<p>Hey!</p>
<p>I'd like to know how it's this major in Harvard. Is it good?, so so?, Can I have it better in another university?.
Please, tell everything you know about this.
Thanks</p>
<p>stanford's the best in psychology</p>
<p>Really? I though Harvard was the best...
mmm... I think Stanford could be good</p>
<p>Harvard's program is in the top 5... at the top, the differences in rankings are so insignificant that you should make a decision based on other factors that are important to you.</p>
<p>Stanford's program is #1 and has been for decades.</p>
<p>At the graduate level (which is the only level on which psychology departments are ranked), it's meaningless to talk about the "psychology program" because graduate students don't study "psychology" generally; they study a particular field within psychology -- and generally under one individual professor. Whether you're doing clinical, cognitive, industrial, developmental, etc. is going to determine which schools are in the top 5 for PhD candidates. The University of Washington far outclasses Princeton in clinical and abnormal psychology (for example), but I think an undergrad would be crazy to turn Princeton down on that basis.</p>
<p>Stanford has world-class programs in a number of areas (especially social and cognitive), but it's not like it is alone at the top. Harvard, Yale, Michigan, and Berkeley (just to name a few) have phenomenal research going on. As an undergrad, as long as there are great researchers on campus whose work you can learn from, you're golden.</p>
<p>To return to the topic of the thread, Harvard has a great undergrad psychology program with excellent support for thesis research. William James and B. F. Skinner were among the legendary psychologists who helped create that department (and in James' case, transformed psychology from a branch of philosophy into a natural science).</p>
<p>Well, I think Harvard and Standford must be my first options...<br>
many of my guesses were wrong and you guys clarified them</p>
<p>Right now I'm leaning towards concentrating in Psychology. Could any current Harvard students give me some insight on the major? How challenging is it? What are the job prospects like after college?</p>
<p>The second one is the one I'm most concerned with.</p>
<p>cortez- my sister's a senior at harvard, concentrating in psychology. she really loves the subject, and i'm pretty sure she get's A's in all of her psychology classes. she applied to a ton of grad schools, and it's tough because there aren't many openings in the field that she's interested in (child morality). she got to do a lot of psych work in a lab near the campus, and there were some grad students who worked there also. not too sure about what jobs she's looking at.</p>
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<p>What are the job prospects like after college?</p>
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<p>I was a psych major at Harvard -- this is completely up to you. Good long-term jobs in the field pretty universally require grad school. Harvard does a great job helping concentrators decide what type of grad program to aim for and then build the kind of experience they need to get in.</p>
<p>If you decide to go to a different kind of grad school (I went into law), or look for a job outside of psychology after graduation, then psychology is no different from any other liberal arts major (English, Classics, History, etc.). People do i-banking, consulting, Teach for America, whatever.</p>
<p>Stanford is tops. Havn't you ever heard of the Stanford Prison Experiment or the Stanford Hypnosis Scale? Both are important contributions to psychology.</p>
<p>Still, you asked about Harvard. I'm not sure, but hey, its Harvard-It has to be good.</p>
<p>I'm a possible (probable?) psych concentrator, and I think I'm starting to get a decent feel for the department.</p>
<p>Harvard Psych has some incredibly big names (esp. Pinker, but I think Hauser, Menagi, Gilbert + Wegner are all very well known). They're also doing some serious hiring/building when it comes to Psych + Neuroscience (stole Buckner from WashU and are constructing a new building with fMRI machines on campus). There are also some weaknesses (not too much Psychopharm, with the exception of Hyman, but he's a little busy as provost).</p>
<p>I think Psych is a pretty popular major, but it's definitely not hard to get involved. I started working in the Gilbert lab first semester freshman year, and I've lined up a research spot in Buckner's lab for the summer.</p>
<p>Psych also has some incredible lecturers + fun classes. Lecturer Tal Ben-Shahar is teaching Positive Psychology + Psychology of Leadership, two of the most popular courses this semester (along with Pinker's The Human Mind). There's also a Human Sexuality class (not sure of the prof) that's supposed to be a lot of fun.</p>
<p>Being a Psych concentrator can be very easy (not a lot of requirements, and the courses mentioned above are notoriously easy), or it can be made more difficult (Going for honors + writing a thesis, or doing Mind Brain Behavior).</p>
<p>I don't know much about career options (still 3 years for me to go!), but I did just talk to a former Harvard Psych MBB concentrator who's now at Harvard Med. She actually recommended against getting a Psych PhD, unless you want to teach (crappy job prospects). Depending on what you make of it, a psych concentration seems like it could be a good background for law school or business school, as well as med. I know there's also a joint Psych/MBA program at Harvard biz that seems fascinating.</p>
<p>Let me know if you have any more questions! If I dont' know the answers, I can definitely get you some email addresses for people that do.</p>
<p>Psychology seems like it would be one of the more useful liberal arts if you go to work in a field completely unrelated to your concentration. I have absolutely no idea what I would like to end up doing, and thus law school and business school are certainly not out of the question.</p>
<p>The three things I'm deciding between right now are Psychology, Economics, and Philosophy, although I'm leaning towards Psych (probably an honors track, but not MBB). I've got a long time to figure it out.</p>
<p>Cortez-Psych and Ec would be a very cool joint concentration. I've heard that Ec as a "secondary" in a joint doesn't have much for requirements, and Harvard has some cool people doing work in this area (David Laisbon, or Laibson or something like that...)</p>
<p>I heard that Natalie Portman (the actress) made her major in Harvard...<br>
I read she's sort of a big nerd...<br>
If it is true, Harvard may be good for me XD. <em>smiling</em></p>
<p>I didn't know you could get into i-banking competitively (the 145k big firm positions) with a psych major. Most of the i-bank websites I visited asked for econ/finance major as a requirement to apply for their positions. Is it true they'll recruit outside of these majors at the top schools like Harvard? This would solve many of my problems if it were true....</p>