Below you will find a collection of frequently asked questions from students who major in psychology. Please contact your faculty advisor if you do not find the answer to your question.
In addition to your Psychological Sciences Faculty Advisor, there are resources available to help you such as the College Academic Advisors as well as people in the College Academic District and the Torero Hub. There are also resources for Pre-health Advising, Study Abroad and Career Development.
A declaration of major form is now available online. The links are on the MySanDiego Portal under My Academics > Academic Forms tab > Declaration of Major CAS. Students can now use the CAS form to change, add or drop majors or minors.
The Department of Psychology chair will assign you an advisor after you declare your major. If you would like, you may request a specific advisor or indicate a specific area of interest by adding a note to your Declaration of Major form. We will do our best to match you with an advisor in your area of interest, but it is not always possible to fulfill specific requests.
Your advisor is listed at the top of your DegreeWorks. Once your Declaration of Major form has been approved.
Your official academic record can be found in DegreeWorks under the Academics tab in the MySanDiego Portal. You can find instructions on using DegreeWorks on the DegreeWorks Basic Instructional Video.
Students interested in allied health fields should review Pre-Health Advising information. Programs in these areas require specific courses that may be outside of the psychology major.
Course options are available in the Course Search tool of MySanDiego. Additional courses are often added during or after the registration timeframe, so keep checking if you are looking to register for more classes.
You can view the registration timetable on the Torero Hub Registration page or the MySandiego Portal -- remember that registration time is based on your COMPLETED units (not counting In Progress units).
You can register for 300- and 400-level courses in the College of Arts and Sciences when you have 45 units (including in progress units).
Join the waitlist and see if you get a spot by the beginning of the semester (a waitlist does not guarantee a spot in the course). You also can email the instructor (with your USD ID) to ask for an override of the class limit. Graduating seniors may be accommodated but the professor of record has final authority on class limits.
If the course is a transfer course that is not yet articulated, you need to submit a Transfer Course Evaluation e-Form to have the course assessed. If the course is a USD course and you believe there has been an error on your DegreeWorks audit, notify your advisor. If it is an actual error, they can request that the Degree Audit Team fix it.
If you are a graduating senior, remember to register for PSYC 492 Major Field Test in your last semester. This is an ungraded senior exit exam and survey administered online via Qualtrics for department assessment purposes. There are no meeting times. You will receive an email with completion information through Canvas, once you registered for 492. You must self-register for 492 during registration or the add/drop period. If you think you may have missed the email, contact psychology@sandiego.edu.
Courses that fulfill a Core, Preparation for the major, or major requirement must be taken for a letter grade, unless the class is only offered as P/F. Please refer to the Undergraduate Course Catalog for more information.
The Psychology major requires a minimum grade of C– in 28 units of UD coursework applied to the major.
There is no penalty to your GPA as long as you drop by the “last day to receive a W” listed on the academic calendar, but you will receive a W on your transcript.
No, you need 124 units total to graduate — 48 of which have to be upper division (300- or 400-level courses). In most cases, Core and major classes together don't add up to 124 units, so you will need to take additional electives. Moreover, 48 of the 124 required total units must be Upper Division (300- or 400- level courses). The Psychology major requirements fill only 30 of the 48 required upper division units.
There are multiple degree requirements to graduate, including:
- 124 total units/48 UD units minimum
- Core and major requirements
- GPA of 2.0 in UD coursework in the major and 2.0 overall
- Residency requirement (the final 30 units must be completed at USD)
- Compass Program.
Core and major requirements are checked off in Degree Works; however, it is important for you to check whether it’s realistic to graduate “on time” in terms of unit requirements (noted in the first two lines of your audit). As a heuristic, see how many of the 124 overall units are still needed and divide by the number of your remaining semesters; repeat this check for 48 UD units. These numbers let you know whether the average units needed per semester (both overall and UD) are realistic for completion (e.g., 18 vs. 15 overall units needed per remaining semester).
You petition to graduate when you have completed 90 units; an automatic hold will be added at registration until you do so. A senior tab will appear in your MySanDiego portal and you will find the petition to graduate there.
Yes, you can double-count courses in the Core and a major or minor.
Courses cannot count for both a major and a minor, but courses in the minor may be used to satisfy preparation for the major and Core Curriculum requirements.
Students may apply the same upper division course to two majors only when the course is required for both majors. If choices for fulfilling a requirement exist, then different courses must be taken to fulfill both majors.
If you are interested in joining a lab, review information on Psychological Sciences Research Labs about how to apply. You may register for PSYC 496 Research Experience only with instructor permission. PSYC 496 may be taken as P/F for 1-2 units per semester (1 unit - minimum 40 hours, 2 units - minimum 80 hours), and can be repeated for credit.
PSYC 498 Internship in Psychology can be taken for 1 or 2 units, with each unit corresponding to 40 hours spent in your placement. See the Psychological Sciences Internship page for more information about PSYC 498, including a list of sites where USD students have recently interned. The Department does not place students into internships. NOTE: Students can take a maximum of 4 UD Pass/Fail experiential units towards the Psychology major, and a maximum of 6 are applicable to the 124 units required for graduation.
A maximum of 4 units from any combination of PSYC 491, 496, 498 can be applied toward the elective units required to complete the PSYC major. 3 units of PSYC 496 and 499 may also count in the emphasis if the content of your research is relevant to the emphasis (contact the Department of Psychological Sciences chair for approval).
A maximum of 6 units are applicable to the 124 units required for graduation. These courses are considered “experiential,” and no more than 6 total experiential units (across all departments) can be counted towards your 124 units for graduation.
No, you cannot double major in psychology and neuroscience and you cannot combine psychology and neuroscience as a major and minor. Similarly, you cannot combine psychology and the cognition and behavior major as a major and minor.
You can transfer in up to 18 units of credit once you have started at USD, including only 3 classes that count in the core curriculum. Students are responsible for understanding the Transfer of Credit rules outlined in the USD Catalog.
Only the Department Chair for the type of course you seek to transfer can make the determination of whether the course will count in the core, major or minor. Submit the online petition for transfer articulation credit and obtain approval BEFORE you take the course. Forms can be found in the My Academics tab under Transfer Credit/Articulation.
NOTE: Community college courses DO NOT count as upper division 300/400-level courses at USD. Upper-division transfer courses must be taken from a 4-year institution and be designated as UD there.
After you complete an approved course, you send your official transcript with grade to USD in order to receive credit at USD.
USD requires that any units above 90 be completed on campus. Even if you will take more than 30 units at USD your senior year, if you have more than 90 units you will need the waiver form to take a summer class before senior year. The Waiver of Residency Form must be completed (in addition to the Request for Transfer Articulation) and is located under My Academics of the MySanDiego portal. You must send the completed form to psychology@sandiego.edu to initiate the approval process.
Transfer courses often need to be reviewed by USD and compared to the learning objectives of our core curriculum. You will need to complete a petition to have the course assessed. The Transfer Course Evaluation e-Form is used to request additional evaluation of a course you completed at another university. You will need to have the course syllabus in order to complete the process. If you no longer have the course syllabus, try emailing your professor or the department executive/administrative assistant at that university to get a copy.
You need to send your final official transcript (once all your grades are submitted) to USD before a course will show up on your USD audit. If you already sent your final transcript to USD, it may just be taking a while to be processed. You can contact the Torero Hub to ask if they have received the transcript.