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Human Development

Available as a concentration

Human Development shows students the broader life-span perspective and allows them to focus on the stages (e.g., childhood, adolescence, adulthood) and the topics most applicable to their personal or professional goals.

Curriculum & Courses

Sample Course Offerings

PSYC 221: Developmental Psychology
PSYC 321: Child Development 
PSYC 323: Adult Development and Aging 

Student working with a child with a cochlear implant

Student Experiences

Shields heads back to Germany with Fulbright

Stephanie Shields smiles for a photo

Stephanie Shields has been selected for a Fulbright U.S. Student Award to Germany. She will be doing research at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in Munich, Germany. Shields will contribute to work on vocal learning - the capacity to learn to produce new sounds through imitation - in the bat Phyllostomus discolor. Shields is a psychology major with a neuroscience concentration and a German minor. After her Fulbright work, Shields plans to earn a Ph.D. in neuroscience. Shields has been conducting research at Roanoke with Dr. David Nichols for several years, and her work resulted in one first-author publication and another first-author manuscript submitted for publication. One of her projects relates to facial attractiveness and emotionality in which she used EEG to investigate the timing of neural responses to faces.

What Makes Roanoke Different?

Ranked as one of "Great Schools for Psychology Majors" by The Princeton Review, our psychology department focuses on this subject as a science.

Learn by Doing

Students have conducted recent internships in a variety of organizations.

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Careers & Outcomes

Teaching passion drives student’s Fulbright work in Spain

Kristen Wicander

Kristen Wicander '17 was awarded a Fulbright Student Award as an English Teaching Assistant (ETA) in La Rioja, Spain. There, she taught children ages 6-12 about social studies, science, and American culture. "I absolutely love working with children, so I really can't wait to be working with spanish children," Wicander said. She was also very active in the Spanish community and took classes in order to fully immerse herself in the culture. "My professors have always encouraged me to push myself and jump in head-first to every possible opportunity," Wicander said.

Our students go on to excellent grad schools.

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Faculty

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Interested in studying human development at Roanoke College?

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Human Development shows students to the broader life-span perspective and allows them to focus on the stages (e.g., childhood, adolescence, adulthood) and the topics most applicable to their personal or professional goals.

Through small classes we offer training in research and analysis that are often absent at large universities. You'll have opportunities, through internships to work with populations of your choice - babies, children, teens, the elderly - or study abroad to gain cultural experience that can help you succeed in today's global world. You'll learn firsthand how to conduct a research study and have opportunities to carry out independent research, present your findings at conferences, and even publish your work. These invaluable experiences can help you get into a top-notch graduate school and land your first job.

We offer a concentration in Human Development.