Graduate Program in Psychology
Columbia University
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The Graduate Program in Psychology Columbia UniversityIn 1754, King's College, Columbia University's precursor, was founded. It was the fifth oldest college in the nation and the first in New York. In 1787, King's College was renamed Columbia College and in 1896 became Columbia University. Originally, King's College was located in what is now considered Wall Street; and the college moved to Manhattan's upper west side, the site it now occupies, in 1897. Today, the 36-acre campus is arguably one of the most architecturally beautiful of the urban universities. (In 2004, Columbia celebrated it's 250th anniversary). Columbia University offers over 6,000 courses covering the traditional arts and sciences as well as pre-professional programs in architecture, the performing and visual arts, business, engineering, international affairs, journalism, law, medicine, dentistry, nursing, public health, and social work. Additionally, the University offers a BA for adults through its General Studies division, and is affiliated with Columbia University Press, Union Theological Seminary, and New York Presbyterian Hospital. As members of the Columbia University community, students and faculty have access to a fully equipped gym; complete health coverage; guaranteed housing within walking distance of the campus; and many on-campus events, such as diverse religious, ethnic, and multi cultural-organizations; and art galleries, theater, and lectures series. The Psychology DepartmentA Brief History The first psychology course in the University's history was offered in 1867 under the auspices of the Department of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy and English Literature. It was a course, open only to seniors, in which the philosophy of intellect, feelings, and will were discussed. As the field gained momentum and academic stature, the Department of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy and English Literature offered The Principles of Philosophy and Psychology in 1877. This new course was offered, according to the contemporaneous course catalogue, with special reference to the results of modern biological research as affecting these sciences. With the separation of the English Department from the Department of Philosophy, Ethics, and Psychology in 1881, psychology was en route to independent status. By 1891, a number of Experimental Psychology courses were offered and, in 1892, a professorship in psychology was created and laboratory space assigned. By the early 1930's, the psychology department at Columbia had become sufficiently influential that the "Columbia School of Psychology" was considered to be one of the seven psychologies, along with Gestalt, Behavioristic, and Psychoanalytic. When the campus moved to its present site, the department was assigned modest quarters in Schermerhorn Hall with just two offices and four lab spaces. Today, there are over 30 faculty and graduate student offices; dozens of separate laboratories; numerous classrooms; and seminar, lecture, and common rooms. Research Today The department offers a comprehensive graduate program including concentrations in the following broad areas: Behavioral Neuroscience; Sensation and Perception; Cognition; and Social and Personality. Collaboration among different laboratories involving research spanning different areas is quite common. Please visit the Research Labs web pages to learn more about ongoing research. Affiliations Psychology faculty participate in affiliated programs such as the interdisciplinary Program in Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences and programs in the Division of Sociomedical Sciences. In addition, the psychology department is affiliated with departments at Barnard College, Teachers College, and the New York State Psychiatric Institute; graduate courses of interest to psychology students are offered by other departments including Anatomy and Cell Biology, Anthropology, Biological Sciences, Computer Science, Neurobiology and Behavior, Pharmacology, Physiology and Cellular Biophysics, Sociology and Statistics and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. Facilities The department today houses more than forty faculty and graduate student offices, dozens of separate laboratories, numerous classrooms, including advanced technology teaching classrooms and laboratories (including fMRI facilities), and seminar, lecture and common rooms. Graduate students have access to state-of-the art computing facilities both in the department and in the University at large. The Columbia University Library System is the nation's seventh largest academic library with holdings totaling more than 6.2 million volumes. With the advent of on-line service, the Columbia Libraries now have the capacity to access catalogues and holdings from other academic as well as public libraries. For psychology students, there is a separate psychology library in Schermerhorn Hall alongside the department offices, labs, and classrooms. Housing 30,000 volumes and approximately 300 current serial titles, the collection is strong in experimental including social psychology, cognition, perception, sensation, animal learning and behavior, and physiological psychology. The collection also offers material in the history of psychology and applications of statistical methodologies to research. The Graduate Program in Psychology at ColumbiaChair: Geraldine Downey Designed to provide a broad base in psychology, the program also offers an opportunity for intensive research. In addition to a Graduate Proseminar Series, advanced seminars are offered each year within three broad areas: perception and cognition (the 4200s), psychobiology and neuroscience (the 4400s), and personality and social psychology (the 4600s). Research, integral to the graduate career, is conducted during all five years of the program. During the first three semesters each student completes an initial research project culminating in the MA essay. Subsequent research in