College of Arts and Sciences

Department of Psychology

Degree Requirements

Application Process

Degree Requirements

Master's Degree:

36 credit hours, first year project, thesis and defense (including qualifying exam), no practical experience required.

Nonthesis option: no
Completion time: two to three years

Doctorate Degree:

40-70 credit hours (determined by committee), comprehensive exam, dissertation and defense, internship or co-op is recommended. Teaching a course is required.

For the Ph.D. degree in Engineering Psychology, students must complete an internship in an industrial,governmental, or other laboratory setting of at least three-months duration.

Completion time: two to three years after the Master's

Curriculum

Core Courses Of the following courses, three are required for the Master's and four for the Ph.D.

Learning

Sensation & Perception

Cognition

Biopsychology

Social Psychology

Engineering Psychology

Developmental Psychology

History and Systems

Methods Courses Of the following courses, all are required for the Master's and all plus two additional statistics courses are required for the Ph.D.:

Quantitative Methods

Experimental Design

Experimental Statistics

Elective Courses

Human-Machine Systems

Aviation Psychology

Human-Computer Psychology

Computer Methods

Multivariate Statistics

Courses from other departments including Experimental Statistics Department, Computer Science Department, etc.

 

Careers

Our recent master's level graduates are employed with companies ranging from IBM to small private consulting companies. We frequently have more requests from industry contacts for graduates than we have students.

Our recent Ph.D. graduates have been employed in academia and industry. Alumni work at the University of Quebec, Georgia Tech, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University, the Air Force Academy, University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and the University of Michigan. Graduates in Cognitive and Engineering areas are typically employed in the computer industry, telecommunications, and aerospace. NMSU Psychology department graduates can be found at IBM, Microsoft, Dell, and Government agencies.

A recent survey shows that entry level salaries for Psychology Ph.D.'s in academic jobs is $50,000. In 2000, a survey of usability practioners in industry (the most common area of employment for our graduates) found an average salary of $70,000. Note that entry level salaries would be below this level.