Application of Psychology

As the fourth step on the major learning outcome ladder, this is when you use the information and knowledge you gained in the previous major learning outcome steps one, two and three.  Major learning outcome four is where students use their previous knowledge and apply it to psychological principles to principles to personal, social, and organizational issues.  If students successfully complete this major learning outcome they should be able to identify the psychologies major applications, articulating how it can be used toward social understanding and public policy, as well as recognize the ethical complexities of applying psychology.  There is only one course that is required to fulfill this major learning outcome with is PSY400.

PSY400 is psychology capstone where student’s work to produce a capstone project or make a portfolio that highlights their course-based and experiential scholarly achievements including internships, filed studies, and civic service as volunteers.  Both creating a capstone project or portfolio helps students show that they know how to use the knowledge they learned in pervious course.  The knowledge that students demonstrate with this project includes: knowledge of theory, methods, and application of a chosen specialty area in psychology.

This major learning outcome is very important to any psychology major because this major learning outcome shows that you in fact have learned and gained knowledge from the previous required courses and allows us as students to show what we have learned as well as prove that we are now capable of conducting out own research experiment or create a portfolio including papers about every major learning outcome as well create a resume.

I chose to do a portfolio where I talked about all five major learning outcomes and how I fulfilled them as well as an entry and exit paper about my life before being a psychology major at California State University, Monterey bay and one reflecting on my experiences here at California State University, Monterey Bay and about my future goals before and after.  While creating the portfolio I was able to reflect on all the psychology courses I took before Cal State Monterey Bay as well as the ones I took while at Cal State Monterey Bay.  Overall I feel that I learned a lot by being able to reflect on my experiences while being a psychology major and that it will help me prepare for a future in psychology.  My word press website as well as my portfolio would be the best evidence to prove that I was able to fulfill this major learning outcome.  After fulfilling this major learning outcome by creating my portfolio, I would then be able to move on to major learning outcome number five and learn how to demonstrate the interdisciplinary of the major, especially through its emphasis on ethics and respect for science.  Although this learning outcome does not have any specific required courses to be able to fulfill this outcome, I feel that all of the classes that I have taken in psychology could belong to this category.

The psychology courses that were not mentioned in previous major learning outcomes include: PSY110, PSY310, LING392 (which was taken instead of cognitive psychology).  These courses will be explained in the major learning outcome number five paper.