Bachelor of Science in Psychology
Everyone wonders why people do what they do. You can study it.
Norwich's online Bachelor of Science in Psychology takes you from the basics of human behavior to research you design and run yourself, your own hypothesis, your own study- reviewed by the university's Institutional Review Board, defended in front of an audience at an undergraduate research conference. Most online psychology degrees end with a paper. This one ends with you having done the work a psychologist does.
What you will study
Psychology is the study of why people and animals behave the way they do, and it is not one subject but several that happen to share a name. At Norwich you work through four of them. Experimental psychology is where you learn how a claim about behavior gets tested, and how badly it goes when a study is designed carelessly. Developmental psychology follows a person from infancy to old age and asks what changes and what does not. Clinical psychology covers how distress and disorder are recognized, classified and treated. Social psychology looks at what happens to an individual's judgment once other people are in the room, which turns out to be most of the interesting part.
Around that core you choose electives, and the choices point in different directions depending on where you are heading. Neuroscience takes you toward the biological machinery underneath behavior. Criminal behavior goes toward forensic and justice work. Leadership goes toward managing and developing people. You can also take the degree broadly and leave your options open, which is a reasonable thing to do at this stage.
Running alongside all of it is the part that sets this degree apart. You will spend your final terms on original research: you write a hypothesis, design a study capable of testing it, submit the proposal to Norwich's Institutional Review Board for the same ethical review a faculty researcher faces, run the study, write it up as a senior thesis, and present your findings out loud to an audience at a regional undergraduate research conference. Very few online psychology degrees ask this of an undergraduate. It is more work. It is also the thing that will matter in a graduate school application, in an interview, and in any job where someone needs to know whether you can tell a real finding from a convenient one.
See what your previous experience can get you.
Bring up to 90 credits, and find out what they are worth before you apply
- College coursework passed with a C or better, from any regionally or nationally accredited institution. Degrees from outside the U.S. count once a NACES-approved agency evaluates them.
- Military training and experience, anything with an American Council on Education credit recommendation, plus training Norwich reviews directly or covers under a memorandum of understanding. Your Joint Services Transcript or CCAF transcript does the work.
- Exams you have already sat, including CLEP and similar standardized tests.
- Starting from scratch is normal too. A high school diploma or GED is all you need to begin. The 90 is a ceiling, not a target.
Send a transcript and a resume and we will tell you which requirements you have already met, what is left, and how many terms that is.