Non-Departmental Electives

You may choose non-departmental electives from a variety of courses not listed in the psychology section of the course catalog to count toward the concentration.. Non-departmental electives are broken down into three groups:

1. Affiliate Electives
2. Expedited Electives
3. Petitioned Courses
   

Please note that only one Affiliate course, and no Expedited or Petitioned courses, may count toward the Secondary Field requirements. All courses listed below in the sections below count against the established limits on nondepartmental electives detailed here.

1. Affiliate Courses are non-departmental courses taught by departmental affiliates or cross-listed in the psychology section of the catalog. Affiliated courses are counted as concentration electives without any petition required, although affiliate courses in Education require cross-registration with instructor and concentration signatures. (The Undergraduate cross-registration form is available in the Undergraduate Office, the Registrar's Office, and your House/Resident Dean's Office. Turn it in with signatures with your study-card, or up until the deadline, 29 September 2008). The following are Affiliate Courses for 2008-2009:

• [Historical Study A-87 (formerly History of Science 175), Madness and Medicine: Theories in the History of Psychology]
• History of Science 171, Narrative and Neurology
• [History of Science 176, Evolution and the Mind: Conference Course] - no longer offered
• [History of Science 177, Stories under the Skin: The Mind-Body Connection in Modern Medicine]
• Life Sciences 1a, Integrated Introduction to the Life Sciences: Chemistry, Molecular Biology, and Cell Biology
• Life Sciences 1b , Integrated Introduction to the Life Sciences: Genetics, Genomics, and Evolution
• [Linguistics 130, Psycholinguistics]
• Neurobiology 130 (formerly Psy 1205), Drugs and the Brain: From Neurobiology to Ethics
• Organizational and Evolutionary Biology 53, Evolutionary Biology

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2. Expedited Courses are non-departmental courses that include significant psychological content and could be a useful component of one's concentration in psychology. These courses will be approved without a full petition, but:

Expedited courses in Education or the Kennedy School require cross-registration with instructor and concentration signatures. The following are Expedited Courses for 2008-2009:

