Psychology: BS

Bachelor’s Degree Offered by the Department of Undergraduate Psychology
(San Diego)

The Degree Completion Program in Psychology includes a common core curriculum across psychological disciplines and strives to prepare students to enter the professions or enter a graduate program. An important component of the psychology program is its nine-unit capstone sequence in which students gain considerable practical training, something not typical of most undergraduate programs. The program also offers a cultural immersion option as a summer elective at our Mexico City Campus, where students experience Mexican culture through excursions and in-class lectures.

Core Values

Our core values embrace an interdisciplinary approach toward providing students with the knowledge and skills they will need to apply their education to real world situations. Our core values are:

- Facilitating integrative learning
- Infusing cross-disciplinary training
- Planting the seeds of life-long learning
- Establishing sociocultural competencies
- Advancing critical thinking skills
- Providing opportunities for personal and social responsibility
- Incorporating the scientific method in understanding the interconnected complexities surrounding the human condition

Student Learning Outcomes

1. Demonstrate understanding and a capacity to apply key theoretical orientations, major concepts, theoretical perspectives, empirical findings, and historical trends in psychology.
2. Demonstrate the ability to devise and conduct meaningful, viable research utilizing quantitative, qualitative, and mixed designs.
3. Demonstrate orally and in writing the ability to discern, analyze, and evaluate information utilizing sound logic.
4. Apply psychological theories and scientific principles learned in the classroom to real-world settings.
5. Value empirical evidence, tolerate ambiguity, act ethically, and reflect other values that are the underpinnings of psychology as a science.
6. Demonstrate technological literacy and synthesize information gained through using computer search engines, accessing university library websites, and running computer programs.
7. Demonstrate the ability to communicate both written and orally with appropriate language for the intended audience.
8. Recognize, understand, and respect the complexity of socio-cultural and international diversity.
9. Develop insight into their own and others’ behavior and mental processes and apply effective strategies for self-management and self-improvement.
10. Pursue realistic ideas about how to implement their psychological knowledge, skills, and values in occupational pursuits in a variety of settings that meet personal goals and societal needs.