Psychology Major
Degree options
- Major/minor in psychology
Program overview
The psychology major allows you to tailor your education to your career goals by offering three concentrations: psychology specialist, behavioral neuroscience, and psychological services.
Behavioral neuroscience concentration
The behavioral neuroscience concentration focuses on the interaction of behavior with biologically based systems, including the nervous system, neural transmission, and hormones. You’ll pair your coursework in psychology with studies in biology and chemistry that provide an interdisciplinary grounding to support the understanding of psychological functions from a natural science perspective. This concentration prepares you for research-oriented positions in human or animal behaviors, health-related careers, or graduate study in behavioral neuroscience.
Behavioral neuroscience requirements
Psychology specialist concentration
The psychology specialist option prepares you for a broad range of activities in psychology, including graduate study and a variety of areas of practice, such as counseling psychology. This curriculum allows you to choose a generalist option or to develop individualized specializations while also completing breadth requirements crucial for advanced study in psychology.
Psychology specialist requirements
Psychological services concentration
The psychological services option prepares you for work in a variety of mental health and human service areas, as well as for graduate training at the master’s degree level in applied aspects of psychology and related fields such as student services, social work, rehabilitation, or career counseling.
Psychology services requirements
Learn more about psychology degree requirements and the courses you'll take as a psychology major.
Beyond the classroom
With strong support for high-level research and internship experiences, and Cornell's One Course At A Time curriculum, you can immerse yourself fulltime in internships for a block or longer. This allows you to work alongside some of the leading researchers in the country. You can receive credit for applying psychological principles in a real-world setting by participating in practicum settings such as the Catherine McAuley Center, the Linn County Juvenile Detention Center, and Waypoint Women's Shelter, where practicum students have worked the crisis phone line, sat in on the support group, and shadowed counselors.
Because One Course At A Time removes other academic priorities, we extend our classroom beyond campus on a regular basis, whether that's a day trip to an amusement park to systematically observe social interactions in Social Psychology, or an entire block off campus in the Psychology of the Holocaust course taught in Eastern Europe.