Human Development

The Department offers both the Ph.D. and the M.A. degrees.  For a student without previous graduate training but with an undergraduate major in psychology, sociology, or human development, the Ph.D. program usually requires five years. Students with more limited preparation may need additional time.  Students in the Ph.D. program are currently offered funding (tuition and a stipend, usually in the form of a teaching- or a research-assistantship) for five years. Graduate education at Cornell is based on a Special Committee, which consists of three faculty members for the Ph.D.  Special Committee members are chosen by the student from among graduate faculty whose research interests are compatible with the interests of the student.  The Special Committee in conjunction with the student decides which particular courses the student will take and guides the student's research.  Applications for admission require completing the application form for the Graduate School.

The Department also offers two types of Master's degrees.  One is offered as a preliminary to more advanced graduate work for students who have already been admitted to the Ph.D. program, but who want to earn a Master's degree before they finish the Ph.D.  Students who opt to earn a Master's before earning the Ph.D. are offered five years of funding that includes both the Master's and the Ph.D.

The other Master's degree is offered as a one year program and can be (though need not be) treated as an extension of a four-year undergraduate degree.  Each student's progress is supervised by a Special Graduate Committee of two faculty members to be chosen by the student from among Human Development graduate field faculty  with compatible interests.

This two semester program requires a total of 30 credit hours. The credit hours must include at least two formal courses in each semester with the remaining supplemental course work and/or research participation culminating in a written thesis.  The thesis can include, but is not limited to, extending an honor's thesis written while being involved in a faculty member's lab, conducting an empirical research project, writing a review or conceptual paper, or evaluating a program.  The specific courses, the type of research undertaken, and the content of the final thesis are decided jointly by the student and the Special Committee. 

Graduate education at Cornell is based on a Special Committee, which consists of two faculty members for the Master's degree.  Special Committee members are chosen by the student from among graduate faculty whose research interests are compatible with the interests of the student.  The Special Committee in conjunction with the student decides which particular courses the student will take.  It also decides what form the thesis will take.  Both decisions are aimed at taking account of the student's professional and academic goals.  Neither the Department nor individual faculty will be able to fund students (by providing tuition, insurance, or a stipend) during the one-year Master's degree.

Students can treat the two-semester Master's degree as an opportunity to gain additional research experience and to burnish their credentials in a way that will prepare them to apply for further study for a Ph.D. in departments of Human Development (including this one), in Psychology, Sociology, and in related disciplines such as Public Policy, Nutrition, Law, Education, Medicine, or Public Health, where some knowledge of human development is professionally useful.

For those students who are already at Cornell, and who decide to treat this program as an extension of the four-year undergraduate degree, the student may begin to take graduate level courses in her senior year and to begin working on a project that will lead to finishing a Master's degree with an additional two semesters beyond the Bachelor's degree.

The department does continuous admissions for the two-semester MA program, but we strongly recommend that prospective students apply by June 1st for Fall admission and October 1st for Spring admission.

Applications for admission require completing the application form for the Graduate School . GREs are required, but if other measures (for example, LSATs, MCATs) are available, students can be admitted on a provisional basis, pending receipt of the GRE scores.  International students are also required to submit TOEFL scores.  We regret that we are unable to provide financial assistance.

Because of the short time period involved in the MA program, we admit applicants only if there are faculty whose research interests are compatible with the student's interests and who are available to mentor the student.  Potential applicants can identify faculty members with compatible interests in several ways: by getting in touch with the faculty members directly, for those students who are already familiar with the faculty member's interests; by learning more about faculty members' interests; or by getting in touch with either the Director of Graduate Studies, Prof. Barbara Koslowski  or the Graduate Field Assistant, Ms. Bonnie Biata to ask for suggestions.