Applied Opportunities for Psychology Majors and Minors

The Field Experience Course (PSYC 202)

Field Experience in Psychology is designed to give students first-hand experience working in some area of applied psychology. Typically, students and instructor agree upon a placement based on each student's previous human-service and academic experience, interests, and career goals. In recent years, students have received supervised experiences in hospitals and clinics, community mental health centers, residential and day treatment facilities, schools, correctional facilities, and other agencies in the Granville, Newark, and Columbus areas. Students have worked with variety of individuals including psychiatric inpatients, adolescents with substance use problems, and children with emotional and learning difficulties.

Departmental Service Learning Courses

As part of Denison’s continuing commitment to the goals of Curricular Service Learning the Psychology Department offers courses that give students the opportunity to undertake field experience in conjunction with a specific course. Students use their hands-on experiences as an additional “text” for the course (in the parlance of this pedagogical technique); consistent with these goals, students have regular opportunities for reflection and discussion.

For example, students in Psychology 210, Development in Infancy and Childhood, participate about 3 hours weekly in area preschool and child-care sites. Depending on the site chosen, students may also have the opportunity to work with both typically developing children and children with special needs. Students maintain a weekly online journal in which they reflect on their experiences, relating them to what they are learning in the course; a final personal essay allows them to synthesize this information. Several classes are also set aside to discuss issues raised in students’ journals, as well as from a required text (Dunlap, 2000).

Service Learning courses are offered at the discretion of Psychology faculty. Some courses that have included this opportunity in past years have been our Development in Infancy and Childhood, Abnormal Psychology, and Psychology of Law courses. Please inquire with your psychology faculty advisor or other psychology faculty to learn more about these opportunities.

Denison Internship Program

Psychology majors are often interested in pursing careers in business, law, advertising, human resources, etc.  For those students, we recommend they seek out internship opportunities during summer breaks.  The Denison Internship Program is designed to provide students with the opportunity to explore career fields of interest to them and to apply their academic coursework to the world of work.  Every December Career Services publishes an internship resource catalog that outlines the internship program and lists “Denison Exclusive” and national internship opportunities.  In addition the program provides assistance with the development of resumes and cover letters.  Other students also seek internship on their own with businesses and organizations in their home towns.

Entrepreneurship Education

The Burton D. Morgan Program for Liberal Arts and Entrepreneurship Education was created to assist students in making those necessary connections amongst liberal arts education and real world entrepreneurial applications.

The central objective of the Burton D. Morgan Program for Liberal Arts and Entrepreneurship Education is to explore the meaning and practice of entrepreneurship as it relates to the special competencies cultivated in a liberal arts education. Such competencies include critical thinking, imaginative problem-solving, perception in recognizing opportunity and the ability to break out of established paradigms.

The program is designed to assist students in making those necessary connections between liberal arts education and real world entrepreneurial applications. It consists of six initiatives:

• Workshops
• Guest Residencies
• Curricular Support
• Student Organization Activities
• Innovation-Related Research
• Internships & Ventures