Previously Reviewed Psychology Abroad Courses
(Some) PSY Courses Have Been Reviewed for (Some) Abroad Institutions
The following spreadsheet is organized by country and institution. For each course, there is specific information regarding whether a course has been approved to count toward a specific Psychology requirement or not. There may be more psychology courses offered at the institutions in the sheet, but we have only been asked to review the included ones so far. This spreadsheet will be updated on a regular basis.
- If an upper-division PSY abroad course that has been pre-approved does not have a direct equivalent at SDSU, it will transfer in as an upper-division PSY elective that can count toward Additional Units for PSY majors/emphases.
- If a lower-division PSY abroad course that has been pre-approved is not equivalent to an SDSU pre-major course, it can only transfer in as a general elective (because lower-division courses can never satisfy upper-division requirements).
- Students must get their Academic Approval Form signed off by the Psychology advisor, even if all of their PSY courses have been previously reviewed.
- In general, for students aiming to complete multiple PSY courses abroad, we recommend applying/attending a program/institution that offers at least 5+ upper-division PSY course options.
- Students can use the Global Institutions Guide for Unit Equivalencies & Upper Division sheet linked on the Global Education website Links to an external site. (under "Resources for Academic Approval" section) to help with gauging whether the course(s) they are interested in will be considered lower- vs. upper-division.
What if I am not seeing the specific institution or course that I am interested in?
If a student does not see the institution or specific course that they are interested in within the spreadsheet, the program/institution/course has not yet been reviewed by the psychology department. In this case, we can conduct a preliminary review to see if a course's content has the potential to be comparable to an SDSU course.
In order to conduct a preliminary review of how PSY abroad courses will transfer, students should visit the Psychology Advising Office to have a session. Although providing course descriptions is acceptable for a preliminary review, reviewing a syllabus will be required to obtain official approval for a course that students want to equate to a particular psychology course at SDSU. Depending on where students are in the process of applying to study abroad, they may be able to request full syllabi from the program/institution. We encourage students to speak with their Global Education advisor or program coordinator (if you have one) for guidance on when official syllabi may be obtained. For the Psychology Department, we are willing to accept a recent copy of the full syllabi (ideally within the last year) in order to evaluate courses, as we understand that it is difficult to expect that programs/institutions would have course syllabi available months in advance.
Based on the amount of information available to review we may be able to either:
- Definitively approve a course as equivalent (if there is a comparable PSY course offered at SDSU), or
- Note that a course has the potential to be comparable to an SDSU course in cases where the information provided is not sufficient to determine equivalency (such as only having a course description or outline).