Overview

Maybe if Freud hadn’t gotten so wrapped up in those dreams of his he would have gotten to Biopsychology after polishing off psychoanalysis. Or maybe he would have just taken one look at the major requirements and gone right back to sleep.


Yes, as you may have already figured out, this major is a combination of biology and psychology. It’s the psychology of biology, or is it the biology of psychology? Either way, this major is that missing link between the biology major that’s been tempting you and that psychology major lurking somewhere deep inside of your Id.


As a Biopsychology major you will take courses in both fields, using the skills learned in one discipline to help understand the issues of the other. The relationship between our biological make up (hormones, chemicals, etc.) and our behavior is a complicated one, so complicated that it demanded its own major. This is the major that trains its students to discover those relationships.

SAMPLE CURRICULUM

  • Advanced Seminar in Physiological Psychology

  • Animal Behavior

  • Brain and Behavior

  • Cells and Organisms

  • Comparative Vertebrate Physiology

  • Experimental Psychology

  • General Genetics

  • Human Neuropsychology

  • Neurobiology

  • Statistics


HIGH SCHOOl PREPARATION

You can start recording your dreams alongside what you ate for dinner the night before, but that probably won’t help too much. Instead focus on those math and science classes, particularly biology, chemistry, physics, and calculus. The more advanced, the better.