Top Undergraduate CogSci Programs - Part II

Continuing on from my earlier post, here is a summary of some of the top undergraduate programs in CogSci:

#6 Rice University - Houston, TX

Private, Metropolis, Undergraduate Enrollment ~4,240

Undergraduate students pursuing a Bachelor of Arts Degree with a Major in Cognitive Sciences are required to demonstrate a breadth of knowledge about the key issues, questions, and perspectives spanning the various disciplines relative to cognitive science. They must also achieve a depth of knowledge within one of five core areas - Computation, Linguistics, Neuroscience, Philosophy, or Psychology.

Motivated students may undertake a supervised independent research project and present their findings with a poster at the Rice Undergraduate Research Symposium. Research projects range from very applied to more abstract but typically seek to understand mental phenomena such as perception, thought, memory, language acquisition and use, learning, concept formation, and consciousness.

#7 Vanderbilt University - Nashville, TN

Private, Metropolis, Undergraduate Enrollment ~6,870

Housed within Vanderbilt’s Peabody College, the Department of Psychology and Human Development offers an undergraduate major in Cognitive Studies that examines the processes involved in learning, remembering, thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving. The Honors Program provides students with the opportunity to gain more intensive experience conducting scientific research, which is crucial for students considering graduate school.

Students may also pursue a five-year joint Bachelors-Masters (BA-MA) degree that is tailored to individuals interested in continuing their work in the fields of medicine, business, or law.

#8 Pomona College - Claremont, CA

Private, Town, Undergraduate Enrollment ~1,750

The Cognitive Science Major at Pomona is designed to familiarize students with methodologies for studying the mind that are based on the core disciplines of psychology, neuroscience, computer science, philosophy, and linguistics. Students are encouraged to undertake research projects, with affiliated faculty’s areas of expertise including bilingualism, aging and cognition, emotion and cognition, language and memory, and neural processes involved in language.

Since Pomona is one of the five Claremont Colleges (5Cs), undergraduate students may also take courses at Scripps, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, and Pitzer. These colleges comprise distinct but shared campuses and have an overall undergraduate enrollment of about 8,500.

#9 Duke University - Durham, NC

Private, Metropolis, Undergraduate Enrollment ~6,600

Duke students interested in cognitive science may pursue one of two distinct study areas - psychology or neuroscience. Psychology students are immersed in learning about the origins, processes, and consequences of human and animal behavior, and apply this understanding in professional fields such as health care, research, education, policy, law, finance, engineering, consulting, marketing, and business management. Neuroscience students are provided opportunities to study the brain within a number of disciplines and perspectives, and to explore how the increasing relevancy of neuroscience interplays with law, business, philosophy, social sciences, the arts, and the humanities.

Duke Synapse is an undergraduate student organization providing academic, professional, and social support to students by hosting events that promote networking and enhance members’ conceptual and factual understanding of neuroscience. Duke NeuroCare raises student awareness of neurological and psychiatric disorders, advocates for research for cures, and provides support for those suffering from neurological disorders.

#10 Brown University - Providence, RI

Private, City, Undergradutate Enrollment ~7,125

Brown’s Department of Cognitive, Linguistic & Psychological Sciences (CLPS) houses five specialized concentrations representing distinct paths to study the mind, brain, behavior, and language. Through experimentation, computer modeling, and brain imaging, Cognitive Science students learn about perception, cognition, language, and cognitive neuroscience, and then create their own focus area of study. Cognitive Neuroscience students choose to study the nature of cognition from a neural perspective, through either behavioral study and experimentation or computational modeling.

The Honors Program gives students within any concentration the opportunity to carry out a faculty-supervised research project and the Cognition Department Undergraduate Group (DUG) hosts events that bring Cognitive Science and Cognitive Neuroscience students together to make friends and support one another throughout their duration at Brown.