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Chair’s Welcome and Department Overview for Psychology & Neuroscience Majors

I’m Dr. Regina Carelli and as Chair of the Psychology & Neuroscience Department, I’d like to welcome you, our major, to our department.

As you may already know, we are one of the top three majors at Carolina with over 3,000 undergraduate majors and minors; 60-some core faculty and many more adjunct, affiliated, and emeritus faculty; postdocs; and well over 130 graduate students.

Our department offers three types of majors: the Psychology BA, Psychology BS and Neuroscience BS, as well as the Cognitive Science and Neuroscience minors.

To make the most out of your time as one of our majors, I invite you to explore our department’s website: psychology.unc.edu. In particular, it is a good idea to get acquainted with the Undergraduate Studies tab.

Under the Undergraduate Studies tab, you’ll be able to find:

  • more information describing what is required to complete our majors and minors and
  • information regarding registration restrictions and guidelines, statistics (Psyc 210) placement exam and even sample syllabi from some of our courses.
  • There is also a “Departmental Advising” page where you can find out who our department advisors are and what they can assist you with;
  • a “Clubs and Volunteering” page which describes various clubs, many of which host events which provide career information, as well as a list of organizations where you might find volunteer opportunities related to our disciplines.
  • You can also find information about our honors thesis program, which advanced seniors may participate in; our Karen M. Gil Internship Program, which offers hands-on experiences as well as both course credit and a modest stipend; a page describing how you can gain research experience; as well as a page devoted to study abroad opportunities related to psychology and neuroscience.
  • Finally, you will notice that there is a link for a password-protected intra-site, which is full of additional advice and resources for our majors and minors; a link to our department’s calendar, so you can see which events are open to students pursuing one of our majors or minors; as well as a link to Psychology & Neuroscience undergraduate newsletters. These newsletters will give you a heads-up on the latest opportunities available, whether new research or volunteer opportunities, or even, in issues closer to summer, what summer courses the department plans to offer.

I hope this information is helpful for you and, once again, I welcome you to this department and wish you all the best as you progress in your major!


Regina M. Carelli, PhD
Stephen B. Baxter Distinguished Professor
Chair, Department of Psychology & Neuroscience