Psy 301 - Section 1 Notes PDF

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Online class notes. These notes helped me significantly when studying for the exams. ...

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Section 1: The Psych Major 1a. Close to 3000 majors in the department. Faculty available to students. Talk to your faculty if you’re struggling. About 8 years ago psych department renovated itself so that students would get what they wanted out of their education. They created a middle section where you get a breadth -exposure across the entire field- of psychology. Exposure to different areas of psychology. At least one course out of all the areas of psych. They do a good job getting you take statistics and use stats in real life, teaching you how to use statistical tools & research methods along with its lab. How to set up a research project & do it. Capstones, you take. You get more in depth understanding of the subject in capstones. Advice to majors: think early about what path you wanna take bc it’s a big major with limited resources. Go see psych advisors. Try to get into classes as early as you can. Beyond the classes, think about doing internships to gain experience. If you wanna go to graduate school, contact faculty and try to get involved in their research. 1b. Get an advisor and mentor. Take advantage of the faculty. Get to know your professors. Establish relationships with faculty. Profs can help you enrich your college years bc involving you in their research, providing opportunities to assist you in making new discoveries and generating new knowledge. Faculty also introduce students to others who can help them meet their goals, help their students obtain special opportunities such as internships, summer positions, and teaching assistantships. Job and graduate applications require several letters of recommendation from faculty. Profs want to work with students who are bright, motivated, committed, and enthusiastic. Display behaviors that faculty will appreciate. Your academic advisor. Academic advisor is a faculty member whose role is to help you select courses and other learning opportunities to provide you with a well-rounded education and prepare you for your chosen career. They may assist you with academic advising, meeting prerequisites, fostering academic success, and graduation requirements, and even career advising. The relationship is two ways, you have to come prepared to discuss your interests, needs, and goals. Consult with your advisor when you’re having academic difficulties, or considering adding or dropping a course, changing major, withdrawing from school, or transferring. Stop by office hours or schedule an appointment. When making big decisions like changing major, dropping out or going to graduate school, consider seeking advice from faculty, family, friends, and the counseling center. Accept the ultimate responsibility for the decisions that you make. Seek a mentor. Seek to develop a special relationship with a faculty mentor. A mentor is a person with expertise who takes a special interest in you. Mentors are more than academic advisors. They can facilitate your undergraduate accomplishments, provides intellectual and emotional support, and help you on the path towards your career. Find a mentor by seeking opportunities and approaching profs. Tell profs that you’re looking to become involved in research. Explain that you hope to work closely with someone on their research and ask questions about their work. Demonstrate honest intellectual curiosity and motivation. Most profs may have more students coming to them than they can mentor. Some

faculty may not be able to take on additional students. Popularity of the prof shouldn’t be a criterion for looking for a mentor. Volunteer to work closely with a prof only if you have time to commit. In order to find a helpful mentor, be aware of your needs and career goals. Get research experience. Make yourself more competitive by seeking opportunities to assist profs in their research and even carry out your own research studies under the guidance of a faculty mentor. Being a research assistant gives you the opportunity to be on the cutting edge of psych. It can provide many opportunities like: ● Gaining skills and knowledge that aren’t easily attained in the class ● Exposure to techniques that will be helpful in completing your senior thesis or graduate work ● Practicing written and oral communications skills by learning how to express research findings ● Developing a mentoring relationship with a faculty member ● Obtaining experiences that will enhance your applications ● Acquiring outstanding letters of recommendation To become a research assistant, you should perform well in class and be motivated and visible in your department. Let faculty know that you’re interested in getting involved in research. Approach profs during their office hours and ask for leads on who might be looking for research assistants. Before approaching a prof you would like to work with. Learn about their work. Carefully and honestly describe what you can offer to them and number of hours per week you’re available. Let them know you are willing to work hard. Ask thoughtful questions. Profs seek student research assistants bc they get a hard-working student to do some laborintensive part of research. Many faculty members have ideas for studies that they don’t have time to conduct. Motivated students can help them carry out these studies. It also gives profs an opportunity to develop a relationship with a student and witness their professional growth, which can be rewarding. It is a big responsibility. The faculty member will count on you to be responsible and complete your assignments correctly. If you decide to work with a faculty member on research, treat it as a primary responsibility. Seek out-of-class opportunities. Get involved with psychology-related extracurricular activities. Get applied experience. Attempt to gain experiences that will round out your competencies. Get teaching experience. Undergraduate teaching assistants work with a faculty for one semester, offering assistance for a specific course. They may help a prof plan discussion questions or in-class group assignments, run discussion or lab sessions, or serve as class assistant. They may attend lectures, conduct review sesh for exams, facilitate discussions, prepare lectures as needed, request or acquire necessary equipment, hold regular office hours,

