Undergrad Program (Area of Specialization) - OU Department of Psychology

Areas of Specialization

Psychology is a diverse science with many different areas of specialization. Some of these areas are clinical psychology, community psychology, counseling, social, personality, quantitative, developmental, experimental, educational, environmental, industrial/organizational, neuropsychology/psychobiology, family psychology, and forensic psychology.

Students who earn a bachelor's degree typically will not have a specialized degree (for example, in child psychology) upon graduation. Specialization in a particular area of psychology is, more often, a part of the graduate education process at either the masters or doctoral level.

Undergraduate students often logically conclude that they need to be in a psychology department that has an extensive graduate training program in the specialty area of their interest (for example, clinical, or sensation/perception, or developmental, etc.) and that they need to take as much coursework in that area as possible. This conclusion may have some merit for those students who will not seek any additional graduate work, but it can have grave consequences for those who do want further training.

The most important goals of an undergraduate education in psychology are to provide the core skills anyone will need for using their training in psychology (that is, basic statistics, experimental methods, critical thinking, scientific writing, and oral communication) and to develop knowledge of a broad spectrum of content areas in scientific psychology (e.g., biological, industrial/organizational, developmental, cognitive, abnormal, social, etc.). This broad-based skill and knowledge development is essential for both those students wanting to seek immediate employment by blending their bachelor's degrees with selected coursework from other areas, and especially for those students who want to build a strong foundation of knowledge for success in graduate school and for achieving success on the Graduate Record Examination area test in psychology, a test often used as an important criteria for psychology graduate school admissions.

The Department of Psychology at OU is one of only a few psychology departments nationally that specializes in the core of experimental psychology content areas that provide students the very important foundation on which they can develop their career path. Regardless of your ultimate career goals, your undergraduate education in psychology at OU, especially with our abundant opportunity for undergraduate research involvement, will serve you well.