Degree Requirements IN PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL POLICY

Students in the JDP-Psychology program will be entering the program in their second or third year of study at Princeton and therefore will have already completed a significant portion of their degree requirements (described in complete detail on the Psychology department website). The two halves of the JDP program – the departmental and the interdisciplinary – intertwine and complement each other, making it possible for students to emerge with advanced research training and a high level of professional accomplishment in their home discipline, while benefiting from an integrated focus on social policy that brings them into close contact with fellow student and faculty in the participating departments of Economics, Sociology and Politics. Since incoming psychology students locate faculty research supervisors in their first year of study, JDP-Psych students will already have close working relationships with both a primary and a secondary advisor, who provide guidance and participate in feedback meetings (described below). They will already have completed the Proseminar in psychology (i.e. PSY 500, Proseminar: Social Psychology; PSY 501, Proseminar: Cognitive Psychology; and PSY 502, Proseminar: Neuroscience) and the examinations based on this course.

They will have completed at least one semester of graduate statistics (Psy 503: Quantitative Analysis in Psychological Research). Each student must demonstrate an ability to deal with quantitative material; this will ordinarily be established by successful completion of Psychology 503, Quantitative Analysis in Psychological Research. (If this course has not been completed in the first year, it must be taken in the second year, coterminous with the core seminar in social policy described below. Additional quantitative training should be planned in consultation with a student's adviser. Students must pass 503 with a B- or better or they will have to retake the exam.) Students will have done their first year research project as well as the six week course requirement in the ethics of research (PSY 591a, Ethical Issue in Scientific Research). Students will have submitted their first year progress report, outlining the work they have accomplished to date and detailing their program of study for the second year, which will include courses designed specifically for students in the JDP program, including those specified below.

Because students in the joint program are required to complete all of the degree requirements established by the department as well as special course requirements on the social policy side, the remainder of the program is a blend of the two. For example, students are expected to attend their psychology area’s research seminar and to take upper-level graduate seminars in their area. The JDP requirements follow:

CORE COURSE ON “PROBLEMS IN SOCIAL POLICY”

Students in the JDP-Psychology program begin their interdisciplinary training in the Fall of their second or third year with a mandatory year -long seminar, “Problems in Social Policy.” The course is led by faculty members in all four contributing departments and introduces students to the key contributions each field has made to the study of inequality, broadly understood. Students must complete an original research paper for this course, supervised by a member of the teaching staff from their home discipline, which may double as a departmental research paper.

WORKSHOP IN SOCIAL POLICY

JDP-Psych students who have completed “Problems in Social Policy,” must enroll the following Fall in the “Workshop in Social Policy,” which will facilitate the completion of their research paper in publishable form. At this point, they acquire a program advisor, generally the director of the JDP program itself, whose responsibility is to insure that each student is progressing at an appropriate pace through the social policy side of the required course sequence. (Major advising responsibility remains within the Psychology department).

Students enrolled in the core seminar and the workshop are required to attend the program’s interdisciplinary colloquium, “Dilemmas of Inequality,” which gathers together faculty across all four disciplines, distinguished visitors, and students inside and outside of the JDP program. In 2007-8, this colloquium will meet over dinner from 6-8:30 pm on selected Tuesdays. Space permitting, all JDP students are welcome to join the dinner seminar, no matter what their year in the program as it will serve as an integrative experience across the disciplines and between the cohorts.

ADVANCED RESEARCH IN SOCIAL POLICY

With the completion of the core seminar, Problems in Social Policy, and the Workshop in Social Policy, JDP-Psych students return to their department to continue their research and prepare for their dissertations according to the formal requirements expected of all students in the department. Unlike their fellow Psychology graduate students, JDP-Psych students return to the interdisciplinary social policy community in their final year of study for a capstone workshop, “Advanced Research in Social Policy” which provides an opportunity for them to deliver a presentation of their key findings to their fellow JDP students and the faculty in all four fields. This capstone course is the final requirement in the program.

PRECEPTORIAL REQUIREMENTS

Students in the are required to teach a considerable amount in the course of their degree programs. JDP-Psychology students are relieved of this responsibility entirely for two years, the year in which they take “Problems in Social Policy” and the following year, when they enroll in the “Workshop in Social Policy.” This teaching relief is provided in view of the need for students to have extra time to devote to the study of inequality from the perspective of disciplines other than their home field. JDP-Psych students teach a normal load outside of those years although additional teaching release is granted to students with external fellowships.