Senior Seminar

A capstone course integrating the undergraduate psychology degree program. Should be taken during your last semester before graduation.

PSYC 3080K with a grade of C or higher 

1.  Develop enhanced oral and written communication skills.

2.  Develop an enhanced understanding of career pathways relevant to psychology.

3.  Demonstrate an improved ability to apply psychological content and skills to career goals.

4.  Develop and indicate a meaningful professional direction for life after graduation.

5.  Demonstrate an appreciation for the relatedness of the different traditional areas of psychology and the career options in the field.

6.  Engage in a thorough review of the core content of the psychology curriculum (e.g., statistics, research methods, cognition, motivation, learning, social, personality, abnormal, counseling and clinical, developmental, and neuroscience).

1.  Psychology by Peter Gray & David Bjorklund (8th edition; any format)

2.  Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition; any format) 

3.  36" x 48" tri-fold presentation board. 

   • These can be purchased at the bookstore, Target, Walmart, or Amazon. Click here for an example. 

   • You will have to use the tri-fold twice. I recommend getting either one a high quality tri-fold (e.g., foam) or two tri-folds. 

4. A pack of (5) green scantrons for the regular content exams. 

   • Note: All MFT exams will be provided; you do not need to purchase MFT scantrons.

Activities  (5% of overall grade)

Throughout the semester, we will complete in-class and at-home activities and assignments designed to improve understanding and application of concepts. You will get credit for completing these activities. In-class activities cannot be made up; therefore, your consistent attendance is important. At-home activities will be turned in on D2L unless told otherwise. Most of the activity grades for this class will come from attending and participating in review games and in-class presentations. 

Content Exams  (20% of overall grade)

By now in your undergraduate career, you have learned about all the major subfields of psychology. In this class we will test your knowledge of the major topics within the field in a variety of ways. One of those ways will be through in-class content exams. Each week (from Weeks 2-12) we will cover a major topic. Those topics include history & systems, research methods & statistics, neuroscience, motivation & emotion, sensation & perception, learning & memory, executive function, development, social psychology, personality, and clinical & counseling psychology. We will have five in-person exams that cover these topics. Each exam will cover 3-4 chapters of our textbook (~2-3 of our main topics). Exams will consist of 40 multiple choice questions. You will need to bring a green scantron and a pencil. Exams cannot be made up. If you miss an exam, your MFT grade will replace it. If you miss more than one exam, documentation and approved excuse from Dean of Students will be required. 

Topic Review & Review Game  (10% of overall grade)

At the beginning of the semester, you will join a group. Your group will be assigned two major topics in psychology. One topic will be covered in the first half of the semester and the other in will be covered in the second half. Your group will review the material for each of your topics on your own. Then you will create a review game that you will facilitate during class. The rest of the class will be expected to have studied the material before the review game. You can pick any review activity you want, but it is highly recommended you get the activity you choose approved by Dr. Hale prior to the review day. 

• First, you will complete a review of your topic. The review should be 10-15 minutes (max). Highlight main ideas and themes. This should serve as a primer to help with your review game. 

• Second, you will facilitate a "review game" related to this topic. The review game should last approximately 25 (no more than 30) minutes. Please include the following for your review game: (1) good instructions for the rules of the game, verbal and written preferably; (2) learning objectives for the game (i.e., what should your peers learn or takeaway from this game); and (3) a debrief after the game that ensures peers met your learning objective.

• You will be graded on the following key factors: accuracy of content covered, effectiveness of review activity, preparedness, creativity, engagement with the class, and collegiality/professionalism. Even though this is a group activity, you will be graded individually. Note this activity must be created, not just taken from another source. You must participate meaningfully in the preparation AND facilitation of the activity to earn full credit. Using a pre-made activity is cheating and will result in a zero in the course. Refer to Academic Integrity statement earlier in the syllabus. Please note, for your second review game you should NOT use the same review game format your team used the first time. Try to branch out to something no other team has done!  

