Psych major bottlenecks frustrate students
By Gwen Frost
Bottlenecks in the psychology department are frustrating students attempting to pursue Western’s second-largest major.
Psychology student, Raji Gill, said they spent a year taking classes irrelevant to their degree because they couldn’t get the psych classes they needed.
“I want my tuition to count,” Gill said.
Psych 301, a very necessary class for the major, can be incredibly hard to get into for some.
“The psychology department seems to lack guidance for students who can’t get into PSY 301, despite being finished with their PSY 200 prereqs and psychology electives,” Gill said.
The 301 class has 100 spots per quarter, and there are on average 500 students who are eligible to take it each quarter.
Psychology Department Chair, Lawrence Symons, acknowledged there was an issue and said they were working on solutions.
“The primary course that is affected by demand is PSY 301,” Symons said. “Other courses in the major can reach capacity, but 301 is our most problematic course.”
Currently, the psych major has received funding to hire more faculty and two faculty members will be hired in Fall 2018. Any other decisions made will likely be implemented by Fall 2018.
“Opening up [PSY] 301 will reduce one problem, but create other bottlenecks further down the major,” he said. “We are actively considering our options across the whole major at this time.”
Bottlenecking for admission into classes has been an issue for other majors, particularly the computer science major, The Western Front reported. The issue is especially prevalent in majors as popular as psychology, which has been the second largest major on campus for many years.
Western was ranked in the top 30 percent of schools in the country for psychology, at number 558 out of 2077 schools by the 2017 Psychology Ranking, and offers BA and MA degrees in seven psychology programs. A total of 191 degrees in psychology were awarded this past year.
Sitting on the waitlist, many students don’t have time to defer a year or two to wait for one class. For some, it’s a waste of money to pay for school in the meantime.
An anonymous student said she would have been eligible for Psych 301 in winter quarter 2017, but only got into in for Fall 2017, two quarters later, after being on the waitlist all summer. She said even the 200 level classes are pretty difficult to get into, because there just aren’t enough sections of them.
Psychology student Sera Wheeler was unable to get into any of the psych classes she needed this fall.
“It postponed me from declaring the major, and could potentially mean I would have to stay in school for an extra quarter,” Wheeler said.
For some, help is coming too late.
An anonymous ex-psych major said she is switching majors this quarter because there was too much of a backup for her to want to wait for it.
They asked faculty to “fight for more of what they would like if they were a psychology student trying to make it through the major.”