conjunction with faculty members provides the basis for the dissertation. The department is relatively small; each year it admits fewer than ten full-time students. The obvious benefit to such a highly selective system is that it affords graduate students the opportunity to become acquainted with all research conducted in the department by faculty as well as fellow graduate students. The program is a five-year consecutive series of classes and research culminating in the Ph.D. degree. All students accepted to the five-year program receive a Faculty Fellowship, which supports tuition, health and insurance fees, and an annual stipend. All fellows receive equal awards and the stipend level is adjusted each year to keep pace with inflation. Fellowships are awarded in recognition of academic achievement and in expectation of scholarly success. Teaching and research experience are considered an important aspect of the training of graduate students. Thus, graduate fellowships include some teaching and research apprenticeship. Coursework Students must enroll in the Graduate Proseminars G6001, G6002 and G6003; G6001-G6002 and G6003 are offered in alternate years. These must be taken during the first two years. In addition, students must take two seriously graded advanced seminars, to be chosen in consultation with their research adviser, and are strongly encouraged to take two one-semester courses in statistics or quantitative methods. Teaching Supervised teaching is integral to the graduate career and is a requirement for the M.Phil. Each academic year, students are required to assist a member of the faculty for one semester in teaching a large undergraduate course. Students are encouraged to take the Practicum in the Teaching of Psychology, G6200, which guides teaching assistant (TAs) through teaching techniques and helps to prepare them for academic careers. Research and Degrees Research is continuous during all five years of the Ph.D. program. During the first semester, research for the M.A. essay is begun and it is completed three semesters later. After the essay is written, each student gives an oral presentation, based on the essay and its research, to faculty and graduate students. This is the final requirement for the MA degree (which is not a terminal degree). Toward the end of the third year, the comprehensive requirement (in the form of an exam, a series of papers, and/or a grant proposal) should be completed. Upon successfully passing the comprehensive requirement, the degree of M.Phil. (which is not a terminal degree) is awarded. The final requirement for the Ph.D. degree is the completion of the dissertation, its oral defense, and deposit. Although there are few formal requirements after the first four semesters, most students continue to participate in a variety of seminars and courses offered within and without the department. The department's biweekly colloquium series and informal lunchtime seminars are an integral part of the graduate program. LIFE AFTER THE PH.D. The first Ph.D. in psychology was conferred in 1896. From there, the number of Ph.D.'s rose steadily to a high of 56 in 1941. Within the past few years, three to five Ph.D.'s have been conferred yearly. Most who graduate with the degree accept academic appointments at universities throughout the country, a few select post doctoral fellowships to engage in further training, and some accept positions in nonacademic research institutions. Career Placement Fifty-five students received the Ph.D. in the years 1993-2003. Most of them have positions in academic or medical school institutions, or industry. Academic affiliations include Harvard, Rutgers, Princeton, Carnegie-Mellon, Purdue, SUNY, Duke, McGill, NYU, Universities of California, Arizona, Utah, Michigan, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, and Ohio, and a number of state or teaching colleges. Several students are in business schools. A few of them have assumed academic positions overseas in Japan, Israel, Hungary and Germany. A number are at research or medical institutes such as New York State Psychiatric Institute, Cornell Medical, NIMH, Armstrong Labs, AT&T, and Center for Machine Intelligence; several hold human factors positions in industrial settings The Admissions ProcedureColumbia's Psychology Department is relatively small; each year it admits about 6 full-time students. Such a highly selective system affords graduate students the opportunity to become acquainted with all department research conducted by faculty and fellow students. Nonsequential M.A.s and degrees in Clinical Psychology are not awarded through this department. Should you require information regarding application procedures for nonsequential M.A.s or degrees in Clinical Psychology, please see the bulletin of Teachers College, Clinical Psychology, 420 Main (Box 57), New York, NY 10027; 212-678-3125 or contact Teacher's College, Office of Admission, 146 Horace Mann (Box 302), 525 West 120th Street; 212-678-3710. Financial Aid Students accepted to the Ph.D. program receive a multiyear Faculty Fellowship which provides tuition, health and insurance fees, and an annual stipend for five years. All fellows receive equal awards. The stipend level is adjusted each year to keep pace with the rate of inflation. For 2005-06, the stipend is $19,000 per academic year (Sept. - May) and $6,000 for the summer (Jun. - Aug.). Housing Columbia University provides housing for graduate students who live outside New York City. Funded students only have a guarantee of 5 years of housing. Housing beyond 5 years of study is at the discretion of the dean's office and is determined by availability and by timely progress towards the degree.Most accommodations are apartment shares in graduate student apartment buildings; there are a few studio and one-bedroom apartments in University buildings. All are located within a ten-minute walk to campus. An average single bedroom apartment costs about $800-$1,000 per month, a shared double about $500-$600 per month. Prerequisites Admission to the Ph.D. program is based on an overall evaluation