Career Fair (10% of overall grade)

We will also host a career fair for each content topic. These career fairs will mimic a real career fair in which booths are setup for prospective employees to learn more about the careers.  You will be a representative of one career for two different topics throughout the semester. One of the careers you decide to present at a career fair must require ONLY a bachelor's degree (or less). The other career must require some kind of post-baccalaureate degree, e.g., Masters degree, Doctoral degree. Here's the process:

• First, you will select a career for your career fair presentation. The career must relate to the topic for that week. Careers are first come, first served. There will be a sign-up sheet for career choices at the beginning of the semester. Careers cannot be repeated throughout the semester by any students. (Similar, but not identical, careers are fine.) Some careers sound the same but are actually quite different, for example: social worker versus clinical social worker. This is also fine.

• Second, you will prepare materials and a presentation for the career fair. For the career you selected, you should be prepared to market this career to the prospective employees that come to your booth. That includes:  (a) the title and description of each career, (b) how it ties to the assigned subfield, (c) education level required, (d) salary (medians preferred; consider location, state vs national data), and (e) job availability (how common is the job) / scarcity (how many jobs are available). Also consider (f) who would do well in each career (based on interests or other factors) and why.  

  • Important: The materials you develop should be a good visual aid for your audience and should include the details listed above. A trifold poster is required. However other materials could be included as well, such as handouts, brochures, multimedia, etc.  You will not have access to the projector. Any materials will need to be able to sit on a desk.

• Third, the career fair will be setup in our regular classroom. Desks will be cleared out of the way (presenters should help with this process, if possible). You will setup your booth with your materials. Then the "prospective employees" will be allowed into the career fair. Your career presentation should last about 3-5 minutes with time for a few questions at the end. The audience will rotate from booth to booth. You will repeat the presentation until you have presented to the entire audience. For instance, if you have five people in your group, then there are five booths; in this example, that would mean you present your career five times. 

• At the end, the prospective employees will receive a survey to provide feedback on the career fair. This survey will include (1) thoughts and rankings on the careers at the fair, and (2) thoughts and rankings on the presentations themselves. This information is not used to help me grade. Instead, this information will be provided to you to help you prepare for the second round of presentations. In the second round, informal verbal feedback will be provided following the presentations instead of the formal survey. 

• You will be graded on the following key factors: accuracy of content covered, effectiveness of presentation, preparedness, creativity, engagement with the class, and professionalism. Note your materials and presentation must be created, not just taken from another source. You must participate meaningfully in the preparation AND facilitation of the presentation to earn full credit. Using a pre-made presentation is cheating and will result in a zero in the course. Refer to Academic Integrity statement earlier in the syllabus.

Career Project (20% of overall grade)

The purpose of this project is to help you brainstorm a career path in a psychology or psychology-adjacent field. (Note: all careers are psychology adjacent since they connect in some way to one or more subfields of psychology and/or they require that you work with other people effectively. Change my mind.) This project consists of several parts that will be completed across the semester. 

1. Focus2 Career Assessment. See instructions on D2L. Complete this career assessment, and use the information to help you select a future career path. If you already have a career path in mind, search for that career using Focus2 once the assessment is complete to help you with later parts of this project. 

2. Career Paper Outline. Before writing the career paper, you will complete an outline of the paper. Use the career paper instructions below and resources on D2L to help with this.

3. Materials - First Draft. To help prepare you for your career, you will complete a Curriculum Vitae (CV) OR resume, depending on what is needed for your chosen career. A CV is required for graduate programs and jobs in academia, whereas a resume is more likely for jobs with a bachelor’s degree. Use your research into the career path, including the job ad you found, to help with this. You will also complete a letter of intent OR cover letter. A letter of intent is required for graduate school applications, whereas a cover letter is required by a prospective employer. They are similar writing samples however. Both typically state who you are, what you are applying for, and why you are qualified.

4. Career Services. Once your outline and first drafts of materials are complete, you will setup a time for UNG Career Services to review your career plans AND your material drafts. Click here and scroll down to setup a meeting with Career Services. Take notes during the meeting, including how you plan to use what you learn and discuss in the meeting to prepare for your career and improve your materials. Submit these notes alongside evidence of your meeting (e.g., a screenshot of the scheduled meeting email) to D2L.

