Course descriptionWe encourage students to view psychology and human behavior across multiple levels. We offer our students a solid foundation in the methodology, history, traditional and non-traditional approaches to psychology and urge our students to think critically about the discipline.
Requirements for the Major
Majors in psychology must meet the following requirements either through satisfactory completion of regular course work (normally at one of The Claremont Colleges) or through other means approved by the psychology faculty:
* 1. An introductory course: Psychology 10 or the equivalent.
* 2. A statistics course: Psychology 91 or the equivalent. Psychology 91, designed for Psychology majors, should normally be completed by the end of the sophomore year.
* 3. A research methods course: Psychology 92 or the equivalent. Psychology 92 is designed to be taken after Psychology 91 and should normally be completed by the end of the first semester junior year.
* 4. History and Systems of Psychology: Psychology 190 or the equivalent. Normally not taken before the end of the junior year. At minimum, one course from Group A and one course from Group B must be taken prior to Psychology 190.
* 5. Seven or more additional courses in Psychology which satisfy the following criteria:
1. At least two of the seven courses must be from Group A (listed below) and at least two must be from Group B (listed below).
2. One of the seven courses must be a laboratory course (not including Psychology 112, Research Methods). It is recommended that students fulfill the laboratory requirement well before their senior year.
3. One of the seven courses must be either a course that offers experiences within field settings (such as an internship), a research methods course, or a second laboratory course. Criteria 2 and 3 are designed to highlight the application of knowledge and the techniques used to acquire knowledge in psychology.
4. One of the seven courses must deal with the perspectives of different groups of people whose voices have not traditionally been represented in “main stream” psychology. Such groups include women, people with various ethnic backgrounds, the economically disadvantaged, persons with disabilities and many others.
5. One of the seven courses must be a seminar. Seminars are normally taken during the student’s senior year. Students may obtain from their academic advisers a list of courses fulfilling each requirement at the beginning of each academic year. Majors in psychology must complete a psychology research laboratory course by the end of the spring semester of their junior year.
Group A courses: Comparative, memory, learning, motivation, perception, physiological, and psycholinguistics. Courses offered at Pitzer College that fall into these areas are Psychology 95, 101, 102, 108, 111, 114, 125, 148, 154, 175, 188, 192, 193 and 199.
Group B courses: Developmental, personality, social and clinical. Courses offered at Pitzer College that fall into these areas are Psychology 12AF, 70, 103, 104, 105, 107, 109, 110, 117, 122, 132, 135, 145, 153, 165, 171, 173, 177, 178, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188AF, 194, 195, 197, and 198; Anthropology 75; Political Studies 185 and 186.