The blog posts that we have published so far are mainly about students who are Psychology majors. Did you know that you can actually minor in Psychology? Please read the blog post below written by Catherine Toms, who is a Nursing major minoring in Psychology.
I am a nursing major with a psychology minor. I always knew I would major in nursing, but never really had an interest in psychology until I took AP Psychology in high school. When I began college at Stevenson, I started looking into declaring a minor so that I could combine two of my passions into my education. My AP credit replaced the required introductory 101 for nursing and I also took 108: Human growth and development. I did not realize how easy it would be to minor in psychology; just taking six classes of my choice will enable me to graduate with a major and minor. I also took an elective course over Winterim: Self-love and Resilience. This past spring, I took 201: Writing for Psychology and 215: Psychopathology, which has been my favorite so far. Just over the summer, I was enrolled in an Adolescent Psychology course at my community college for my final class towards the minor requirements.
Catherine Toms (’21 Nursing)
What I enjoyed the most about the Psychology minor is the flexibility. The course progression for nursing majors is quite rigid, but I have been able to accommodate each of my psychology classes by also taking them outside of the regular semesters. All of my professors, including Dr. McEntee, Dr. Iannone, and Dr. Wong have been wonderful at giving me feedback and helping me succeed along the way as work towards my goal. Dr. Elliott has also been a great contact for me in ensuring everything would work best for me and my schedule.
My eventual goal is to be a psychiatric nurse practitioner, so I was excited to have the opportunity to get a head start now while still pursuing an undergraduate degree. Psychiatric nursing is a class I will be required to take this coming spring. Given that I have taken many other psychology classes, especially psychopathology where I was able to learn about different disorders as well as their treatments and medications, I feel very prepared for this class.
Together, this journey as a Psychology minor has definitely sparked my interest in understanding more about human thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. I am certain that these experiences will be extremely valuable when I start working at an inpatient facility helping patients of different psychological disorders or addiction issues.
By Catherine Toms ’21 (Nursing)