Child and Adolescent Mental Health Studies (Minor)

Department Website

Program Description

Offered by the College of Arts and Science in cooperation with the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (DCAP) at NYU Langone Health, this minor aims to heighten students’ awareness of childhood mental health issues and their sustained impact on adolescents and adults. In the child and adolescent mental health studies (CAMS) minor, students will (1) explore the relationship between human behavior and its biological and environmental bases; (2) be challenged to think critically about the concepts of “normal” or “typical” versus “abnormal” behavior and engage in a meta-level analysis of the social, historical, and cultural context of mental health, illness, and diagnosis; and (3) be encouraged to consider how their future career can have a beneficial impact on the mental health of children, adolescents, and families.

Minor Declaration

CAS students: please contact CSC.Cams@nyulangone.org to declare the minor. All other NYU students: please declare the minor via the cross-school minor application on Albert. Students may also use the Minor Application in Albert to request cancellation of a CAS or cross-school minor. For more information, please contact the CAMS adviser at CSC.Cams@nyulangone.org.

Program Requirements

The minor in child and adolescent mental health studies (CAMS) requires the completion of at least 18 credits (usually five courses) as follows:

Course List

Course	Title	Credits
Minor Requirements
CAMS-UA 101	Child & Adolescent Psychopathology 1	4
Complete at least two more CAMS-UA courses (minimum 8 credits)		8
Complete two additional courses, either from CAMS-UA offerings or from approved non-departmental courses (6-8 credits) 2		6-8
Total Credits		18-20

¹

Required of all minors and is a prerequisite for some advanced CAMS courses.

²

For a list of these approved non-CAMS courses, please consult the CAMS website.

• Students must receive a C or better in all courses used toward the CAMS minor.
• Courses taken Pass/Fail may not be used toward the CAMS minor.

Child and Adolescent Psychopathology (CAMS-UA 101) is the foundational course required of all CAMS minors. Some CAMS courses (such as advanced seminars) have prerequisites, but many of them have no prerequisites and are open to all undergraduates.

Courses in child and adolescent mental health studies are currently also offered at NYU London and NYU Sydney. Consult the CAMS website for complete course offerings.

Courses taken for the CAMS minor cannot be applied to another major or minor unless a student is a psychology major at NYU College of Arts and Science; a social work major at NYU Silver School of Social Work; a student in the Department of Teaching and Learning at NYU Steinhardt; or a nursing student at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing.

Psychology and social work majors may count one and only one course toward both the CAMS minor and their major. In the specific case of psychology, the only permissible double counting is either PSYCH-UA 1 or the equivalent AP credit. Note well that a student who double counts a major course toward the CAMS minor cannot also double count a CAMS course toward the major.

Neural science majors may count one major course toward the CAMS minor, but no CAMS courses are allowed to count toward the major in neural science.

Teaching and learning students at NYU Steinhardt may double count one of the following applied psychology courses toward their major and the CAMS minor:

Course List

Course	Title	Credits
Steinhardt Courses
APSY-UE 20	Human Development I	2
APSY-UE 21	Human Development II: Application for Early Childhood Educators	2
APSY-UE 22	Human Development II: Application for Childhood Educators	2
APSY-UE 23	Human Development II: Early Adolescents and Adolescents	2

Nursing students at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing may count both PSYCH-UA 1 Intro to Psychology and APSY-UE 1271 Developmental Psychology Across the Lifespan toward their major and the CAMS minor. To complete the CAMS minor, nursing students must take an additional three courses selected from the CAMS course offerings, one of which must be CAMS-UA 101 Child & Adolescent Psychopathology.

Courses in Other Departments

Up to two pre-approved courses outside of CAMS-UA may be applied to the minor. (Many of them have prerequisites, which are noted in the course descriptions of the sponsoring departments.) Courses taken outside of the College in the other schools of NYU count against each CAS student's allowance of 16 non-CAS credits, and cannot be applied toward the 64-credit residency requirement in UA courses.

For more information on pre-approved courses, please visit the course offerings website.

Learning Outcomes

In the child and adolescent mental health studies (CAMS) minor, students will:

1. Explore the relationship between human behavior and its biological and environmental bases.
2. Be challenged to think critically about the concepts of “normal” or “typical” versus “abnormal” behavior and engage in a meta-level analysis of the social, historical, and cultural context of mental health, illness, and diagnosis.
3. Be encouraged to consider how their future career can have a beneficial impact on the mental health of children, adolescents, and families.

Policies

NYU Policies

University-wide policies can be found on the New York University Policy pages.

College of Arts and Science Policies

A full list of relevant academic policies can be found on the CAS Academic Policies page.