Program Overview
The graduate programs in Northwestern’s Department of Psychology aim to train scholars and researchers who will become future leaders of scientific psychology. We offer PhD programs in Brain, Behavior, & Cognition, Clinical, Cognitive, Personality, and Social Psychology. Requirements differ across programs, but all students take both general courses and courses more focused on their specific areas of interest. All engage in a series of research projects, and all assist with undergraduate teaching. The department offers no terminal master's degree; students must earn a master's degree as one requirement for the PhD.
Each graduate student in the department has a primary research adviser (or, in some cases, a pair of advisers). Collaboration with other faculty members both within and outside the student’s major area is very common; students are encouraged to address the study of human behavior with multiple research approaches and from a range of perspectives
Many of our graduate students seek academic careers. Recent students have gone on to prestigious postdoctoral and faculty positions at such institutions as the University of Texas at Austin, the University of California at Davis, Barnard College, Emory University, Michigan State, and Purdue.