5. Interview. Preparing for interviews is a critical part of career attainment. In class, we will discuss research and industry-based interview strategy. Then you will be paired with a student partner. Each of you will serve as interviewer and interviewee in two separate sessions. These interviews are based on the career you are applying for described in your career project. 

   • Schedule interviews. Pick the dates for each of your interviews based on your schedules. Schedule the interviews using Microsoft Teams. Interviews must be completed in Week 10 or 11. You must pick and schedule these dates at least a week ahead of time.

   • Preparation: 

     • INTERVIEWEE: To prepare for this interview, you should review common questions asked during interviews for graduate school OR your chosen job. You should prepare for as many interview questions as possible, but you will turn in a list containing ten questions you think you might be asked during the interview and your answers to these questions. Then include three questions you would like to ask the interviewer (as they often ask if you have any questions for them). You can find lists of these questions online as well. You do not need to provide answers to these three since you would not be the one answering them in an interview. Please be intentional with the question you prepare for, your answers, and the questions you want to ask. If you find questions using online or Career Services resources, you must cite your sources. It is okay to create your own questions. Turn in preparation materials 24 hours before your scheduled interview.

     • INTERVIEWER: You should prepare 6-8 questions for an interview that should last 15-20 minutes. We will discuss how to create these questions and conduct an interview in class. However, you will have the responsibility of selecting these questions. 

   • Interviews. Both interviewer and interviewee will meet at the scheduled time on Microsoft Teams. Interviewer will not let the interviewee know the questions beforehand. Interviewer will also be professional, asking the planned questions as coached in class. Interviewee will answer questions as if it were an actual interview--not breaking the "fourth wall." Once an interview ends, the interviewee typically has a chance to ask questions; however, the interviewer cannot answer the questions of the interviewee in this case. Skip that part of the interview. Instead, discuss how you each of you think the interview went, what went well, and what could be improved. 

   • IMPORTANT: All interviews must be conducted AND RECORDED on Microsoft Teams. Interviewer and interviewee will be graded. Interviews must occur in separate recorded sessions. Both individuals are graded based on professionalism, preparedness, effort, and engagement.

6. Materials - Final Draft. Use your graded feedback from the first drafts and feedback from Career Services to improve your CV/resume and letter of intent/cover letter. These documents should be in a final version that are ready to submit to a graduate program or prospective employer. 

7. Career Paper. The career paper should be an APA-formatted minimum four page (content only) paper that includes: description of the career you have selected, why you selected this career path, what you have done to prepare to-date (e.g., classes taken, research, volunteer work, leadership roles), what is required to obtain this career, job availability/scarcity, salary, and the steps you plan to take to get to this career following graduation. For all this, consider the location you plan to live if you have a preferred location. You should find a real job ad online that is for a job you actually want and include it in your paper as an appendix. You should reference this job ad in your paper. (Note: It's recommended that you take a screenshot of the job ad as the job is likely to fill and a link will cease to work once that happens.) If graduate school is required for your future job, you should also include the graduate schools to which you plan to apply. You need to pick a minimum of three graduate programs, all of which could help you get to your career goal. Include in your paper why you selected these programs and what their requirements are. For graduate programs, always consider acceptance rates, likelihood of acceptance based on your qualifications, cost, location, and fit. This paper should make it clear that you are interested in this career path, that you have already begun preparing for this career path, and that you have a plan following graduation to help you get to this career.

Research @ Work (15% of overall grade)

The purpose of this project is to demonstrate transferrable skills acquired as a psychology student: information literacy, critical thinking, empirical/research skills, and statistical/analytic skills. In the career project above, you are selecting and preparing for a career of your choice. Here, you will be exploring how research and empirical data influence your chosen career. 

