Description of the Psychology major and requirements:
Visit the College Catalog for the full description.
Please note the recent addition of this course to satisfy "Group B" requirements, which will be published in the next College Catalog.

PSY-250: Health Psychology (Spring) 4 credits+
A survey of the psychological and social processes that contribute to health and illness. Topics include health-compromising and health-promoting behaviors, stress and coping, managing chronic illness, and patient-provider communication. Laboratory work may be required. Co-requisite: Mathematics/Social Studies 115 or Mathematics 209. Prerequisites: Psychology 113; or permission of instructor. SEAWELL

Transfer Courses:
All transfer credits accepted as credits towards your graduation (124 required) by the registrar are not automatically classified as counting towards the major. Each major defines its policy for accepting transfer credits as fulfilling major requirements.

In psychology, there are 2 procedures: automatic fulfillment and petition

Automatic fulfillment Courses in this category do not require any action on the part of the student once they declare psychology as a major.

• AP credit in Psychology automatically fulfills the PSY 113 requirement.
• A course considered equivalent to PSY 113 automatically fulfills the PSY 113 requirement. (new as of June, 2008)
• AP credit in Statistics automatically fulfills the requirement of MAT 115/209.

• Have a statement that begins the petition clearing specifying the request.
• For each course, provide title, course number, course description, and grade you received. Provide a syllabus if you have it, and if not, describe the topics, book, assignments, activities, etc. to help us have an idea of the topics and learning activities you engaged in.
• If the course is very different from the typical Grinnell course, provide enough detail so we know what you learned in the course. We value diversity in learning, but it is not up to us to guess what the course taught you; you tell us, with the goal in mind that this course enhanced your psychology curriculum.

• accepting credits of 200 level courses not in our curriculum as counting as elective credit, helping to reach the 32 required or allowing those courses to go into your major GPA.
• allowing a course to count as being equivalent to one of our 200 cores (in Category A and B) and thus meeting an A or B requirement. In this case, you ask for the credits to be accepted as counting towards the major, for the course to satisfy as equivalent to one of our cores, and for the course to count as from that core's category.
• allowing a course at the 300-400 level to count towards the 8 credits required.

• Do not petition until you are a psychology major.
• Meet with your major adviser to be clear as for what you are asking.
• Write the petition, include supporting documentation (usually a syllabus) and let your adviser proof it for completeness and acceptability.
• Submit the petition to the chair of psychology.
• The chair circulates it among members and collect votes.
• If the petition passes, the chair notifies the student and registrar of the petition's approval. If the petition fails, the chair notifies the student of the cause, and the student may consider re-petitioning if the failure was due to confusion, lack of persuasion, or something under his or her control. There is no policy in place to limit the number of petitions a student may submit. Common reasons for a petition's failure are that the course was not considered a psychology course (such as educational psychology, nursing psychology, or sport psychology), it was taught at the 100 level and can't replace a 200 level core, or it was too specific in topic to replace a core (e.g., a course in attention deemed unable to replace cognitive psychology).

• Students may not petition to have less than 32 credits satisfy the major. This is a college rule that no petition can change.
• Students should petition transfer courses to satisfy the major as early in their major as possible to avoid problems in being unable to complete the major in the senior year.
• The registrar never accepts more credits than the course was offered at the off-campus institution. Sometimes the registrar accepts fewer than what was offered. This means that if you completed the equivalent of one of our 4 credit courses but only received 3 credits by the registrar, then you must compensate by taking additional 2 or 4 credits of psychology to reach the 32 required of the major.
• Current policy is that the petition occurs only after the course is already taken and the credit received on the transcript. (The dept. is reviewing policy to include approval prior to taking an off-campus course. Stay tuned.)
• Most petitions are processed within 1 week (from time you submit to time you hear back).