tutor students, manage and respond to course related email, update course webpages, grade assignments, proctor exams, maintain attendance records, attend meetings, act as liaison between prof and student. Get field experience. Internships or practical involve students in relevant academic experiences. Example: being an intern at a social service agency. Interns have a chance to get an idea of what it is like to work in a particular setting. Seek field experience to become more certain of your career choice, to get the opportunity to apply what is learned in class in a real life setting, acquire knowledge and new skills, and learn about the practice of psych. Field experiences gives you a chance to develop useful skills that may be hard to practice and develop in class. Personal benefits include developing responsibility, maturity, and confidence. Professional benefits include gaining a realistic understanding of work environments, developing professional contacts, and enhancing your resume. Students who work as interns are more likely to be happy with their jobs, as well as remaining in their jobs longer than the students who don’t obtain field experience. Get involved in the field. Disseminating the results of research -formally telling others about what you have found- requires another set of competencies and offers many benefits. Become active in a local or national psychology organization. Disseminate research. Presentations at professional conferences or articles in scholarly journals. Most students obtain their first experiences through presentations at local or regional professional conferences. It’s a wonderful learning opportunity that is an impressive addition to a resume or graduate school applctn. Conference presentations take two forms, papers and posters. A paper is a 12-15 minute presentations made to an audience in which you describe your research concisely with the aid of handouts, overheads, or slides. A poster presents your research on a 3x5 or 4x6 foot freestanding bulletin board. All posters are displayed in a large room for a period of time and the audience wanders through. I the research that you are conducting with a faculty member turns out especially well, you might prepare the results for submission to a scholarly journal. The most prestigious of the undergraduate journals is the Psi Chi Journal of Undergrad Research, and published quarterly. Submissions to this journal are reviewed by 3 psych professionals if you decide to submit to a journal, know that it will take a lot of time and effort. Understand that not every paper submitted to a journal gets published. If you cannot get your research published in a journal, you can always try to get it publish in a school newsletter, students organizations, and other groups on campus that offer opportunities to write about psychology. Apa, asp, epa, nepa, wps, psi chi, and psi beta offer opportunities for students to publish their findings in their newsletter magazines. 1c. Psych advisor Robert Park. been advising for 10 years. Was a student here. FAQs: how long will it take for me to graduate? Make an appt. A sesh is 30 minutes to 1 hour. Map out ed plan. # of advising appts on a typical day: 10-13. Top rumor: students can finish their ba’s in 4

years without rigorous work. Students should take upper division writing exam around 56-60 units --junior status or second semester of sophomore status. You can sign up and attempt for the exam until 75 units. Then a registration hold is on your account. 1d. Kevin Zemlicka - psych academic advisor. Received both degrees in csun in anthropology. Components of your major & degree: lower division general ed (60-70 units), upper division (9 units), psych major (42 units in total, 10 of which can be brought from community college), 120 units is what you need for a ba degree. If these don’t add up to 120, you will need free elective units (take any class from 100 to 400 level in any department). Enrolling in a course with a corequisite (labs n stuff): choose the correct lecture & lab combo by seeing the lecture’s details. Class notes. Section numbers. FAQs: csun policy on repeating a course: allowed to repeat up to 26 units for grade replacement. C- or lower in the class to repeat a course. You won’t be allowed to enroll in the class until 2 weeks before the semester begins. Use the waitlist. Visit academic advisor if you wanna repeat. If the course doesn’t have a lab, then diy. If it does have a corequisite, email the prof early on and let them know you want to repeat the course. Priority registration: first time freshmen, veterans, athletes, and students associated with the disabilities office get it. It is otherwise based on the number of units you have earned. As you accumulate more units, you get closer priority registration dates. Affiliation with internships. It is also reserved for graduating seniors. Super priority registration in final semester. See academic advisor at least once a semester. 2 ways to make appt: call or walk in and schedule appt. Eop office....