This is probably a silly question, but I’m an international applicant so this is quite different to how it works at home. I’m looking to do a psychology major at Ole Miss (if anyone could give me an idea of Ole Miss’ psychology dep’t’s reputation I would be very grateful) but I’m having a bit of trouble understanding it.
Does that mean you have to take courses in everything listed there? Including 6-12 hours of a language? Are the things listed there (e.g. the science classes) all needing to be taken or do you choose a selection of them? Are they required? I want to learn about psychology, not spend all my time studying Spanish and Chemistry, for example, both of which I am terrible at.
Can someone give me a hand understanding what this means? Also what does it mean when it talks about 120 hours total, 40 of which need to be 300 level or higher???
Not sure if this is in the right section, but thanks for taking the time to read
I suppose this is an okay place to post since you are sill selecting colleges to apply to, it seems and you want to understand how US universities work, this one in particular.
120 hours (or credits) is a typical 4 year undergraduate degree course load. One course if usually 3 or 4 hours/credits/units. When they say 300 or higher, they are referring to the course numbering that indicates upper division courses. Different universities do number courses differently but at this one 100 and 200 level are lower division, and 300+ are upper division and considered more advances coursework and may require lower division courses as prerequisites. They want you to have some harder classes to earn a 4 year bachelor’s degree and not take all easy entry level courses.
In the US, 4 year undergraduate degrees require more coursework than just classes in your major. For this reason, and your surprise, a US university may not be the right program for you. The coursework that is in addition to your major are often called Distribution requirements or Core requirements or General Education requirements or in this case Liberal Arts requirements and yes they are required. Some colleges ask for less that others. A small amount of college are very flexible and allow you to select these yourself. But Ole Miss requirements are fairly typical. In order for you to get a degree from them, they want to be assured that you have taken English, History, Math, Language, Social Studies, Humanities and Performing Arts. However you are exempted from SS because of your major. Some colleges will let you test out or exempt the foreign language requirement if you have another language than English but I don’t see that here.
If you look at British colleges, you will see that they are 3 years only and don’t have these types of requirements.
I can’t comment on Ole Miss’ psychology department, as that’s far from my field of study.
Depending on your country of origin, you may get exempted from taking a language class, especially if you can demonstrate conversational fluency in another language. Check with the Office of Admissions about that. Unless you come in with AP/IB credits, the answer is that you will have to take courses in everything there. This is typical of almost all American colleges and universities which require that a student take general education courses before doing their major courses. If you only want to study psychology and related components, either look at some of the very few open curriculum schools in the US, or go to school in a country like Britain or Australia where the universities lack the gen ed model.
You can choose which science courses to take. So a psychology major might find it valuable to take biology, and human anatomy (two courses in the same discipline), and then take a chemistry course which is in a separate science department. And yes, if you want to graduate you must complete all of your gen eds.
Well to understand psychology, you need to have at least a rudimentary understanding of chemistry since all we are are just chemical and electrical impulses which work together in such a way as to create a conscious organism. Again, if you don’t want to go to a school which requires general education courses, look at some of the very few open curriculum schools in the US or just go to one of the many universities outside of the US.
As a current undergraduate student, I promise they aren’t that bad. For instance, you need statistics for psychology, so you would take that as your math requirement. Similarly, it’s helpful to have an understanding of the history of science and ethics when discussing the evolution of psychology, so you could take a history of science course for your history requirement and an ethics course for your humanities core. Understanding the biochemical processes that affect the body is vital for someone interested in seriously studying and possibly researching in the field, so you’ve just finished your science gen eds.
Also, many departments offer non major versions of a class which are designed to help students fulfill their gen ed requirements with as little time commitment as possible. Some students end up discovering that they actually prefer one major to their original one via gen eds, and the US model of higher education easily allows these students to switch their field of study. I’ve known many non US university students who wished their university had similar flexibility, although plenty of others who were glad they did not have to take all of the required courses.
To get a psychology degree from the University of Mississippi you need to take 14 courses in fields of study outside of your major. Realistically, this drops to about 11 courses when you factor in the needed science and math classes. I will note that the University of Mississippi is unusual in how many English and history courses it requires students to take. Most schools only require two or three English classes, and one history class.
300 level courses are considered upper division classes. Typically these are taken by second through fourth years in the major and involve more focused study than introductory classes. For example, Ole Miss’ [academic catalog](Courses | Psychology | LIBERAL ARTS | Spring 2023-24 | UM Catalog) lists all of the psychology classes the department offers. The 100 level classes are things like an orientation to the major which likely involves advising undergrads about possible paths their psychology degree can take them. The 200 level classes seem to be the introductory courses where students get a broad overview of psychology but their in depth study of a particular topic is limited. The 300 level courses, like Psych 315 - Personality, study in depth a topic which was likely glossed over by the Intro to Psychology class. Typically the introductory courses are a prerequisite to taking a 300 level class. In Intro Psych, a student may learn only about Jung and possibly some modern personality testing methods, while in Psych 315 - Personality the student may cover the competing modern theories regarding personality, what it is, if it’s possible to modify it, how it develops, etc.
400-500 level courses are typically for third years and fourth years in the major as well as first year graduate students and involve even more in depth study of a topic. Some of these topics may or may not have been touched on in the intro psych class, since they are often too complex for most students who lack at least three courses in the field to even begin to understand. 600-700 level classes are usually exclusively for graduate students.
Thanks @BrownParent and @Whenhen , that seems fairly reasonable, but when you put all the classes down in a long list like that it is pretty daunting. Is it hard to complete all those courses? I assume you would do them on a semester basis. Roughly how many classes would you have in one week?
Classes are often for 50 minutes M, W, F or 90 min T, Th or M, W.
You can search for other universities with lesser general requirements or more flexible ones, as universities vary.
2 writing classes
2 literature classes
2 history classes
1 math class
3 science courses, two must have labs
2 to 4 courses foreign language, depending on your level when you come in
1 fine arts
13 to 15 semester courses or about 1 to 1-1/12 year total study
You have considerable variety to select from for most of these. But you will have to choose a foreign language to proficiency level.
Concerning hours, a three-hour class meets for three hours a week for one semester, or about four months. Most classes are three-hour classes, but there are also four-, two-, and one-hour classes. Oftentimes a three-hour class will also have a separately graded lab of one or two hours. Students generally take five courses per semester, or 15 hours. At the end of the semester, if they have passed all of the courses they will be said to have earned 15 hours of credit.
As for the 300 level requirement, most of the courses you take at Ole Miss will be introductory courses; the idea is to give you a very broad level of education. Courses at the 300 level are generally considered third-year courses taken in a field of particular interest or specialization. For the most part, your 300-and-above classes will come from your major or minor field of study.
As for course requirements, yes, you are required to take a broad selection of classes, including a couple of classes from almost all of the liberal arts departments. You do not have to take chemistry, but you do need to take some science. This can include a class like Environmental Chemistry, which back in my day was considered rather a joke. But I do remember how soap works. In other words, there are some science classes out there that are educational, but that aren’t as hard as chemistry. You also have to take a foreign language, but I disagree with BrownParent that the language has to be learned to “proficiency” level. Student who finish For.Lang.202 will be able to carry on a very stilted conversation with limited vocabulary, but my experience is that few are really fluent.
As for the reputation of the psychology department, I don’t know; I’ve never heard anything bad about it, but it is not one of the few departments that Ole Miss has that are nationally recognized. But Ole Miss is considered to be a good regional public university that has been improving academically for the past 20 or 30 years. There are some universities out there with better “brand” appeal, but if you look at your cost to attend Ole Miss versus most other schools you may find that low prices beats out the fancy brand name.