The Psychology of Curiosity · Psychology
Learning about a field that's relatively new in established literature was incredibly cool. I appreciated seeing how it was established, how prior measurements were used and new ones created. That's something I haven't seen in a Psych course before.
Research science in curiosity is a growing field in psychology, and I HIGHLY encourage all students at Columbia to take this course. I had absolutely no background knowledge nor expectation in what and how impactful learning about curiosity could be coming into this course. In terms of the course workload, we mainly focused on various scientific papers (published & pre-prints) implementing curious motivation to various domains of fields (from emotion to perception, and state to trait, epistemic curiosity, information gap, etc). Because curiosity is based on the drive to seek information/knowledge, it potentially touches every pressing issues that exist in modern society.
I would recommend this course to someone who already had an extensive academic background in psychology.
I think it was a great course, just would have preferred to not have been on zoom all semester. 1 Columbia University: Arts & Sciences Fall 2021 Course: PSYCGU4281_001_2021_3-ThePsychologyofCuriosity : PSYCGU4281_001_2021_3 - The Psychology of Curiosity Instructor: Caroline Marvin
I learned about how to observe, quantify, and explain curiosity.
Deeper knowledge of the topic of curiosity and this phenomenon. The material presented and studied in this course provides a more profound and more vast perspective on the intricate psychology of a human and how many amazing things we can learn about ourselves just by being curious.
We learned about Curiosity and the questions about Curiosity in the scientific community. We read scientific articles and theory about Curiosity as a concept, its mechanisms, its various types, etc. Through learning about Curiosity from a scientific perspective, I learned not only more about the topic but also improved my critical thinking skills, ability to analyze, and ability to formulate new thoughts based off of existing literature. All in all, I learned how to be a better scientist, writer, team player, and scholar through the skills and tasks of this seminar.
It was a manageable course with a good opportunity to learn.
I was really nervous going into a graduate level course as an undergrad, and enroll in my first seminar after a long series of lectures and huge classes. But the way that the class really supported everyone and made everyone feel welcomed and belonged made the class much less daunting to be in. Really gave me a clearer picture of how more advanced, academic conversation in the field looks like.
I would recommend this course to someone who is approaching degree in Psychology.