Our Psychology major and minors are among the most popular at PSU. We offer a flexible program, fascinating coursework, rich opportunities and strong career prospects.

Our award-winning faculty pride themselves on excellence in teaching, research and outreach. They favor student-centered teaching, project-based learning and community collaboration. Faculty work with community partners to conduct timely, applied community psychology research — and bring that perspective into their classes.  

Flexible, Career-Focused Curriculum

Do you want to work with people? At Oregon’s urban university, you’ll explore research-based, community-engaged courses and take electives in topics like child development, neuroscience and social relationships. 

Our diverse course offerings allow you to create a flexible, elective-heavy, customized experience. You can choose your own adventure by focusing on specific areas and applications of psychology. Our Pathways Through Psychology include education, community psychology, industrial and organizational psychology, developmental science, clinical/counseling psychology, research methods, interdisciplinary neuroscience and social psychology. Through targeted coursework, advising, clubs, practical and arts-integrated educational outreach, we prepare you to pursue a specific career path or go on to graduate school.

We also offer a psychology minor program and a minor in interdisciplinary neuroscience, which can complement any major.

Hands-On Learning and Community Partnerships

In our community engaged program, faculty and students use their knowledge to create real change in our city, and beyond. You’ll have opportunities to work with community, neighborhood, business and government organizations or join partnerships with the Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative and Northwest Noggin.

Our certificate program in communication sciences and disorders is the first at a four-year university in Oregon that meets the licensure requirements for a speech-language pathology assistant, while also providing a competitive entry point into graduate school.

Through a mix of in-person and online courses, we offer case-based and applied learning opportunities. You'll gain a core scientific foundation in speech, language, and communication, as well as become familiar with the language and cultural characteristics of diverse populations and speech and language differences and disorders. You'll also choose from a variety of electives on topics around race, gender, and identity to help expose you to a diversity of human experiences.

We offer a variety of opportunities for you to develop your clinical skills through observation, directed clinical assistantships, and both clinical practicums and volunteer opportunities at summer camps.

Our supportive faculty engage in leading clinical research, and you'll have opportunities to work alongside them in their labs.

Our diverse, active student groups provide safe spaces to learn about the speech therapist and hearing profession, share experiences, engage in advocacy efforts, and volunteer.

Portland State University is an emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution, with our current Latinx student population at just over 18%. As the first Oregon university to offer a major in Chicanx/Latinx Studies, our program provides a home to students who want to see their rich histories, cultures, experiences, stories and perspectives authentically represented in the classroom. We empower our students to see their communities as vibrant and beautiful even as systems of oppression erase their contributions and cultures as legitimate.

We approach our work from a variety of scholarly perspectives — linguistics, education, literature, social work, history — and center the lived experiences and knowledge production of Chicanx/Latinx communities. Our faculty examine how race, ethnicity, language, sexuality, gender and other social identities intersect in Chicanx/Latinx communities and within the larger U.S. landscape.

We regularly collaborate with the La Casa Latina Student Center and Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA) to offer programming and events on issues affecting Latinx communities, including cultural empowerment, racism and other topics of social justice. Plus, you will have opportunities to engage in research and service-learning opportunities within PSU and beyond.

Our students also benefit from our close ties with PSU's Heritage Spanish program, and from courses in related School of Gender, Race and Nations units in Black Studies, Indigenous Nations Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies.

In your courses, you'll enjoy small classes taught by excellent faculty, some of whom are or have been involved with NASA-funded projects. The topics we cover are usually offered as graduate courses elsewhere and often not all at one institution, giving you a competitive edge. Some of the courses are taught as hybrid or online courses to accommodate your busy schedule.

The minor provides you with a unique opportunity to learn from and work with experts, engage in mini-research projects with our meteorite lab, and volunteer in science or rock museums.

Our region is an important source area of meteorites. We're home to the Cascadia Meteorite Laboratory, which houses the largest public collection of meteorites in the Northwest and helps identify whether suspected meteorites collected by the public are, in fact, real.

We're also not far from the Great Basin of Oregon, where hot springs teem with microbial life that leaves geologic deposits important for providing clues to our distant past on Earth or possible life forms on other planets.

Portland State is also a member of the Oregon Space Grant Consortium, a statewide network of universities, colleges, museums, educators, researchers, students, and science professionals promoting STEM education while recruiting and training NASA's next diverse workforce.

Our program emphasizes the application of sociological theories and thinking to solve real-world problems.

That is why we offer you opportunities to gain valuable experience as an undergraduate both inside and outside the classroom. You'll engage through your coursework, internships, fieldwork, and research opportunities.

Our expert faculty conduct research and teach engaging courses on the following topics:

• medical sociology
• criminology
• education
• globalization
• minority studies
• research methods
• alcohol and other drugs
• marriage and intimacy
• prejudice, privilege, and power
• gender and sexuality
• sports in society
• law
• data analysis
• sociological theory
• environmental sociology
• mental illness

You will get opportunities to work alongside faculty as teaching or research assistants. These experiences will give you a competitive edge when applying for jobs or graduate school and jobs. You'll join our vibrant community and connect with your peers and faculty outside the classroom.

• Sociology Lecture Series: A monthly event where professors and visiting scholars present their current research.
• Sociology Club: Engage in conversations about current events, popular culture, and important societal issues.

