Program Overview
College of Education and Behavioral Sciences
Contact: Carl Granrud, Ph.D., Director
Location: McKee Hall 0014
Telephone: 970.351.2957
Website: www.unco.edu/cebs/psychological-sciences/
Advising Information:
Students must consult with their assigned major advisor each semester prior to registering.
To find your advisor, log into ursa.unco.edu; go to 'Student' tab and click 'View Student Information' link. If no advisor is listed, contact the major program for advisor information.
The program consists of three parts:
- Liberal Arts Curriculum (LAC) Credits
- Required Major Credits
- University-Wide Credits
Program Description:
The School of Psychological Sciences offers a quality, comprehensive, and coherent program. Students learn the research methods and core theories employed by psychologists. The psychology curriculum emphasizes diversity, equity, and inclusion to prepare students to apply their psychological education in diverse communities. Students are also exposed to the diversity of psychology through a range of elective courses. The variety of courses offered permits students to choose a set of psychology courses that are related to their interests and career goals. Students consider their future careers in a required freshman-level course as well as in a required upper-division field experience in which they work in a supervised psychology-related setting.
We are home to an active chapter of Psi Chi, the national honor society for psychology students as well as an active Psychology Club. Psi Chi and Psychology Club work closely with the program faculty and provide social and preprofessional opportunities to qualifying students. Also, we strongly encourage high achieving students with an affinity for research and an interest in graduate school to consider applying to the University Honors Program.
Program Admission Requirements:
Academic Good Standing
Degree Requirements — 120 Credits
1. Liberal Arts Curriculum — 31 credits
To complete the degree in 120 credits as outlined, the program recommends the below LAC courses that also count toward the required major credits.
Completing LAC coursework outside of the recommended list below may extend the length of the program of study.
Written Communication — 6 credits
Select any courses to fulfill this requirement from the currently approved LAC course list.
See Written Communication courses
Mathematics — 3 credits
Select any courses to fulfill this requirement from the currently approved LAC course list.
See Mathematics courses
Arts & Humanities, History, Social & Behavioral Sciences, U.S. Multicultural Studies [MS], and International Studies [IS] — 15 credits
To complete the LAC in the minimum number of credits, be sure to choose at least one course with an IS designation and one course with an MS designation.
PSY 120 (3) is recommended to fulfill the Social & Behavioral Sciences requirement and will fulfill both LAC and major requirements.
PSY 230 (3) or PSY 265 (3) is recommended to fulfill Social & Behavioral Sciences as the additional 3 credits required in Arts & Humanities or History or Social & Behavioral Sciences and will fulfill both LAC and major requirements.
See Arts & Humanities, History, and Social & Behavioral Sciences courses
Natural & Physical Sciences — 7 credits
School of Psychological Sciences faculty recommend that students fulfill their Liberal Arts Curriculum requirement for Natural & Physical Sciences by taking BIO 100 (3 credits) and BIO 105 (1 credit).
See Natural & Physical Sciences courses
See Liberal Arts Curriculum
2. Required Major Credits — 45 credits
Take all of the following courses:
| UNIV 101 | Foundations for Learning and Development | 3 |
| PSY 120 | Principles of PsychologyLAB3 | 3 |
| PSY 166 | Skills and Careers in Psychological Sciences | 3 |
| PSY 200 | Psychological Statistics | 3 |
| PSY 201 | Research Methods in Psychology | 3 |
| PSY 380 | Behavioral Neuroscience | 3 |
| PSY 491 | Psychology Field Experience | 1- 6 |
PSY 491: 3 credits required; 6 credits maximum
Core Group — 6 credits
Choose two of the following courses:
Experimental Group — 3 credits
Choose one of the following courses:
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Group — 3 credits
Choose one of the following courses:
| PSY 280 | Psychology of Human Sexuality | 3 |
| PSY 340 | Psychology & Culture | 3 |
| PSY 365 | Psychology and the Law | 3 |
| PSY 467 | Psychology of Prejudice | 3 |
| GNDR 240 | Gender, Race, Class, and SexualityLAB3LAMS | 3 |
| | or | |
| SOC 240 | Gender, Race, Class, and SexualityLAB3LAMS | 3 |
Electives — 12 credits
Select 12 additional credits from the PSY designation (including courses from any of the lists above that have not already been used to fulfill specific category requirements). Up to 6 credits may be selected from outside the PSY designation from the list below.
Other notes
Approved Electives from outside the PSY designation.
No more than 6 credits of the following courses may be included as Psychology Major electives.
| HUSR 397 | Foundations of Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment | 3 |
| SES 333 | Psychology of Exercise and Physical Activity | 3 |
| SES 438 | Sport Psychology | 3 |
| GNDR 240 | Gender, Race, Class, and SexualityLAB3LAMS | 3 |
| | or | |
| SOC 240 | Gender, Race, Class, and SexualityLAB3LAMS | 3 |
3. University-Wide Electives — 44 credits*
Complete additional credits to achieve the minimum credits needed for this degree at UNC; for this degree, that will typically be 44 credits.
*Note: Students who apply the recommended courses to both the liberal arts curriculum and the major requirements will have an increased number of university wide electives to apply to this degree. See your advisor for details.
Accelerated (4 + 1) Psychology B.A. and Educational Psychology M.A.
Motivated and high-achieving students may seek to complete the requirements for the B.A. in Psychology and M.A. in Educational Psychology in five years. To obtain both degrees, students must complete all the requirements for the B.A. described in the Undergraduate Catalog and all of the requirements for the M.A. described in the Graduate Catalog. Completing the requirements for both degrees in the accelerated Master's program is made possible by taking 9 credits of graduate course work in the junior and senior years (paid for at the undergraduate tuition rate). These 9 credit hours will be counted towards both the B.A. and M.A. degree requirements. Students remain eligible for financial aid as an undergraduate; any Graduate School aid is not available until students are admitted as a Graduate student.
Students interested in transferring into an accelerated Master’s Program must:
- Have a cumulative GPA of at least 3.0 to take graduate-level courses as a junior or senior.
- Meet with the program’s advisor in their junior year, apply (following the same procedure and meeting the same requirements as other M.A. applicants). Full admission is dependent on completing the B.A. requirements in the senior year while maintaining a minimum 3.0 GPA.
- Students and faculty identify the graduate courses the students should take. The program application will be signed and forwarded to the Graduate School with signatures of the program advisor indicating the approval of graduate course transfer.