General Information
The faculty of the Department of Psychology at Wake Forest University affirm their commitment to three interrelated goals in their roles as teachers, scholars, and members of the Wake Forest community: excellence in the education of Wake Forest students, an ongoing contribution to the field of psychology, and service to the University and community. The Department of Psychology stresses both the commitment to classroom teaching characteristics of the liberal arts college and the commitment to scholarship characteristic of the research university. Such a dual emphasis is consistent both with the University’s identity as a small comprehensive University and with the faculty’s philosophy that education and science are intimately related ventures, each of which benefits from cross-fertilization by the other.
The Graduate Program
The Department of Psychology offers graduate work leading to the research-oriented general MA degree. The MA program at Wake Forest is appropriate for students with a variety of goals.
First, well prepared students who plan to continue to the PhD may wish to receive a broad training before the specialization required at the doctoral level. The Master’s program often gives them a better basis for selecting a PhD program as well as a stronger academic foundation for their doctoral work.
Second, students who wish to better prepare themselves for application to a PhD program will benefit from the Master’s program. The general MA program allows them to strengthen their backgrounds with a high degree of individual attention from graduate faculty (student/faculty ratio is 2:1) before applying to PhD programs. The department has an excellent record of placing graduates in doctoral programs in all major areas of psychology, including clinical.
The department adopts a mentorship model of graduate education in which students work closely with a faculty advisor during their two years in our program. Typically there is a 2:1 graduate student-faculty ratio that provides the student with individualized attention and, therefore, superior training. Because our program is designed to prepare students for entry into doctoral programs, there is a strong emphasis on research. Students conduct both a first-year research project and a thesis. These projects typically result in conference presentations and/or publications.
Curriculum
The Master’s program includes coursework in small seminar classes and firsthand research experience. A student will become familiar with the content and the methods of psychology at an advanced level. Two years are usually required to complete the program.
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