There are 12 standard areas of interest in the psychology field: clinical psychologists work with normal people going through a psychological crisis; counseling psychologists work with helping individuals adjust to a crisis; developmental psychologists focus on social, emotional and intellectual development; educational psychologists focus on human learning; experimental psychologists do research in memory, perception, learning, cognition, language and motivation; forensic psychologists analyze crime evidence and assist law enforcement agencies in criminal investigations; health psychologists focus on psychology and its connection to health; human factors psychologists study the interaction between humans and machines; industrial and organizational psychologists work with people and their work environments; physiological psychologists study behavior as it relates to brain cell functions, behavioral changes due to drug use and other biological and genetic origin of psychiatric disorders; school psychologists generally focus on children and their educational abilities; and social psychologists center their work on how social relationships shape beliefs and behaviors.
The American Psychological Association defines 12 areas of specialty degrees for psychology. Specialties are areas that require knowledge and skills acquired through formal education and training. These degrees are, clinical neuropsychology, clinical health psychology, psychoanalytic psychology, school psychology, clinical psychology, clinical child psychology, counseling psychology, industrial-organizational psychology, behavioral and cognitive psychology, forensic psychology, family psychology and professional geropsychology.
The U.S. News & World Report provides ranking reports on colleges, graduate schools, high schools and online education. It ranks psychology schools based on the ratings accumulated from surveys of academic experts. According to the 2009 ranking report, Stanford University, University of California in Berkeley and Harvard University ranked at the top of the list for best psychology institutions in the United States.
Stanford University, located in California in the Silicon Valley, opened its doors in 1891. Attendance in 2010 topped 6,887 undergraduates and 8,779 graduates. Stanford accepts 10 to 15 new graduate students each year and offers 155 psychology courses in five areas of study. These areas cover cognitive, developmental, neuroscience, affective science, and social psychology. The Stanford undergraduate department offers training and research in understanding human behavior.
Founded in 1868, the University of California Berkeley enrolled 35,838 students in the fall of 2010. They have 1,582 full-time faculty members and 500 part-time members. They offer 21 courses in general psychology. The graduate program at the university covers behavioral neuroscience, change, plasticity and development, clinical science, cognition, brain and behavior and social-personality. The undergraduate program includes courses in evolution, biological science and social science. Psychology at the university is a capped major, which means there are so many students applying for the major that they cannot accept all students.
Harvard University named for its main benefactor, John Harvard, a minister in Charlestown, opened its doors in 1636. In 2010, they had 2,100 faculty members and approximately 21,000 students. It offers doctoral degrees in psychology and social psychology. Its courses cover cognition, brain and behavior, experimental psychopathology, clinical psychology and developmental psychology. The graduate program offers two tracks of study, the common program and the clinical science program. The common program includes social psychology, cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, behavioral neuroscience and perception and clinical science. The clinical science program focuses strictly on clinical science.