Consistent with IU’s emphasis on scientific inquiry, the IU East psychology program trains students to think critically about data, methods, and conclusions.
Students develop hands-on skills through coursework in experimental methods, statistics, and advanced psychology electives.
Deborah Miller
+1-765-973-8266
milldebo@iu.edu
Experiential opportunities may include:
These experiences strengthen students’ ability to evaluate evidence, communicate findings, and apply psychology to real-world problems.
If you’re thinking about graduate school in psychology, getting research experience as an undergraduate is an important way to support your admissions process.
The professors in our department work with students in several ways to mentor their research, from recruiting research assistants to help with faculty research projects to mentoring and supervising a student’s own research project, which often results in presenting at a regional or national conference, publishing in our student research journal, or even getting a publication credit in a larger publication by the faculty member.
Having a great understanding of research will make it much easier for you as a student to jump right into your graduate studies without feeling behind!
PSY-B309: Cooperative Work Experience
At IU East, we believe that the most important learning can happen outside of the classroom. One way we foster that is through cooperative work experiences.
Completing a cooperative work experience is like an internship in the field of psychology. It is usually a one-semester experience at a site near you, working about 8–10 hours per week with a professional in the field you are interested in for future career prospects.
This experience is helpful to psychology majors who are interested in entering the job market or applying for graduate school. These positions often lead to job offers upon graduation for those who give great effort at their co-op. Likewise, these are the types of experiences that graduate school acceptance committees tend to value on applications.
The great thing about a co-op through IU East/Online is that we take the time to consult with you about your future career goals, and tailor your co-op experience accordingly. Our students have completed co-ops at a variety of sites including community mental health centers, hospitals, inpatient psychiatric units, addiction recovery centers, probation offices, and more.
These experiences are good for online-only students as well as on-campus students. For online-only students, however, the process may take a bit longer because we will have to work to establish a new placement site in your home area.
Every other year, the psychology department leads a two-week study abroad trip to Europe/UK to study the history of psychology.
The trip was developed by Dr. Deborah Miller (current chair of the psychology department) when she first arrived to IU East in 2017 and has been running strong since then, taking between 8–14 students on the trip every year (depending on available funding!).
We typically visit London, Vienna, and Leipzig (Germany) to see the homes and museums of founding figures of psychological science, including Wilhelm Wundt (experimental psych), Sigmund Freud (psychoanalysis), Charles Darwin (evolutionary psych), Viktor Frankl (existential/logotherapy), and more. One year, we even visited Spain to learn about the founding father of neuroscience, Santiago Ramon y Cajal. These trips have been hugely successful and will continue to be available to students in coming years.
Each year, the psychology department takes a group of students to the annual MPA conference in Chicago.
Our students get to experience a psychological science conference, attend presentations by prominent researchers and scientists in fields that are interesting to them, and network with other students and faculty to get a feel for what the world of academia is like.
Student attendees get free time to explore Chicago, as well as have a Chicago-style pizza dinner hosted by the faculty at a local restaurant. Some students even present their own research at the conference, such as Dr. Lundy’s students Kally Grice and Cheyenne Rogers, whom he mentored on a research project about the aesthetics of film criticism in spring 2026.
This is a wonderful opportunity for students interested in attending graduate school to better understand what kind of research activities will be expected during graduate school and to interact with faculty mentors who can answer questions and suggest ways to improve graduate school admissions efforts.
I really enjoyed the experience and found many of the presentations, especially Professor Oishi’s and Professor Firestone’s, to be both engaging and thought-provoking. I may have found a new interest in research from this trip. It was also a great opportunity to meet and connect with other students and faculty, which is something I don’t often get as an online student. I really appreciate everything that went into making the trip possible. Finally seeing our professors outside of lecture videos was a really nice treat!
Student Elizabeth Dinsmore
Indiana University East
2325 Chester Blvd