Tsinghua University

1. Introduction

The International Master of Applied Psychology Program (IMAP) is an international program committed to training new international psychology talents majoring in Engineering Psychology, especially for those are interested in Ergonomics, Social Psychology and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and User Experience, in line with the development needs of science and technology of China, countries along the Belt and Road and other Developed Countries in Western Countries.

The goal and orientation of IMAP are closely related to the needs of top innovative talents for social development. It follows Tsinghua’s visionary goal of “Ranking a number of disciplines or discipline groups at the top in the world by integrating the strength of preponderant disciplines and characteristics and potentials of related disciplines”. Based on psychology, and combining with interdisciplines including Computer Science, Industrial Engineering and Design, this program trains students with the psychological skills and basic academic knowledge that are essential for “future elites”, fostering core competitiveness for the worldwide advent of the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Oriented with “practical skills”, IMAP focuses on imparting theory and pratice of research related to Engineering Psychology and User Experience to students, developing students’ practical skills, while cultivates students’ ability in psychology, design, data processing and business thinking, etc. As such, it enables students to establish their own practical fields, and cultivate students to become all-round and versatile talents with international vision and professional skills.

2. Background

◆International communications require thorough and caring communication skills, which are the most important guarantee for international relations and internationalization. Applied psychology helps international talents truly understand the Chinese culture and master the skills, methods and strategies of international communication, which emphasizes the unique role of psychology in internationalization. This program is to cultivate high-end modern psychological talents.

◆Innovation needs psychological support. Creativity is the results of human spirituality, understanding and perception. It is easy for people to produce creative results in a positive mental state. Therefore, understanding and cultivating a positive mental state by self-creation and imagination is a new way of innovation and transcendence.

◆The traditional method of AI research is to use machine to learn big data, and the research over the past more than 40 years has done almost everything that could be done. In the future, AI should emphasize the study of human intelligence to break through, which, after all, is the only intelligence that scientists on earth understand. Therefore, the new breakthroughs of AI lie in the combination of psychology, computer and other disciplines.

Therefore, the new breakthroughs of AI lie in the combination of psychology, computer and other disciplines.

3. Features

◆New orientation: New ways for innovation and transcendence in the era of “Psychology+” artificial intelligence.

◆New talent: Cultivate international, innovative and modern high-end talents of psychological science with the unity of knowledge and practice.

◆New model: Develop a new training scheme through cooperation between school and enterprise in an interdisciplinary and multimodal way.

(1) International vision to establish a world-class platform for academic exchanges in psychology

IMAP advocates a new training model of “Tsinghua Design, Global Training”, and supports students to participate in world-level research and learning activities to expand students’ international vision and improve their academic innovation ability. The program has reached a cooperative intention with University of Michigan and Wichita State University, meaning that it has obtained adequate international academic support. Based on the international platform of the School of Social Sciences of Tsinghua University, the program will invite more world-class foreign universities and research institutes (including MIT, Arizona State University, University of Illinois, Urbana / Champaign) as academic support organizations for the program, aiming to cultivate top-notch innovative talents with global competence in the field.

(2) Joint cultivation between school and enterprise

With strong practicality, IMAP Program mainly cultivates talents for industries such as Internet, user experience, aviation and automobile which have proposed higher requirements for students’ practical ability. To ensure the students develop practical ability, the program will:

◆Invite senior experts from renowned domestic enterprises from the internet, user experience consulting, aviation and automobile industries to participate in the teaching, so we can guarantee students’ learning and research are in close relation with reality.

◆Establish friendly and cooperative relations with a group of well-known domestic and foreign enterprises in urgent need of international applied psychology talents, and will cooperate with domestic and foreign organizations from IT, automobile, aviation, hardware manufacturing, user experience consulting and other industries, providing suitable project opportunities and internship opportunities for IMAP students of Tsinghua University.

4. Training objectives

◆Thinking about international development and the future of mankind from the perspective of the history of science and technology and psychology.

◆Master the basic concepts of psychology, as well as the tools and methods needed for psychological experiments.

◆Master cognitive rules and characteristics of individuals.

◆Master the method and principle of analyzing the interrelationship among human, environment and machines, the basic theories of applied psychology, the basic research methods and experimental design of user needs, as well as the basic principle of human-computer interaction design.

5. Enrollment plan

(1) Prospective Students

The program mainly enrolls international students including:

◆Product managers, designers or related practitioners from IT, communications and Internet enterprises.

◆Practitioners involved in the fields of AI, product design and development and user requirement analysis.

◆Ergonomics practitioners from airlines and car companies.

◆Graduate students majoring in Psychology, Information Science and Design.

◆People who are interested in engineering psychology, user experience, and have a willingness to engage in related work in the future.

(2) Language of instruction

All classes are taught in English

Core Courses

For details of the courses, please check here