Are 1st and 2nd year course offerings the same across all PhD schools?

[PizzaButt]

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I have a question about PhD clinical psych curricula. Do all schools offer the same courses in the first and second years, and are there many electives or are most classes required? In law school, for instance, the first year everyone at every school takes the exact same core courses, and there are no electives. I wondered if there was something similar in clinical psych PhD.

Also, is there a difference in course offerings depending on how research-oriented a school is? For instance, would a school that's a 4 on the Insider's Guide scale (more balanced between research and clinical) offer different course offerings for first and second year grad students than a school that's a 6 or 7 on the scale (more research oriented rather than more balanced approach?) I was thinking maybe a school ranked 6 or 7 would offer more stats classes, and a school that's a 4 would offer more clinical classes. Is this the case?

Is it a good idea to get ahold of school's curricula before applying to look it over? If so, how does one get that?

 

[RayneeDeigh]

I have a question about PhD clinical psych curricula. Do all schools offer the same courses in the first and second years, and are there many electives or are most classes required? In law school, for instance, the first year everyone at every school takes the exact same core courses, and there are no electives. I wondered if there was something similar in clinical psych PhD.

Also, is there a difference in course offerings depending on how research-oriented a school is? For instance, would a school that's a 4 on the Insider's Guide scale (more balanced between research and clinical) offer different course offerings for first and second year grad students than a school that's a 6 or 7 on the scale (more research oriented rather than more balanced approach?) I was thinking maybe a school ranked 6 or 7 would offer more stats classes, and a school that's a 4 would offer more clinical classes. Is this the case?

Is it a good idea to get ahold of school's curricula before applying to look it over? If so, how does one get that?

There are general similarities (usually an assessment course, an ethics course, stats, etc) but there are definitely variations too. I would definitely imagine that research-focused schools have different courses than balanced ones.

The best way is to check school websites. It takes a lot of digging but you'll find courses eventually.

 

[zeldazelda]

I'm relatively new at this too and have been amazed at the information that is available online if you are willing to dig for it.

As I've been digging around exploring various programs (online), the courses definitely differ depending on the program (even in the first few years). I've been able to determine that by finding course schedules online -- some programs lay out a complete course schedule by year; others might have only a year as an example or just a summary by year.

Have you thought about doing informational interviews with psychologists in your area? It is another way to get a broad overview of how it all works. The APA has some pretty good articles too. You can also do a search on this site on key terms and see past threads which are often still quite useful.

 

[Ollie123]

Just look at school's websites. Lots of them have course listings on there.

The short answer is that not all 1st and 2nd year curriculums are identical. Though most everyone will take some form of stats, psychopathology, and assessment in their first semester.

And yes, depending on how research-oriented the school is, you'll see differences in course offerings. Some schools don't offer things like factor analysis, HLM, etc. Grant writing is another big one that far too few schools seem to offer.

 

[psychanon]

there are similarities, because the APA requires certain things. but certainly there is variation. yes, more research oriented programs would probably offer more stats/ methodology classes, whereas more clinically-oriented programs offer more clinical classes (but don't expect a perfect correlation with the insider's guide ratings-- those ratings are very unscientific and not always accurate). there is also variation on how coursework heavy programs are. if a program is coursework heavy throughout the entire course of the program, i would say it's a bad thing-- takes away from research and other pursuits. look on the program websites. everything should be posted there.

 

[JockNerd]

Funny; in first year I have two stats classes, no assessment or psychopathology, and a grant-writing component in one course.

(Can't wait to do my quantitative methods minor. My uni offers EVERYTHING in stats....)

 

[Ollie123]

Seriously JN?
I have to say that's REALLY unusual from what I've seen. Do they have you take both assessment and interventions next year?

It sounds like my kind of courseload, though I'm very glad I get to take psychopathology right off the bat since I think the way its taught here will really help me develop a sound theoretical basis for my thesis.

What course are you doing grant-writing as a part of, do they have you writing up a proposal or something? That's really awesome. I'm going to be loading up on methods/stats courses here as well since we also have damn near every kind of stats you could ever want offered.

Maybe the charm will wear off in a few months, but right now there are more classes I want to take than I reasonably can.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Here are some of the courses that seem to be 'staples' for Year One:

-Ethics
-Adult Psychopathology / Child Psychopathology
-Assessment (1-2+ classes)
-Research

And everything else seems to be a crap-shoot.

-t

 

[JockNerd]

Yup, assessment is next year, divided into two courses that span the academic year. I think one is on personality assessment and the other is on other kinds of tests. I'm not sure what you mean by "interventions." We have a Theories overview course this year and a deviant behaviour course in third year, but the program is verymuch NOT geared toward producing clinicians or dealing with research on severe psychopathology. The deviant behaviour course can stand to be later because its not something that's central to most of the research coming out of here.

Grant-writing is done in the second half of the first year, in the research methods course. Part of the final assignment is to submit a grant proposal to one of the awards that comes due around that time (I forget which; I'm still learning about US grant funding) in order to get external funding for your masters.

Edit for T4C's post, which came up while I was writing:
Yup, T4C, no assessment or psychpathology for me in first year!

 

[Ollie123]

Sorry, interventions here is basically the therapy course. We're not even remotely clinically-oriented here, but I was under the impression interventions courses were required for APA accreditation. Guess I was wrong🙂

What kind of success have people had with getting external funding for the master's? I'd love to try and pull something like that off, but I'm not sure its feasible or even necessary given some of my current plans. Still, never hurts to have a track record of securing funding (especially that early on!) when applying for jobs.

 

[psychanon]

Sorry, interventions here is basically the therapy course. We're not even remotely clinically-oriented here, but I was under the impression interventions courses were required for APA accreditation. Guess I was wrong🙂

What kind of success have people had with getting external funding for the master's? I'd love to try and pull something like that off, but I'm not sure its feasible or even necessary given some of my current plans. Still, never hurts to have a track record of securing funding (especially that early on!) when applying for jobs.

yeah, intervention courses are required for APA, but i'm sure they're called something different at each school. it's just a course where you review tx outcome research.

Ollie, you may be able to find some funding opportunities specifically geared towards pre-dissertation research. It may not be too late to apply for an NSF, which is only open to students in their first 3(2?) years of graduate study, although you wouldn't be able to if your research is too clinically oriented. F31s and the like are generally better applicable for dissertation research, or at least you'd basically have no chance of getting funded at this stage (you need to have some pubs and some graduate research experience). And you'd probably want something that would have a quick turnaround, since you'll want to get started on your master's work without waiting a year or more for money.

Maybe the charm will wear off in a few months, but right now there are more classes I want to take than I reasonably can.

it'll wear off when you realize how much classes eat into your research time. I am finally done with all classes and am so thrilled to be spending all my time just writing papers. 🙂