PSYCH-MA - Psychology (MA)

The Department of Psychology is committed to providing academic advising in support of graduate student scholarly and professional development. When most effective, the advising relationship entails collaborative and sustained engagement by both the advisor and the advisee. As a best practice, advising expectations should be periodically discussed and reviewed to ensure mutual understanding. Both the advisor and the advisee are expected to maintain professionalism and integrity.

Faculty advisors guide students in critical areas, such as selecting courses, designing and conducting research, writing results of research studies as manuscripts for peer-reviewed journals, developing teaching pedagogy, navigating policies and degree requirements, and exploring academic opportunities and professional pathways.

Graduate students are active contributors to the advising relationship, proactively seeking academic and professional guidance and taking responsibility for informing themselves of policies and degree requirements for their graduate program.

See Graduate Advising for a statement of university policy on graduate advising. 

Individual Development Plan (IDP)

To meet the advising goals described above, each PhD student must complete an annual Individual Development Plan (IDP) and have at least one meeting with their advisor during the academic year to discuss the IDP. The purpose of the yearly IDP meeting is to provide an opportunity to discuss the big picture of the student’s progress over the past year and future goals. To help the IDP, the student completes a form that promotes self-reflection and self-evaluation before the meeting and helps structure the discussion topics with the advisor. During the IDP meeting, the student brings their current CV and discusses recent progress and future goals with the advisor. During the meeting, the student and their advisor develop an action plan for the subsequent year; both keep a copy of this plan.

Visit the Psychology Department website’s PhD Program Requirements page for details about the IDP forms and process. The IDP meeting must take place before June 1 of each year. The student is responsible for reporting when the meeting has occurred to the student services manager.