The third-year Honours seminars provide students with an applied introduction to theory and research in one of the Department’s areas of research: Cognitive, Developmental, Forensic, Health, Personality, and Social Psychology.
Activities conducted in class and in laboratories will give you hands-on experience conducting research. You will read classic and contemporary journal articles, and you will get to discuss them with your peers, TA, and Professor. You will design research studies and experiments, and you might get to run them on yourself and other students. You will learn to analyze your data using appropriate software and experience the excitement that comes with discovering if an experiment worked. Finally, you will learn how to present your research like scientists via APA-style research reports, posters, and conference-style presentations.
Our Department takes great pride in offering this unique course in Canada and only Professors who are experts in their areas of research teach them. We firmly believe that the seminar provides all our students with outstanding preparation for their theses and graduate studies in psychology if they choose to do so.
Yes, they are. The third-year Honours seminars are the only courses in our program that schedule three hours a week for its class meetings and three hours a week for its laboratories. In total, that is six hours a week. Hence, it is likely that your seminar will be the most demanding class that you will take in your program, but at the same time, it will give you an in-depth understanding of what it is like to conduct scientific research in psychology.
To register for a third-year Honours seminar, you must be currently enrolled in an Honours degree in Psychology (B.A., B.Sc., or Combined Honours), and your major CGPA must be equal to or above 9.0 (i.e., you need a B+ average or better). You also need to have completed both PSYC 2001 and 2002. Finally, you need to have completed the appropriate introductory course(s) for the seminar that you intend to take. For example, if you wish to register for PSYC 3400 – Forensic Psychology (Honours Seminar), then you need to have completed PSYC 2400 [0.5 credit] – Introduction to Forensic Psychology. Here is a full list of those prerequisites:
To register for an Honours seminar, you must fill out and submit the Honours seminar application form to the Department at psychology@carleton.ca. Your application will be processed only if you already meet all the prerequisites.
The form will also ask you to rank the seminars by order of preference. In other words, you will indicate which seminar you would prefer to join. Remember that enrollment in each seminar is limited. Hence, give some thought to your second and third choices, and make sure that you also meet their prerequisites.
Please submit an application form by the deadline, and we will place you in a pending folder until your summer courses are complete. Once you meet the prerequisites/year standing/major CGPA, we will then assess your application. If you don’t meet all requirements once the summer term is complete, you may work on raising your major CGPA and apply again the following year. Alternatively, you may consider the Honours Project route instead, which does not require an Honours seminar.
No. Each seminar is capped at 20 students to ensure an optimal learning experience. It is impossible to give every student their first choice. Nonetheless, all seminars share the same goals: they give applied training in conducting research in psychology, and they prepare you for your Honours thesis.
No. Any given seminar will develop your knowledge about key topics of inquiry for an area of research, but no third-year course makes a student an expert. The transferable research skills that you will gain are a lot more important. Potential thesis and graduate supervisors seek students with outstanding academic records, a passion for research, and a demonstrated ability for laboratory work. The first two criteria are up to you, but you will certainly develop the last one in any third-year seminar.
The credit obtained for a third-year seminar may be counted toward a concentration, but it is not mandatory. Hence, it is possible to complete a concentration even if your Honour seminar is not in the same area. Visit the Department’s concentrations information page to retrieve a course completion checklist for your concentration. It will list all the courses that you can take to earn your concentration. Don’t forget that this includes the thesis and the project if they are conducted in the relevant area of research.
I still have questions. What should I do?
Contact the Undergraduate Office at the following: