Psychology and Child Development

College of Liberal Arts

Undergraduate Students

Senior Projects

Your senior project can be a significant learning experience and an important marketing tool once you graduate. Senior project is a 'supervision' course and therefore students enroll by permission number, after prerequisites are completed, typically in their last semester.

(On the 22-26 catalog, senior project was completed in two quarters. Students enrolled in 461 in Spring 2026 will complete 4462 in Fall 2026). 

Senior Project is PSY 4462 for Psychology majors and CD 4462 for Child Development majors. For this course you will be assigned to a team and be matched with a faculty advisor. Teams will conduct background research, create a plan for their project, and share their project at the senior project symposium. In the semester prior to Senior Project, seniors will be surveyed so that they can be matched based on interests (please always read the Tuesday Newsday so that you see the link for the survey when it becomes available).

Senior projects can take several different forms. Each type of senior project involves a literature review as well as documentation of the project work.  Please see the Senior Project Guide* for more details.

1) Service Project consists of activities such as developing a manual for a community organization, or planning a workshop or creating a fundraising event for a community organization.

2) Empirical Project involves collecting data to test a research hypothesis, analyzing it, and writing it up in APA style format (students should apply to the research track to prepare for this type of senior project

3) Creative Project can involve activities such as creating an educational product, children’s book, or multimedia project 

4) Literature Review involves creating a synthesis of scholarly sources that provides a comprehensive overview of a psychological topic.

It is important to note that different faculty members may have different specific requirements.

At the end of each academic year, the department hosts a senior project symposium for seniors to present their projects and discuss them with fellow students and faculty.

Students are not required to, but may, submit the finished senior project to the library.  See the guidelines for submitting your senior project to the Cal Poly Library.

 

MAY 2026 MESSAGE TO MAJORS:

In the coming academic year (our first on semesters), we will shift senior project from a 2-quarter series to a 1 semester course. We will not offer CD/PSY4461 in Fall 2026.
 
*If you are graduating in May 2027 or Summer 2027, you do not need to take CD or PSY 461/4461. You will get your 4 units of senior project via CD/PSY4462 and additional supervision units to meet your curriculum requirements. We will explain how to add this course at the end of Fall semester. Make sure to fill out the senior project survey in Fall semester.
 
*Please wait until Fall semester for information on how to get on the list for Spring semester CD/PSY4462. We will share a link to a survey mid-Fall on the Tuesday Newsday and via email to majors. This survey will track students completing senior project in Spring and give us the information we need to match students to teams and faculty advisors.
 
*If you are currently enrolled in PSY461, you will be assigned a senior project advisor toward the end of this quarter and given a permission number to add 4462 in Fall.
 
*If you are not sure if you are graduating in December 2026 or May 2027, please see a CLA advisor for course planning.
 
*If you are not sure if you are graduating in May 2027 or December 2027, please fill out the survey this Fall semester. 
 
*For students who are graduating after Spring 2027, it is likely that we will continue with this new model and update the curriculum. But, please watch for an update for all the December ’27 and May ’28 graduates during the upcoming academic year.

 

*Note: Senior Project Handbook is currently being revised and all information may not be up to date. 

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