examples of these include "Black Issues in
Psychology," "Psychopathy," and "Cults."
Psychology is an appropriate major for a student seeking a career
in any one of the human-service professions and for a student
planning graduate work in psychology. Graduates may find opportunities
for employment in a variety of settings such as
community mental health centers, counseling services, substance-abuse
programs, geriatric facilities, probation services, and schools
for special education. Other opportunities lie in the fields
of advertising, consulting, consumer research, criminal justice,
education, environmental policy, evaluation research, human
factors engineering, marketing, personnel, and product planning,
The psychology major is offered by the School
of Social Science and Human Services leading to a B.A. degree.
A psychology minor is available.
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