Graduate FAQs

Weekdays, 8:30am to 4:30pm. The office is closed during lunch from 12:00-1:00pm.

Your supervisor must submit a request to Kaitlin Barkley, Departmental Administrator, for you to get lab keys. There is a $10 deposit per key, which will be refunded upon return of the keys.

Yes. Shared student mailboxes are located in B542 Loeb. Please empty often!

Yes, A620 Loeb is a designated computer lab for Psychology graduate students. The room can be accessed using your student card (you must set up your door access PIN on Carleton Central).

To reserve a room for a mid-term or a make-up exam, contact Kaitlin Barkley, Departmental Administrator, a min of one week in advance of the date. Specify day, time, duration of the exam and the number of students.

If you successfully complete courses in excess of your program requirements, inform the Graduate Administrator which courses you would like to declare ETD (extra to degree). Required courses cannot be declared ETD. After graduation, you can request that the course not previously used in a degree be transferred to your new program if remaining in the same discipline at Carleton.

You can take a course from another discipline and it will count towards your degree as long as you receive approval from the Graduate Chair before registering in the course. Submit your request to the Graduate Chair explaining how this course is important to your research and your degree, include the relevant course outline with your request.

The practicum offers students the opportunity to gain experience in a range of applied psychology settings with the goal of integrating academic and practical aspects of psychology. This course cannot be repeated for credit. Students will receive a grade of satisfactory or unsatisfactory.

An information package, including agency-student contract and evaluation form can be found on the ‘Practicum Course Page’ section of the website.

• A Directed Study is an in-depth investigation of selected problems in psychology by means of directed library research.
• An Independent Research involves either data collection or data analysis.
• Students in the MA program are normally allowed to take up to a maximum of 3 half-credits in total of 5900 or 5901 courses. Only 2 of the 3 half-credits can be completed under the same supervisor.
• There is no limit for doctoral students other than only 2 half credits can be completed under the same supervisor.
• The application can be found on the ‘Forms‘ section of the website.
• Completed application forms should be submitted to the Graduate Chair for approval by September 1st for fall term, January 3rd for winter term, and May 1st for summer term.

Students are to register in these courses only in the term the paper will be submitted to their supervisor. Note that you must receive approval from the Graduate Chair before you begin to work on the project, even if registration will be occurring in a future term.

A final report must be submitted to the supervisor of the Directed Studies or Independent Research. A graded paper must then be submitted to the Graduate Administrator in the departmental office by the 5th day after the last day of class.

All students are expected to submit and orally defend a thesis prospectus.

The prospectus examination is defended at an oral examination. To set up this examination you must fill out a Prospectus Examination Approval Form that must be approved by the Graduate Chair two weeks prior to the examination date. Please visit the ‘Forms‘ section of the website to download it.

As soon as the Graduate Chair approves your committee, the Graduate Assistant will send you an official notification confirming your committee and will reserve the room and a laptop and/or data projector for the examination.

There is no time limit for master’s candidates to defend their prospectus. However, it should be discussed with your supervisor. Typically, MA students should strive to defend their prospectus by the end of their 3rd term.

For doctoral students, the prospectus must be defended by the end of the 7th term for full-time students and by the end of the 10th term for part-time students.

You are responsible for ensuring that all committee members and the Graduate Administrator receive a copy of the prospectus two weeks prior to the examination date.

• The MA prospectus committee consists of an advisor and one or two departmental committee members.
• The Ph.D. prospectus committee consists of an advisor and two departmental committee members.
• Only one adjunct may sit on the committee; this includes the advisor. If you have two co-advisors you still need to have two other departmental committee members.

Discuss this with your supervisor.

• For MA students, it is the same committee as your prospectus (departmental committee member number 2 may opt in or out of the final defence), plus a chair and an internal-external examiner (Internal to Carleton University but External to the Department of Psychology). You may have guests but you must first inform the Graduate Administrator who will let the Chair of Examination Committee know.
• For PhD students, it is the same examination committee as your prospectus, plus an external examiner (expert in the area if your thesis but outside of Carleton) and an internal/external examiner (Internal to Carleton University but External to the Department of Psychology). You may have guests but you must first inform the Graduate Administrator who will inform the Chair of the Examination Committee.

You will find a description of all scholarships and relevant deadlines here.

If you are a full-time student whose paper or poster has been accepted to a conference, you will find the Travel Bursary application on Carleton Central.

Normally, laboratory space for experimentation is assigned by your supervisor. ​You should discuss your needs with them.

Students taking PSYC 1001, 1002, 2001 and 2002 are eligible to participate in psychology research for grade-raising credit. These students form the “participant pool” for much of the research that is conducted by our department. Some research will require information about a participant prior to selecting them to participate in the study (a pre-selection measure), in order to ensure equal groups (e.g. equal numbers of introverts and extraverts). Some research will require a questionnaire to be administered separately from the main study in order to reduce demand characteristics. In order to accomplish this, the department will “mass test” all of the students in the participant pool in September. Researchers who are interested in submitting a questionnaire for mass testing will be invited to do so in August. Mass testing is NOT for scale development, nor for the administration of a questionnaire study in itself.

All information regarding ethics can be found here.

Yes, otherwise you will not graduate. All you will have is a fulfillment of the program requirements. Don’t wait until your thesis is deposited to apply to graduate.

The deadlines to apply to graduate are as follows:

• April 1 for Spring Convocation (June)
• August 31 for Fall Convocation (November)
• November 30 for Winter Convocation (February) There is no ceremony, but you will be invited to participate in the Spring convocation.

Late applications will not be considered.

You must apply to graduate online at Carleton Central.

FAQs for Carleton alumni can be found here.