why uci psychology?
When Tiffany Hwu was thinking about where she wanted to pursue her graduate degree in psychology, UC Irvine was at the top of her list.
"What stood out about UCI and the Department of Cognitive Sciences was how supportive they are of students," she says. "The department has a high retention rate and that's a really good sign they take good care of their students. And after being here for a few years, I can tell you it's true - they do."
Ranked #19 among all public psychology programs in the country (U.S. News & World Report), the University of California, Irvine graduate program administered by the cognitive sciences department offers students 5 years of guaranteed funding.
|
|
Scholars in the department - like Tiffany - have a proven track record of earning competitive research funding from national agencies - including the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health - and from campus-level fellowships.
This past year, UCI cognitive scientists brought in $2.7 million in external grant funding.
|
|
|
Faculty in the department publish regularly in the field's top academic journals, and graduate students have incredible opportunities to publish alongside them.
The cognitive sciences department at UCI uses a combination of innovative approaches with modern tools to study fundamental human abilities including attention, memory, language, decision making, and problem solving.
|
 |
Graduate research specialties include:
- Computational and mathematical
cognitive modeling
- Cognitive neuroscience
(a concentration is offered in this topic)
- Visual and auditory perception
- Attention and representation
- Learning and development
- Memory and language
- Judgment and decision making
Students work together with faculty advisors who are highly experienced in the use of leading technologies such as EEG, fMRI, and robotics, and of modern research tools such as computational methods, big data, and Bayesian statistics. And, students have an opportunity to earn a master's degree while in pursuit of their Ph.D.
|
"There's really something here for everyone," says Tiffany. "The department is extremely multidisciplinary, including researchers from engineering to those more interested in the behavioral and perceptual part of cognition. Students who are interested in any of these can mix and match because there are leading researchers in each of these areas, all in one place."
And if that wasn't enough, the 1,500 acre UCI campus - full of endless running, hiking and biking trails - is located less than 10 miles from Newport Beach, is the #1 university committed to
economic diversity and upward mobility (The New York Times College Access Index), and the #9 ranked public university in the U.S.(U.S. News & World Report).
Graduate students from UCI's cognitive sciences program have gone on to work in high-tech and research consultancy companies; government, science, and technology labs; and in professorial posts around the world. A quick sampling of recent placements include:
|
- Apple
- Army Research Labs
- Blizzard Entertainment
- Carnegie Mellon University
- Google
- Johns Hopkins University
|
- Mind Research Network
- Navy Research Labs
- Rutgers University
- University of Pennsylvania
- University of Zurich
- Yale University
|
so what are you waiting for?
If full funding, opportunities to publish and a proven track record of excellence in the field are what you're looking for, contact us today to learn more about UCI's graduate program in psychology in the Department of Cognitive Sciences.
|
|
