What is it like being a Psychology major?
What are common misconceptions about PSY majors?
Psychology is the study of mind, brain, and behavior. It can be divided into separate areas of study, such as social psychology, developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, and clinical psychology. Psychological researchers use techniques such as fMRI and EEG, as well as behavioral experiments, to try to explain the our mental processes and behavior. At Princeton, the home for Psychology is Green Hall.
What is it like being a Psychology major?
One great thing about Psychology at Princeton is that the course requirements are really broad. You have to take classes in at least two subdivisions (social vs. cognitive vs. neuro), but beyond that you can chose what type of courses you want to take. You can also get courses in other departments to count towards your major if you demonstrate that the course is applicable.
As for independent work, you have the choice of doing either 2 JPs (one in the fall and one in the spring) or 4 JPs (three smaller papers in the fall and one in the spring). The former option is for students who already know who they want to work with, while the second gives you the opportunity to work with 3 randomly selected professors to see who you'd like to work with in the spring. Many people do their own experiments for their thesis, while some also use new research for their spring JP.
Many of the intro classes in Psych are huge lectures, but once you get to the higher level classes, they're smaller seminar-style classes.
What are common misconceptions about PSY majors?
One common view of Psychology at Princeton is that it's the easiest major. Except for a few majors, such as math or chemistry, most majors at Princeton can be made either "easy" or "hard"—it's what you make of it. Yes, you can snake your way around requirements, slack on independent work, and have a pretty easy time being a Psychology major, but if you really take advantage of the wonderful professors in the department and all the research going on, then Psychology will not be easy. Many upper level classes have a lab section, especially cognitive psych classes.
Another misconception is that thesis in the psych department don't use real research and that students just do surveys. This is not true. Many students do use surveys as their primary research, but it is definitely possible to use other techniques for your research, such as fMRI, EEG, or behavioral designs using E-prime or other programming software.