• African and African American Studies 197, Poverty, Race, and Health
• Anthropology 1640, Language and Culture
• [Anthropology 1702, Gender, Medicine and Care] - no longer offered
• [Anthropology 2452, Evolution of Human Family] - no longer offered
• [Anthropology 2460, Issues in Human Evolution]
• [Anthropology 2740, Culture, Mental Illness and the Body] - no longer offered
• Anthropology 2750, Local Biologies: Perspectives on the Interaction between Culture and Biology
• [Anthropology 2765, Topics in Medical Anthropology]
• Computer Sciences 50, Introduction to Computer Science
• Computer Science 171, Visualization
• [Computer Science 179: Design of Usable Interactive Systems]
• [Currier 79, Medicine, Law, and Ethics: An Introduction] - no longer offered
• Economics 980q,. Economics Design Lab
• Economics 1011a, Microeconomic Theory
• Economics 1030, Psychology and Economics
• [Economics 1035, Policy Applications of Psychology and Economics]
• Economics 1059, Theories of Decisionmaking in Economics
• Education H-236, Psychosocial Implications for School Practice and Community Partnerships (requires cross-registration)
• Education H-382, The Problems Kids Have: Psychosocial, Developmental, and Biological Perspectives of Risk in School-Age Children
• Education H-392, The Nature of Childhood Trauma
• [Education H-605, Moral and Social Development] - no longer offered
• Education T-006, Adult Development
• Education T-560, Universal Design for Learning: Meeting the Challenges of Individual Differences
• Government 98dn (formerly Government 90dn), Mapping Social and Environmental Space
• Government 1008, Introduction to Geographical Information Systems
• History 70c, Topics in Natural History
• History 1345, The Human Sciences in the Modern West
• Historical Study A-34, Medicine and Society in America
• History of Science 144v, Body, Technology and (Dis)-ability
• [History of Science 145, Medicine and Deviance: Conference Course]
• History of Science 150, History of Social Science
• History of Science 156v, Science and Risk
• History of Science 160, Intellectual Property in Science
• History of Science 170, Science and the Occult
• History of Science 174, Critical Experiments in the Human Sciences: Conference Course
• [History of Science 253, Bioethics, Law, and the Life Sciences]
• History of Science 256, Culture, Personality, and Self
• History of Science 294, Tools, Instruments, and Extended Cognition
• Human Evolutionary Biology 1312, Human Sexuality: Research and Presentation Seminar
• Human Evolutionary Biology 1330, Primate Social Behavior
• [Human Evolutionary Biology 1345, Human Structure] - no longer offered
• [Human Evolutionary Biology 1368, Evolution of Human Sex Differences] - no longer offered
• Human Evolutionary Biology 1371, Paternity, Fidelity and Parenting
• [Human Evolutionary Biology 1375, Testosterone and Human Behavior]
• [Human Evolutionary Biology 1380, The Behavioral Biology of Women] - no longer offered
• [Human Evolutionary Biology 1565, Theories of Violence: Gender and Sexuality]
• Kennedy School API-304, Judgment and Decision-Making
• Linguistics 88, Language and Cognition
• Linguistics 110, Introduction to Linguistics
• Linguistics 115a, Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology
• Linguistics 188r, Biolinguistics
• [MIT 9.34, Perception, Knowledge, and Cognition (requires cross-registration)] - no longer offered
• [MIT 24.958, Linguistic Structure (requires cross-registration)] - no longer offered
• [MIT HST.583 Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Data Acquisition and Analysis] - no longer offered
• Molecular and Cellular Biology 105, Systems Neuroscience
• [Molecular and Cellular Biology 115, Cellular Basis of Neuronal Function]
• [Molecular and Cellular Biology 117, Experimental Neuroscience] - no longer offered
• Molecular and Cellular Biology 129, Molecular Genetics of Neuronal Development and Disease
• [Molecular and Cellular Biology 141, Molecular and Developmental Neurobiology]
• Molecular and Cellular Biology 145 (formerly *Neurobiology 95hfb), Neurobiology of Perception and Decision-Making
• Molecular and Cellular Biology 146 (formerly *Neurobiology 95c), Experience-Based Brain Development: Causes and Consequences
• Molecular and Cellular Biology 186, Circadian Biology: From Cellular Oscillators to Sleep Regulation
• Neuro 95hfa, Can We Learn About How We Learn? Neurogenetics in Learning and Memory
• Neuro 95hfc, Experience-Based Brain Development: Causes and Consequences
• Neuro 95hfd (formerly *Biology 95hfd), Problem Solving in Neuroscience: An Interactive Case-Based Online Network (ICON)
• Neuro 95hfe, The Neglected Synapse: Gap Junctions in the Nervous System
• Neuro 95hff, From Baseball to Beethoven: Cerebellar Integration, Motor Learning and Behavior
• Neuro 95hfg, More than Glue: Glial Cells in Health and Neurological Disease
• Neuro 95hfh, Bird Song and Human Language: Learning from the Birds
• Neuro 95hfi (formerly *Biology 95hfi), Eye Can't Hear You: Blindness and Deafness in Society
• Neuro 95hfj (formerly *Biology 95hfj), The Sleeping Brain
• Neuro 95hfk (formerly *Biology 95hfk), Mechanisms of Neurological Disease
• Neuro 101, Auditory Neurobiology of Language and Music
• Organismic and Evolutionary Biology 57, Animal Behavior
• Organismic and Evolutionary Biology 205, Neurobiology of Motor Control
• Philosophy 156, Philosophy of Mind
• Philosophy 158q, History of the Unconscious: Proseminar
• Philosophy 159, Epistemology
• Philosophy 179, Race and Social Justice
• [Social Analysis 28, Culture, Illness, and Healing: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Medicine in Society]
• Social Studies 40, Philosophy and Methods of Social Science
• Social Studies 51, The Human Sciences in the Modern West
• Sociology 25, Introduction to the Sociology of Organizations
• Sociology 43, Social Interaction
• Sociology 109, Leadership and Organizations
• [Sociology 153, Media and the American Mind] - no longer offered
• Sociology 155, Class and Culture
• [Sociology 162, Medical Sociology]
• [Sociology 260: The Sociology of Global Health]
• Statistics 110, Introduction to Probability
• Statistics 139, Statistical Sleuthing Through Linear Models
• Statistics 140, Design of Experiments
• Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1210ft, Feminist Theory: Feminism and Psychoanalysis
• Women & Gender Studies 1161, Psychology of Girls and Women Across the Lifespan
• From the Harvard Summer School Abroad in Summer 2008:
  --Tokyo, Japan (RIKEN): Developmental Foundations of Brain Function and
  Dysfunction
  --London, England: Study Abroad in London, England: Mind and Medicine in
  Victorian Culture (cannot count this and Historical Study
  A-87 (formerly Hist-Sci 175) toward the concentration)
  --Oxford, England: BIOL S-113 Study Abroad at Oxford: Darwin and
  Contemporary Evolutionary Biology
  --San Jose, Costa Rica: An Anthropological Perspective on Media in Education
  

