Electives for Human Development and Family Studies Majors

Students typically choose their HDFS electives to fit with their career interests, but a few things are worth noting:

Many field-specific electives, like those on adoption, aging, and child maltreatment, are not offered every semester. If you see a course you are interested and it is not a required course, contact the instructor to see when it will be offered again.
Students can receive 400-level HDFS credit for working on a research project or working as a teaching assistant.

HDFS 496: Research assistant credits: Working on a research project, you can learn detailed information about a topic that interests you, build valuable work experience, and cultivate one-on-one contact with faculty members who are leaders in their fields. Professors in the department study everything from infant temperament to cognitive decline. There may be a professor studying exactly what you are interested in. Students working on research projects may be involved in literature reviews, coding video-taped interactions, helping organize intervention sessions, inputting data, and much more.

HDFS 497: Teaching assistant credits: Students who do well in a course are sometimes invited to work as undergraduate teaching assistants during a subsequent semester. If you are interested in gaining experience as a teaching assistant, contact a professor who you like and whose class you have done well in to see if there are opportunities to be a teaching assistant.

Note: LSDS students and honors students can use a maximum of six credits of research and/or teaching assistance toward their major. Students are welcome to continue volunteering on research projects once they reach the six credit limit, but can no longer earn credit for these experiences.