Your success is our goal. You will graduate with the knowledge, skills, and experience to see the world through a sociological lens.

This program provides a complete and nuanced education in Sexuality, Gender, and Queer Studies. This gives the opportunity to study different academic areas alongside one another. The major provides students with a holistic view of the discipline. It encourages students to integrate courses from other departments into the major electives. Students can enhance their degree with diverse electives from such departments as:

• Sociology
• Psychology
• Black Studies
• History
• Chicano/Latino Studies
• Indigenous Nations and Native American Studies
• Film Studies
• Public Health

Our students have close connections with their professors and department faculty. Our faculty are active scholars, thus, their classes are relevant and applicable to the professional world. Their scholarship covers a wide variety of academic topics such as:

• Advancing queer politics in Southern Asia
• Examining gender, race, and class in Asian American literature
• Queer of color theory in urban locales
• Transgender studies and masculinity
• Service citizenship and blood donation in queer communities

Faculty designed this degree to best fit student needs and interests. The program enhances student interactions with the broader Portland LGBTQ+ community.

Sexuality, gender, and queer studies majors are active in the community. Our students volunteer at the Women's Resource Center or Queer Resource Center on campus. And, they intern at local nonprofits throughout Portland, Oregon. Our students also organize educational and social events on campus. Students majoring in Women's Studies gain real-world experience through their connections with the community.

One of the requirements of the program is through the practicum. Students connect with the community and campus to illuminate the relationship between feminist theory and practice.

The practicum allows students to get professional training and experience as an undergraduate. The practicum allows you to gain meaningful on-the-job experience to build a strong resume and professional set of job skills for when you graduate.

Many practicum placements take place at campus resource centers and local nonprofit organizations. Some focus on advocacy for LGBTQ+ and other disenfranchised populations. Other placements allow students to contribute ideas and knowledge to other organizations. Students can explore internships with a variety of local Portland organizations, including:

• Rose Haven
• New Avenues for Youth
• The Gay and Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest
• Sexual & Gender Minority Youth Resource Center
• Q Center
• Sexual Minority Youth Recreation Center

The practicum program provides students with professional experience as undergraduates. Through their practicum experiences, students work in a variety of roles:

• providing direct services to clients
• designing and executing media campaigns
• maintaining databases, donor lists, and other organizational tasks
• developing outreach campaigns
• offering mentorship and academic support to other students
• organizing social justice outreach events

We offer two types of practicum experiences:

1. Work with an off-campus organization
2. Work on-campus with a program, and/or choose to serve as a teaching assistant/mentor for courses within the department

The Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department has established relationships with practicum sites across Portland. Students also have the opportunity to develop a practicum with an organization of their choice, in consultation with an advisor or with the department practicum coordinator.

PSU’s sustainability minor will provide you with a foundation in the concepts, theories, and methods related to sustainability and end with a capstone course, where you'll apply your skills to a real-world setting with a community partner. In between, you'll choose electives from economics, urban planning, architecture, geology, history, political science, sociology, philosophy, systems science, and environmental science and management.

Portland State’s unique and nationally recognized core curriculum provides the framework for the sustainability capstone project, which gives you hands-on experience putting sustainability concepts and measures into practice.

Past projects have worked with Indigenous communities, Learning Gardens Laboratory, local government agencies, Portland's Community Cycling Center, the Northwest Earth Institute, and the Center for Earth Leadership. We also offer opportunities to study abroad and work on projects in rural Nicaragua, Argentina, and Mexico.

PSU's biochemistry program is distinguished by the active incorporation of research discoveries into teaching programs and by the opportunity to pursue undergraduate research with leading faculty scientists, providing students with a world-class interdisciplinary education.

The Department of Chemistry is committed to our students' education; our diverse and knowledgeable faculty, graduate students, and staff are dedicated to helping students achieve their educational and career goals. The biochemistry curriculum is defined by hands-on learning experiences in teaching and research laboratories and by innovative approaches to teaching and learning, including flipped classrooms, peer-led workshops, and available tutoring.

Portland State offers students a wide variety of options for pursuing a career in healthcare. Students can choose from one of 15 different specialization areas and receive expert advising and professional school preparation.

Portland State University's position in the heart of Oregon's economic and cultural center provides a dynamic and exciting environment in which to pursue science.

You'll take a core set of courses, followed by electives from a variety of areas, including anthropology, black studies, Chicano-Latino studies, women's studies, child and family studies, library, philosophy, psychology, and special education.

Our department’s supportive faculty maintain nationally and internationally recognized biology research programs that brings meaningful scientific discoveries into the graduate classroom.

In our collaborative program, students are in frequent contact with faculty. Our weekly seminar series also offers students the opportunity to meet and learn from professionals from outside the PSU environment. Research facilities such as greenhouses, natural history collections (botanical, and both invertebrate and vertebrate), and the Center for Life in Extreme Environments serve as resources for much graduate research.

Faculty receive research funding by high-profile organizations, such as the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Health, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, Howard Hughes Foundation, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Our department maintains close collaborations with a number of local institutions that provide additional research opportunities within easy reach of the PSU campus, including the Portland Zoo, Oregon Health and Science University, and Oregon National Primate Research Center. Faculty at these institutions can serve on graduate student committees.