Okay, so the other day, I was trying to figure out my kid’s high school schedule, and I stumbled upon this whole “is psychology a social studies class?” thing. It got me thinking, and I figured I’d share my little exploration with you all.
First, I looked at the course catalog. I mean, that’s the obvious place to start, right? I scrolled through all the class options, checking under both “Social Studies” and “Science” sections. Psychology was listed… well, it was kinda floating on its own. Not really fitting neatly into either category.
My Investigation Process
- Checked the Course Catalog: Seriously, this was step one. It wasn’t super helpful, which was a bummer.
- Read the Course Description: Next, I dug into the actual description of the psychology class. It talked about the brain, behavior, experiments… stuff that sounded like science, but also stuff about how people interact, which sounded like social studies.
- Asked the School Counselor: I emailed the school counselor, you know, the person who’s supposed to know this stuff. She got back to me pretty quickly and basically said it could count towards either credit, depending on what the student needed. Flexible, I guess?
- Talked to some experienced friends:Also, I asked my several friends to get more experiences.
So, after all that, what did I actually figure out? It’s…complicated. Psychology is kind of a hybrid. It uses scientific methods (like, you know, actual experiments) to study how people think and behave. That part feels very “science-y”. But the stuff it studies – human behavior and interaction – is also a big part of social studies. It’s like, how people act in groups, why they do what they do… that’s all related to society and culture, right?
Basically, I learned that it really depends on the specific school and even the specific class. Some schools might lump it in with social studies, others might treat it more like a science. And honestly, it makes sense that it could go either way. My kid ended up using it for social studies credits since there is an extra science class to take. Problem solved!
It was a bigger rabbit hole than I expected, but hey, that’s parenting, right? Always learning something new. Hope this helps someone else out there trying to navigate the confusing world of high school course selection!
