Final Project Series: Psychology at William & Mary University

Think of the brain as your mental hardware. It processes daily inputs such as language, behavior, memory, problem solving and decision making. This concept is at the heart of the medical profession of psychology. 

Are you a teen interested in psychology? Then William & Mary’s online enrichment course in psychology is perfect for you. 

In this course, you will learn about cognitive psychology, from its origins in philosophy to its current role in robotics. You’ll study the various regions of the brain and how each affects different functions, such as speech, perception, attention, facial recognition and more. Delve into research that shows the influence of positive thinking on how tasks are performed. 

And, at the end you’ll have the opportunity to demonstrate all you’ve learned through a Final Project. 

As the culmination of this course, your Final Project will have you reflect on a personally relevant, big-life decision. For example, choosing which college to attend, which sport to play or even perhaps where to volunteer. 

When thinking about this big life decision, you will use all the information that you learned throughout the course to determine what cognitive processes played a role to help you arrive at that decision. Using tricks you learned throughout the course, such as employing imagery  — imagining yourself in a specific role, or being at a specific place. Another option would be to perhaps use problem solving and reasoning. Through this, you’ll take into consideration which parts of the brain were active along the way. To finish the assignment, you will make a large diagram of this event — what we call a cognitive brain map — to map out an outline of how your experience manifested in your brain. 

Even better, this Final Project is something you can add to your college application to show that you've successfully navigated college-level work. 

Today, a background in cognitive psychology is in high demand in fields such as health care, law and education. If you seek a future in any of these areas, this pre med program for high school students is for you.