Abnormal Psychology

Abnormal Psychology is where you learn to think clinically about mental disorders, not just memorizing DSM categories, but understanding how clinicians actually conceptualize, assess, and differentiate conditions ranging from anxiety and mood disorders to schizophrenia, personality disorders, and substance use. The work is mostly interactive: weekly group exercises around case material, a homework assignment, a quiz, plus a midterm and final that test whether you can connect symptoms to diagnostic frameworks and treatment approaches. Coming in your third year after the intro and developmental sequence, it's the course that turns psychology from theory into something resembling clinical reasoning, and it's a natural lead-in to clinical electives and graduate work in mental health.