From Classroom to Conversation

When great minds think about psychology, they think about everything. As an explanation to human behavior, the field of psychology teaches us new insights about humanity. Tufts features a wide array of courses and majors in psychology, but don’t just take my word for it. I sat down with Professor Lisa Shin and students Hasan Abdel-Nabi ’22 and Christalie Anor ’23 to talk about life, psych, and everything in between. So, get PSYCH-ed to hear what they had to say. BY BLAKE ANDERSON ’24

Portrait of Lisa Shin Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology

How do you all know each other? How did you all meet?

Lisa Shin: I met Hasan in Psych 1, right, Hasan? I think when you were a first-year, in your first semester. Hasan and his buddy used to sit next to each other. Then, at the end [of class], they would come up to the instructors, Sam Sommers and me, to chat briefly, and I think that’s how we met. And then Hasan started working in the lab—I’ll let you elaborate, Hasan.

Portrait of Hasan Abdel-Nabi ’22

Hasan Abdel-Nabi: I came [to] Tufts and wanted to be a dentist, but I took Psych 1 and really liked it. Then I was like, “I really like psychology, I would be interested in doing lab work.” Dr. Shin took me into her lab along with Professor Sommers, and then it went from there. I took a few more psychology classes and I thought, “you know, I think psychology is what I want to do,” so that’s how I got into psychology.

Portrait of Christalie Anor ’23

Christalie Anor: I first met Professor Shin in Psych 1. I came to Tufts intending to major in cognitive and brain science (CBS), but I’m really interested in biology and psychology, so I realized early on that the biopsych major was a better fit. I needed a major advisor, and since Professor Shin’s research aligned pretty well with my interests, I asked her.

Do you feel that Tufts is a good place to do what you want to do with regards to research?

LS: Tufts is small enough, so it’s possible to work with faculty, graduate students, and undergrads on research that’s ongoing in the faculty members’ labs. Tufts also supports research through its fellowship-type programs for undergraduates—for example, the Summer Scholars program and the Laidlaw Program. Also, the faculty really enjoy working with undergraduate students in their labs. I’ve seen that across departments at Tufts, but maybe the students have additional thoughts on that.

HAN: Like Professor Shin was saying, the Career Center Grant is paying for me to live in Boston and afford housing while still doing research. Something I really like is how encouraging [the Department of Psychology] is and how encouraging the faculty are, too, because they’re always [asking] if anybody needs research or any kind of experience, so that’s very helpful and encouraging.

How do you all feel about the specialized psych majors, especially the clinical psych major? Do you think that these are something special that Tufts has to offer?

LS: I don’t think that there are many other schools that have a clinical psychology major...Tufts is unique in that regard. The clinical psychology major offers coursework in that field and a year-long senior capstone experience that involves working in local clinical or clinical research settings.

HAN: When I talked to my friends from different universities, nobody had a clinical psychology major. This major is really cool because it’s more focused toward what I want to work with—disorders and psychopathology. A lot of the classes that are offered here are seminars where you learn how to interact with patients and deal with different disorders—which I think is really, really interesting. I’m not sure a lot of schools have those kinds of classes, either, so it prepares you to be able to take those things on. I love the experience and being out there in the clinical setting.

CA: When I was applying to other schools, the closest major I could find to biopsych was behavioral neuroscience. It’s kind of surprising how some other schools will have social psych and general psych as individual majors, but not biopsych, because that is one of the broad divisions in psychology, so I think that having it at Tufts was really cool.

The study of psychology is important—why should someone study psychology at Tufts?

LS: Psychology is the study of human behavior so it’s really broad. It can focus on what goes on in your brain or on what goes on in your cognition— your memory, your thoughts, your attention. It can focus on how you interact with other people, how you appear to other people, how they appear to you, how organizations work, and how they interact with each other. It’s hard to think of a problem in society and not see how psychology can shed light on it. Students who are interested in psychology should consider coming to Tufts to work closely with our faculty, who are excellent instructors and wellrespected researchers with expertise in cognition, neuroscience, and social psychology. I encourage interested students to read the descriptions of our faculty members’ research on our departmental website. Feel free to contact me with questions about Tufts Psychology!

CA: As Professor Shin was saying, it’s such a broad field and it can be applied to basically everything. To study behavior—and to study human behavior, specifically—it’s really important to understand ourselves and to understand the people around us. Understanding it is the first step to being able to apply that knowledge to how we live, in order to live better. I think that’s why psychology is so important. Tufts has faculty members with such diverse areas of expertise within psychology, so students interested in psychology can find more specific interests or new interests that they hadn’t considered before. They can find people working on some of the things they want to work on in the future and they can find opportunities to learn more about not only psychology, but also themselves and the place that they want to carve for themselves within the field of psychology.

HAN: Like they just said, psychology is the science of understanding. In order to be able to understand something, you need psychology. Psychology is understanding the unseen, and it can be applied to everyone and everything which makes it very important. Specifically in my area of study, psychology and mental health drive things like behavior and physical health which is important for people’s wellbeing. Being able to study and learn psychology allows us to understand how the brain, our cultures, our experiences, and so much more shape our daily life and the way we interact with the world.