Degree Requirements

To earn your degree in Psychology, you must complete at least eight departmental courses (in addition to your prerequisite courses) and two senior thesis courses.

 

One departmental course must be PSY 300 (Research Methods). 

  • This course must be completed Junior year. It is usually offered once per academic year, typically during the fall semester.

 

At least four additional departmental courses must be 300-level or higher. 

  • There are typically at least 15 different >300-level courses offered throughout the academic year that may fulfill these requirements. 
    • Most of these courses are offered by Psychology, but there are also multiple courses cross-listed by other departments each year. 
  • Offerings vary year to year in terms of total number and the specific courses offered, so we encourage you to peruse our current course offerings to see the most recent list.

Please note: PSY 300 (Research Methods in Psychology) does not count towards this degree requirement. This means you must complete at least four >300-level PSY courses in addition to PSY 300.

 

Of your remaining required eight departmental courses, all must be 200-level or higher.

  • Please note: if you did not complete them as prerequisites, the following courses must be taken as one or more of your eight departmental courses.
    • PSY 252 (Social Psychology),
    • PSY 255 (Cognitive Psychology), and 
    • NEU 200/PSY 200 (Functional Neuroanatomy) or NEU 201/PSY 258 (Fundamentals of Neuroscience)

 

In additional to your departmentals, you must enroll in the two-course senior thesis sequence.

  • PSY 498 will be completed in the fall; PSY 499 will be completed in the spring.
    • Students who are out of phase must still complete these courses, but may do so at opposite times (e.g., complete PSY 498 in the spring and PSY 499 the following fall).
  • Rising seniors must enroll in PSY 498 during fall course registration (typically in April) and PSY 499 during spring course registration (typically in December). Failure to enroll may result in being dropped from one of your other classes.

 

Any variations from these requirements must be approved by the Psychology Director of Undergraduate Studies.

Students can take up to two cognate courses from other departments, approved by the Psychology Director of Undergraduate Studies, to count as departmental courses.

 

The PSY GPA is an average of the grades from all Psychology courses and approved cognates (primary and cross-listed) taken for a letter grade. Exceptions to this policy are those cognates taken during study abroad: courses taken outside Princeton University are not included in the PSY GPA calculation, even if they are taken to fulfill degree requirements.

 

Psychology concentrators must also successfully pass the Junior and Senior independent work.