1. Literature review. In today's world, every career is impacted by research. Businesses make data-driven decision in order to be successful. Professional helpers (e.g., psychologists, therapists, counselors, social workers) use data to understand effective treatment and strategies. Think about how research and data generally impact your chosen career. You may not want to be a researcher, but research still impacts your ability to do your job effectively. In the literature review portion  of this project, conduct a literature review to determine how research and data impact your chosen career path. (If you are planning to be a researcher, explain how the type of research you plan to do helps other careers/fields/populations.) Write an APA formatted paper with a minimum of five pages of content, not including title or reference pages. Must have at least ten peer-reviewed references as part of this literature review.  This assignment can talk broadly about a career. For instance, you can talk about research impacts the field of social work. Consider how research impacts the training required for that career (including graduate school and/or other training), the ability to do that job successfully, any licensing process, and any continuing education requirements. In other words, discuss how research and data impact that career and why (e.g., to make it more effective, more profitable, etc). 

2. Career connection. Now we will connect what you learned in your literature review to your specific career goals. Since we have established research and data and important for your career generally, in this part of the project you will consider how this data will impact you specifically. Write an APA formatted paper with a minimum of three pages of content, not including title or reference pages. First, talk about what your chosen career is specifically. To use the previous example, rather than talking about social workers in general, talk about the specific social work job you want to have. Then consider how research and data will impact your education and curriculum, your ability to get a license (if required), your ability to do your job successfully/effectively, and your ability to stay current. Also consider what the consequences would be if you were NOT aware of the research and data in your field. Consider how that would impact your ability to be hired, how it would impact your salary, how it would impact others (e.g., customers, patients), and how it would impact your general sense of fulfillment (i.e., how would you feel about your ability to do a good job and actually help people). Importantly, consider why a statement like "I don't need to understand research or statistics; I just want to help people" (a common statement among psychology majors at various points in their undergraduate career) is actually illogical. Finally, consider how the knowledge discussed and gained from this "Research @ Work" project has helped prepare you for your chosen career. 

3. Presentation. At the end of the semester, you will present your entire Research @ Work project, including highlights from your literature review AND career connection papers. These will be 5-minute presentations followed by a brief Q&A. This is the culminating career assignment as well as the final presentation of the semester. You should be able to demonstrate mastery related to an understanding of your chosen career, how research/data impacts that career, and in your presentation abilities. 

Psychology Major Fields Test  (20% of overall grade)

The final exam for this class is a standardized test in psychology known as the Major Fields Test (MFT). The purpose of this test is to assess your knowledge and mastery of general psychology. This test consists of 140 multiple choice questions. The test will be completed in class during our final exam period. You will complete TWO scantrons with identical answers; one will be sent to the MFT scoring office and the other will be graded for this course. Review the linked MFT guide for more information. This test will be completed individually and no resources (e.g., notes) can be used during the test. This comprehensive final exam cannot be made up without excused absence documentation and permission from the Dean of Students office.

> 90.0% = A

80.0 - 89.9% = B

70.0 - 79.9% = C

60.0 - 69.9% = D

< 60.0 = F

KEY

Psychology Content

Career Project

Research @ Work Project

~

Week 1: Syllabus & Planning

Week 2: Psych Topic 0 // Focus2 Career Assessment

Week 3: Psych Topic 1 // Career Paper Outline

Week 4: Psych Topic 2 // Career Material First Draft // Exam 1 (Chap. 1-4)

Week 5: Psych Topic 3  // Career Preparation Workshop

Week 6: Psych Topic 4 //Career Materials Peer Review // Exam 2 (Chap. 5-7)

Week 7: Psych Topic 5 // Career Services Due

Week 8: Psych Topic 6 // Career Paper & Materials Final Draft // Exam 3 (Chap. 8-10)

Week 9: Psych Topic 7 // Interviewing Workshop

Week 10: Psych Topic 8 // Research @ Work: Literature Review // Exam 4 (Chap. 11-13)

Week 11: Psych Topic 9 // Interviews Due

Week 12: Psych Topic 10 // Research @ Work: Career Connection // Exam 5 (Chap. 14-16)

Week 13: Presentation Workshop // Research @ Work Presentations

Week 14: Presentations (continued)

Week 15: Presentations (continued)

Finals: Major Fields Test