Visit the Psychology Department Web Site
Alma’s Psychology Department offers:
- A broad-based education covering the entire field.
- One of the largest undergraduate psychology laboratory facilities in the Midwest.
- Opportunities for advanced students to participate in research and field work.
- Career possibilities for Psychology majors in business, law and medicine, public health, social work and pre-ministry as well as in all of the specialties within psychology.
- A Cognitive Science program that links psychology, computer science and philosophy for an interdisciplinary approach to the study of mind and human intelligence.
- A Gerontology program that provides opportunities for interdisciplinary study.
Faculty-Student Research
Alma’s Psychology Department is committed to providing opportunities for student research. Beginning with the introductory psychology course, you take part in laboratory experiences with individual guidance. You work with faculty who are actively involved in research and carry out original projects.
Facilities
Psychology occupies the entire ground floor of Swanson Academic Center. You have access to individual research work spaces and physiograph and stereotaxic instruments.
Facilities include:
- Animal colony rooms.
- Electronically-shielded chamber (for recording brain wave activity).
- Environmental control chamber.
- One-way vision observation room.
- Sound- and light-baffled area for work in sensation and perception.
- Philips transmission electron microscope for observing changes in brain cells.
The Information Technology Department located in the Swanson Academic Center provides access to Macintosh and Windows computers linked through a campus-wide network to the library, printing facilities and the Internet. In addition, the Psychology Department has specialized hardware and software for a variety of experimental and educational functions.
Field Work and Internships
Alma helps you prepare for your career with “hands-on” experience during field placements. Faculty carefully select candidates to ensure that they are sufficiently prepared for a clinical or applied setting. Placements are made only when adequate professional supervision is available.
Because Alma’s psychology students arrive on the job well-prepared, internships often include responsibilities usually reserved for graduate students.
Field work placement possibilities:
- Community mental health
- Residential care
- Crisis intervention counseling
- School social work
- Residential geriatric care
- Substance-abuse counseling
- The disabled
- A variety of corporate sites
Career Possibilities
Psychology graduates have secured entry level positions in advertising, business administration, law enforcement, journalism, marketing, public relations and sales. Others, with further training, pursue careers in public health, law, labor relations, medicine and the ministry.
Most careers that have “psychology” in the title require graduate training. A career as a behavior modification specialist, family counselor, public health educator, school psychologist, social worker or vocational rehabilitation specialist require at least a master’s degree.
To become a child therapist, clinical psychologist or researcher in artificial intelligence, you need a doctorate. Alma alumni do graduate study in psychology at major universities around the U.S.
While graduate programs in psychology are highly selective, they offer substantial financial support to qualified students. When the time comes to apply for graduate school, the Psychology Department and psychology alumni gladly share their expertise.
