Own Your Psychology Major!
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Congratulations on declaring your psychology major! Psychology is among the most popular majors in college today — yet, it's possible that you chose it without realizing how very broad and technical the field is.
Not to worry. In this book, you'll get a bird's eye view of the whole curriculum, from rat mazes and statistics to abnormal psychology and psychotherapy, and you'll dive into some of the field's most enduring debates.
Beyond the what and why of the psychology major, this book provides you with tips you can put into practice from day one, including
- how to maximize your learning inside and outside the classroom
- advice on landing a solid internship
- where to find research and service opportunities
- steps for applying (and paying) for graduate programs
When you finish this book, you'll have a clear idea of why you're learning what you're learning, and how the skills you build in your psychology major will help you solve real-world problems. You'll be able to take an active hand in your education — and own your psychology major.
Preface: A Note for Advisors and Instructors
Acknowledgments
A Note to Students
I. Ethical and Social Responsibility: How to Use Psychology to Make the World a Better Place
- What the Pros Hope You Will Learn in Your Psychology Major: Five Goals From the APA Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major
- Making a Difference: How the Psychology Curriculum Cultivates Ethical and Socially Responsible Leadership
II. Knowledge Base: The Content of Psychology
- The Broad Nature of Psychology Content: How Do These Different Topics Relate to Each Other?
- Human Diversity and Human Universality: How We Are All the Same and How We Are All Unique
- Multifactorial Causation of Behavior: A Fact of Psychology
III. Scientific Inquiry and Critical Thinking
- Psychology Is a Real Science: Part I. The Many Joys of Statistics
- Psychology Is a Real Science: Part II. Research Methods in the Behavioral Sciences
IV. Advanced Research as a Psychology Student
- Rolling Up Your Sleeves: Collaborating on Research Projects
- Telling the World: Presenting Psychological Research Findings
V. Professional Development: Internships, Graduate Programs, and Careers
- How to Land (and Get the Most Out of) an Internship
- Thinking About Careers and Graduate School
- Cheat Sheet for Owning Your Psychology Major
References
Index
About the Author
Glenn Geher, PhD, is a professor of psychology and founding director of evolutionary studies at the State University of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz.
Dr. Geher has taught several courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels — including statistics, social psychology, and evolutionary psychology — and has won the New Paltz Alumni Association's Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award, along with a Chancellor's Award for both Teaching and Research Excellence from SUNY.
He also served as the chair of the Psychology Department at SUNY New Paltz for 8 years. First and foremost, he is a teacher, and his primary goal is to educate and support his students and work to facilitate their success as they develop across their careers.
Dr. Geher's publications generally address two broad themes: the emerging field of positive evolutionary psychology and the state of evolutionary psychology within the landscape of academia.
Among his publications are Evolutionary Psychology 101; Measuring Emotional Intelligence; Mating Intelligence: Sex, Relationships, and the Mind's Reproductive System (coedited with Geoffrey Miller). He is coauthor of Mating Intelligence Unleashed (with Scott Barry Kaufman) and Straightforward Statistics: Understanding the Tools of Research (with Sara Hall).
Dr. Geher has appeared in such media venues as BBC World Radio, CBS Sunday Morning, Al Jazeera English, HuffPost Live, WAMC/NPR, NPR Wisconsin, AM 770 Calgary, and more.
His work has been in Scientific American Mind, Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, Nature, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic, as well as Yahoo News, Elle, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, and Men's Health.
Credited as the founder of the NorthEastern Evolutionary Psychology Society, Dr. Geher is well known for his evolution-themed blog for Psychology Today ("Darwin's Subterranean World").
He lives in a house in the woods on the fringes of New Paltz, NY, with his wife, Kathy, and their two children, Megan and Andrew, and several pets. They have a lot of fun together!
Succinct, informative, and easily digested…Recommended.
—Choice
This book is exactly what aspiring psychologists need right now. It offers practical advice, including how to get an internship, best practices for applying to graduate school, and how to collaborate with professors on exciting research projects. At the same time, in an engaging and student-friendly voice, Geher provides much-needed perspective on the bigger picture surrounding a student's education in psychology.
—Scott Barry Kaufman, PhD
Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, NY
Listen to an interview with author Glenn Geher