Discover Psychology with the University of Notre Dame

Summary:

As a high school student, you may be curious about psychology's role in shaping how social influences affect your interactions with others. Discover this and more with the University of Notre Dame’s pre-college online psychology course.

Key Points:

• Discover how others impact our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. 
• Evaluate the biased manner in which we make judgments of others and ourselves, and analyze the connection between knowledge of ‘self’ and wellness. 
• Explore the interplay of social psychology and self.
• Create a final Capstone Project where you’ll reflect on your social media use and its impact on your overall sense of well-being.

Those studying psychology discover the science of human behavior and mental processes. This includes examining the mind, brain, and social interactions in humans and animals. It can encompass multiple aspects of the field, including social, cognitive, abnormal, personality, developmental, and clinical psychology.

As a high school student, you may be curious about the role psychology plays in everyday life. Or, perhaps you’re interested in learning more about how social influences affect your interactions with others. Or, maybe you’re looking at a variety of courses offered by top universities as a way to stand out on college applications. This is where Prelum, Powered by Kaplan, comes in. 

In this article, we’ll review a pre-college online psychology course from the University of Notre Dame, Psychology: Understanding the Self and Our World. Further, you’ll discover just how you’ll benefit from finishing the course and adding your Capstone Project and Certificate of Completion to your college application. 

Psychology with the University of Notre Dame

Created with the help of experts in the field, the Notre Dame Pre-College Program online psychology course allows you to review the various types of social influences and how they affect our reality. You’ll discover how others impact our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. You’ll investigate the central and active role of personality and the ‘self’ as it relates to our understanding of the world. You will evaluate the biased manner in which we make judgments of others and ourselves, and analyze the connection between knowledge of ‘self’ and wellness. 

What else will you discover?

• Explore the interplay of social psychology and self.
• Investigate how personality is manifested through the self.
• Uncover how social cognition constructs reality.
• Determine the role of social influence in psychology.
• Investigate the various types of social influence.
• Explore degrees and careers in psychology.

Even better, by the end of this course, you’ll be able to:

• Define the fields of psychology and social psychology.
• Explore the way psychologists think about and study the ‘self’ and human behavior.
• Evaluate the biased manner in which we make judgments of others and ourselves.
• Understand where personality comes from, the ways it’s influenced by culture, and how to assess it.
• Complete a Capstone Project to demonstrate what you’ve learned.

The last bullet is significant. At the end of the course, you will apply all that you’ve learned to complete a Capstone Project. In this project, you’ll reflect on your social media use and its impact on your overall sense of well-being. Then, you’ll envision your future self: Who do you see yourself becoming? Identify a path that will help you become that person using what you have learned throughout this course.

This Capstone Project and the ensuing Certificate of Completion are your rewards to add to your college application. Consider them bragging rights as a testament to the initiative you took to advance your professional prowess.

This is just one example of the courses offered by our renowned university partners and Prelum, Powered by Kaplan. Other partner schools with psychology pre-college programs include Georgetown University (also offered as a college credit version), Dartmouth College, Wake Forest University, Rice University, and Northwestern University.

This was last reviewed by Ashley Simmons on 06/06/2025.