The PhD in Developmental Psychology at Cornell University provides graduate students with strong training in the general discipline of developmental psychology as well as more focused training in one or more of its sub-areas: cognitive, social-personality, biological, infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Students acquire a common scholarly background that enables graduates to function as part of the community of developmental scholars, able to engage at a high level in an intellectual dialogue with colleagues.
The PhD degree usually takes five years to complete, including course work, teaching assistantships, and research. Aside from a small core of courses that all PhD candidates take (e.g., multivariate statistics), the program at Cornell is tailored to each candidate's interests. Our graduate students and the special faculty committees who guide them usually design a unique program of course work and research activities.
The program places heavy emphasis on research training. Students prepare for academic careers in in departments of psychology, sociology, or human development; government careers in agencies concerned with research or social policy; and in a range of community agencies or private enterprise. Training is not offered in clinical or counseling psychology, marriage counseling, or family therapy, nor is teacher certification offered.
Students develop an individual course of study and research plan in consultation with their committee. Students typically take 3-4 courses per semester (overview and advanced courses, specialized seminars, statistics, research methods) during their first two years of study and are expected to become actively involved in the research program of one or more faculty members during their first year. A pre-doctoral research project or master's thesis must be completed before the Admission to Candidacy Examination, which must be taken by the end of the third year. Supervised teaching experience is required of all students.
