Director:
Dr. Shatkin
Director of Education and Training
NYU Child Study Center

Offered by the College of Arts and Science in cooperation with the Child Study Center at the NYU School of Medicine and with the Steinhardt School of Education, this new 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) increase their intellectual curiosity and build analytic and problem-solving skills; (3) 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 (4) be encouraged—if they have a natural interest in and inclination toward careers in social work, education and special education, psychology, law, medicine, sociology, nursing, public health, scientific journalism, and psychiatry—to consider focusing their future career in some significant capacity on children and adolescents.