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3. Petitioned Courses are other non-departmental FAS courses, non-FAS Harvard courses, MIT courses, or courses taken in other departments while studying out of residence that you believe will contribute significantly to your study of psychology. These courses must include significant psychology content and relate directly to your own concentration program. Introductory courses in other departments, independent reading or research courses in other departments, non-departmental independent study courses, tutorial courses in other departments, and Freshman Seminar and Core courses not taught by psychology department faculty are not usually approved as concentration electives. You must complete a petition form for these courses, attaching a statement and syllabus. The form must have your concentration advisor's signature; this signature does not mean that your advisor approves your petition but rather that s/he believes you have made the strongest case for the course.

You must submit a petition form for these courses, attaching a statement. Petitions must be submitted the semester you are taking a course; deadlines for 2008-2009 are December 16th for the fall term, and May 1st (or February 2nd if you are a senior) for the spring term. Courses taken out of residence have different deadlines. Courses taken outside of FAS require cross-registration with instructor and concentration signatures; because you can only get a concentration signature after your petition has been reviewed, you should submit petitions for non-FAS courses as soon as you can get a syllabus. Petitions are evaluated usually by the Head Tutor or occasionally the Committee on Undergraduate Instruction.

Approved courses will meet the following criteria:

• Course is relevant to psychology: The course material bears directly upon areas of psychology in that (1) the readings report or consider relevant empirical psychological research; (2) the phenomena studied are amenable to analysis from multiple levels; and (3) the course actually gives some attention to multiple perspectives and interactions among levels. An emphasis on theory is sometimes acceptable if multiple and testable theories are considered.
• Course is relevant to your program: Your statement relates the course to your interests in psychology, to coursework you have taken, and/or to thesis plans you have.
• Course is rigorously evaluated: Courses evaluate students at least in part on their knowledge of the research literature, indicated by course examinations or papers.

When thinking about petitioning the department for a non-departmental course, it is important to keep in mind this concentration's approach to psychology. We want you to learn to draw conclusions about humans or animals based upon empirical data. This is, of course, only one way of looking at the world, and other disciplines employ other approaches. Thus, although you may identify a course in another section of the catalog that addresses topics of psychological importance, it may do so in a non-empirical way. We do appreciate that such a course and its approach can be valid and rigorous, and that it deserves to be part of your undergraduate education, but it would not be appropriate as a psychology concentration elective. It may rather provide you with an interesting linkage between your concentration and non-concentration courses, and students often find making such intellectual connections gratifying.

© by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
Last updated 25 September, 2008