<p>I'm really interested in the University of Rochester, and also very interested in/probably going to major in psychology. I was wondering if anyone knew anything about the psychology program at Rochester. I read somewhere once that it was one of their most popular majors, but I wonder if that means that the class sizes are very large and contact with professors is sacrificed.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot for your help!</p>
<p>Well, I don't specifically know about the program in depth, but I can speak of one of its graduates. The headmaster at my old high school went there and was a Psych major. He is extremely brilliant and knows a great deal of Psychology. From what I have observed and from what I heard from the students who took his Psych class this past year, he is very knowledgeable.</p>
<p>So from my view of their graduates, they do well and know a great deal.</p>
<p>U of R psych is strong in biopsychology (brain and cognition) and in clinical psych (mental illness). The program benefits from the U of R's affiliation with the medical school and hospital (psychiatry) and from the grad school of education which has child psych and educational psych faculty.</p>
<p>I would recommend a dual major with psychology and something else to make your education more distinctive and competitive. Psychology and math or psychology and biology/chem are good combinations.</p>
<p>cool. thanks a lot. I'm still concerned about class sizes. I have no idea what the average class size is at Rochester, but I'm assuming that one of the school's most popular programs would have large class sizes. Wouldn't this sacrifice faculty attention to each student?</p>
<p>You will be able to get faculty attention if you seek it. Many students do not seek it. Knock on the professor's door during office hours and he or she will talk to you. The introductory classes will have larger class sizes but the classes you take as a junior or senior will have smaller class sizes. Most teachers will answer the questions that are asked in class regardless of class size.</p>
<p>Smaller class sizes sometimes means that students do most of the talking in class. This is not necessarily a good thing. The Professor knows a lot and the students do not. I think there is an optimal level of student participation and that level is somewhere around 10% of class time. Do students want to pay $40,000 per year to talk to each other? I don't think so. Lecture formats are best and seminar formats should be kept to a minimum (depending somewhat on the major).</p>
<p>yeah exactly what collegehelp said, UR is very very good at the biopsych aspect with BCS (brain and cognitive science) and then UR has the sociology aspect with it too, a lot of studies going on at Med school....psych degree from UR will get you far. </p>
<p>my friend is a psych major at UR , he said that all the intro classes are packed (it's a small school so its not like packed like penn state classes or purdue) but its not bad after your first year of intro classes. BTW, any university you go to, the psych classes are going to be HUGE, the intro psychs will easily avg around 150 people to 200 in a lecture hall. But, like i said, after the first year of intro classes, you should be fine and dandy in the regular class sizes at Rochester. And big classes dont necessarily mean that you wont have professor access...thats up to you, anywhere.</p>
<p>What exactly is Brain and Cognitive Science? Is that more neurology than behavioral? (I'm much more interested in neurology aspect of psychology than the behavioral aspect, so if it's more neurological, that would be cool.
Also, is BCS a concentration, or it is an actual major?
And thanks a lot for your opinions on class size/professor access.</p>
<p>What's the difference between BCS and Neuroscience?</p>
<p>BCS = an actual major. My friend, who is a neuroscience told me that BCS and Neuroscience are completely different things (well interrelated but different) BCS = more behavorial, related to the cognitive aspect of psych, how people learn and interpret stuff, neuroscience= more biological, neurology = what i'm gonna be doing.
<a href="http://www.rochester.edu/2009/spotlight.php?i=3%5B/url%5D">http://www.rochester.edu/2009/spotlight.php?i=3</a>
that should give some good info to start you off.</p>