The Psychology Department website>>

Sample Courses:
  • PSY-246. Educational Psychology. Principles of psychology applied to teaching with emphasis on the cognitive abilities of students, classroom management procedures, and motivational techniques. Visits to a variety of local schools.
  • PSY- 210/ BIO-210. Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience Basic concepts of brain functioning as they relate to psychological phenomena. (Weekly lab)
  • PSY- 220. Psychology of Memory and Thinking. How humans code, store, remember and forget information. Related topics include attention, pattern recognition, concept learning and reading. (Weekly lab)
  • PSY-350. Psychotherapy. Survey of the major contemporary systems of psychotherapy, including analytic, family systems, cognitive and behavioral approaches. Learn theories, techniques and processes involved in the practice of psychotherapy.
  • PSY-411. Seminar in Clinical Neuropsychology. A close-up view of the field, which explores the relationship between brain function and behavior, especially the evaluation and treatment of brain-damaged individuals. Includes lectures, readings, discussions, field-work/service learning, and other hands-on practice.
  • PSY-432. Love and Death. An examination of two 20th century lines of inquiry, by John Bowlby and Ernest Becker, which spawned influential contemporary theories in experimental social and personality psychology: attachment theory and terror management theory.
  • PSY-441. Seminar in Adolescence. Development during adolescence and early adulthood, including changing relations to parents, love and sexuality, moral and cognitive growth, and the establishing of identity.
After Union:
After Union
  • Operational Psychologist, U.S. Army
  • Psychiatric Social Worker, Bellevue Hospital Center
  • Clinical Trial Coordinator, Mount Sinai Medical Center
  • Educator, Teach for America
  • Programs Coordinator, U.S. Olympic Committee
  • Marketing Manager, Houghton Mifflin Company
  • Client Valuations Analyst, Goldman Sachs
  • Analyst, Credit Suisse
  • Assistant Director for Young Alumni Programming, Boston College
  • Legal Assistant, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP

Psychology

What makes people behave as they do? How does the human mind work? And how can we use this knowledge in today's world?

As a Union College Psychology major, you will explore such questions as you engage in the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. You will enjoy small classes, enriching internship opportunities and collaboration on research with faculty who are accomplished in their fields.

The Department of Psychology offers a broad array of courses covering this multidimensional field, including:

  • abnormal psychology
  • child and adolescent psychology
  • cognitive psychology
  • educational psychology
  • experimental methods
  • industrial-organizational psychology
  • personality psychology
  • neuroscience
  • the psychology of language 
  • social psychology

After learning the fundamentals, you will take advanced seminars (with 14 or fewer students) in an area of interest, with topics as varied as Psychology of Religion, Love and Death, and the Seven Deadly Sins.

You also will have opportunities to do independent field work, theses and research with your professors. Each year, many students co-author published papers and give presentations of their work at national and regional psychology conferences, as well as at Union's own Steinmetz Research Symposium.  

Internships are an essential component of our program. Psychology students have held internships at a center for autistic children, a battered women’s shelter, biofeedback clinics, day care centers, employee assistance programs, residential facilities for emotionally disturbed children, suicide prevention programs and with other local organizations and programs.

The study of psychology prepares students to enter graduate and professional programs in psychology, social work, medicine, dentistry, nursing, law, education and business, and to pursue a wide range of occupations in these and other fields.