of applicants' scores, grades, recommendation letters, as well as potential for scholarship in our program. A general guideline for admission is a minimum score of 1200 on the combined verbal and quantitative GREs. While the psychology GRE is not required, it is strongly recommended. An undergraduate major in psychology is not required but it is an advantage to have had undergraduate psychology courses as well as statistics. There is no language requirement. International students must hold the equivalent of an American university baccalaureate (B.A.) and be fluent in both written and spoken English. International applicants who are not natives of English-speaking countries must take the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) in time for the score to be included with the completed application. Exam information is available from TOEFL, Box 6151, Princeton, NJ, 08541-6151 or http://www.ets.org. 2003-04 Class Profile Students Currently Enrolled Mean Age at Time of Enrollment: 25 Age Range: 22 - 37 Female: 20 Male: 15 Average GPA: 3.80 Average GRE: 1365 Geographic Distribution
Application Deadlines Complete applications, including references, transcripts, and GRE scores must be received by the Admission's Office of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences postmarked December 1 to be considered for entrance in the following year in September. Spring admissions are not considered. The department begins the review process in mid-December and invites prospective students to the campus by mid-February. Official notification from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is mailed mid-March. Note From A Former ChairMore than a half century ago, a distinguished historian of psychology observed: Psychology at Columbia is not easy to describe. It stands for no set body of doctrine, taught with the consistency and paternalism found in more closely organized schools. Yet is shows definite and recognizable characteristics. A graduate student in psychology discovers immediately that psychology does not lead a sheltered life; that it rubs elbows with biology, statistics, education, and the world of affairs. [Graduate students] encounter many different trends of thought, and frequently come upon the same ones from different angles. But the separate stands of teaching are not knit together for them into a firm and patterned fabric. No one cares how they arrange the threads that are placed in their hands. The arrangement varies enormously from person to person. Edna Heidbreder, Seven Psychologies (1933) At the turn of the century, the Columbia school of psychology could be readily distinguished from other schools of psychology (Behavioristic, Psychoanalytic, Gestalt). The Columbia perspective focused on the "dynamic" nature of psychology. It was concerned with "the workings of the mind" and "why people do the things they do." It was based on the premise that to understand these activities, "it is necessary to get as complete a view as possible of the process to be studied-- to follow it through its entire course, to discover both its minute details and its broad tendencies, to examine it both from within and from without, and on the basis of this knowledge to note uniformities and to formulate laws [Heidbreder, 1993]." To accomplish this objective, each of psychology's three fundamental levels of analysis-- social, cognitive, and biological-- had to be strongly represented in the department. Graduate training introduced students to each level. With this background, the student themselves could decide how to "arrange the threads that are placed in their hands." Our department continues to be guided by the belief that an interdisciplinary perspective from multiple levels of analysis contributes to a rich understanding of psychological processes. Most of our faculty rub elbows with different disciplines and bridge different levels of analysis. This provides the maximum opportunity and flexibility for our graduate students to discover their own preferred arrangement for pursuing the science of psychology. Indeed, some of our students move from one level of analysis to another before honing in on their burning issue. Graduate course requirements are kept to a minimum in order to maximize our students' development as individual scholars and scientists. Our generous system of financial support also maximizes our students' freedom to make their own decisions about which research experiences and collaborations best meet their scientific objectives. The opportunity for students to identify their own area of interest is one aspect of the Ph.D. program that makes graduate life here so exciting. Another is that our department functions as an integrated unit rather than just as a set of separate and isolated programs. Graduate student offices are all in the same area of the department. This facilitates contact among students working on different psychological problems. The department offers a set of proseminars covering the major areas in psychology that graduate students across the department take together. There is a bi-weekly departmental colloquium series on wide-ranging topics that are attended by all the faculty and graduate students. The graduate students also manage an informal bi- weekly tea to which all graduate students and faculty are invited. By functioning as a department of psychology, our graduate students are exposed to a broad spectrum of psychological viewpoints. Another feature of our department broadens our students' viewpoints even further. The graduate program at Columbia is special in its international nature, with students from all over the world. This international quality of the program, together with its interdisciplinary quality, makes graduate life here very exciting. We hope that you will join us and contribute to the Columbia "dynamic." E. Tory Higgins, Former Chair Psychology Department Psychology FacultySee also Faculty Research Lab pages Peter Balsam. Professor; Ph.D., North Carolina, 1976
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last modified November 11, 2005