Nicholls psychology department offers pre-counseling concentration

For the 2019 fall semester, Nicholls State University’s psychology department will offer a new psychology concentration in pre-counseling.

Students will now be able to choose from a traditional psychology degree or a psychology degree with a concentration in pre-counseling.

Kimberly Reynolds, department head of psychology, said that the students who are in the current degree program will be able to finish without being affected by the new program.

In 2009, the family and consumer science department (FACS) was dissolved.

There were two sections of the department, the education side and the child, family and social services side.

At the time of the split, the child, family and social services side moved to the psychology department and the education side was moved to the education department.

According to Reynolds, a five-year review and other data showed that the numbers of enrollment were inverted for the current child, family and social services program.

There’s not a high number of students enrolled in the program as freshmen, but by a student’s junior or senior year, numbers of enrolled students increased.

Reynolds said other programs at the university saw high enrollment numbers when students were freshmen, and enrollment would slowly decrease as students reached upper-level courses.

Reynolds also said that the child, family and social services program initially saw low enrollment because students would transfer to the program later in their college career.

Reynolds also said another reason for low enrollment at the start was because incoming freshmen knew nothing of the degree program. Incoming students with a psychology major will begin with the new concentration.

“We took our core courses and basically moved all of them to create an alternate path, or concentration, in psych,” Reynolds said.  

Reynolds also said that the new degree plan was created for the department to be more marketable and to increase awareness about the program to incoming freshmen.

“I’m excited for increased enrollment, excited that we are going to have a more marketable degree and have students know what it is when they come in,” Reynolds said.