哈佛大学认知科学系将该专业描述为“一个跨学科的研究人员社区，其研究旨在阐明与人类行为和心理生活相关的神经系统的结构、功能、进化、发展和病理学。”事实上，哈佛充分体现了这一领域的跨学科性质，将他们的认知科学研究称为心智、大脑和行为——这是一种真正描述物理科学与社会科学融合的绝妙方式。在许多方面，这个专业是一种统一围绕人们行为方式的不同兴趣的一种方式。在哈佛，课程内容广泛，将心理学与语言学、哲学、人类进化生物学、历史与科学、神经科学和计算机科学相结合。因此，认知科学超越了社会科学，通过对学生进行生理学方面的培训，创造了对人类行为更全面的理解。

斯坦福大学选择将他们的认知科学专业描述为“思想和智力的跨学科研究，包括哲学、心理学、人工智能、神经科学、语言学和人类学”。 引用其起源于 1950 年代中期，认知科学不再是关于人类的行为方式，而是通过人工智能将技术融入其对思想和行为的理解中。 可以很容易地预见，随着人工智能和技术的快速发展，认知科学本身也将随着具有这种学术背景的市场的增长而继续发展和壮大。

为了专注于斯坦福大学的认知科学，学生们参加各种课程以更好地了解大脑——包括神经科学、统计学、研究方法、心理学、哲学和计算机科学等广泛的课程。

耶鲁大学的认知科学专业“……之所以启动，部分原因是相关学科的现有专业不允许对心灵进行全面的跨学科调查。” 在耶鲁，认知科学学生的目标是了解大脑是如何工作的。 随着学科的发展，学生所学习的课程将包括人工智能和智能机器人，同时也包括人类学、经济学、管理学院甚至音乐和艺术等领域的课程。 与其他课程一样，该课程的跨学科性质提供了很大的灵活性，耶鲁大学的认知科学专业允许学生选择一个主题，围绕该主题从附属部门构建个性化的定制课程。

认知科学专业的学生研究大脑是如何工作的。学生通过跨学科课程了解认知，让他们参与批判性思维和解决问题。鉴于其跨学科性质，认知科学专业的学生正在训练定量技能，同时也定性和定量地回答问题。一个对数学有浓厚兴趣但又对思维的本质以及它如何与技术相交感到好奇的学生将在如此严格的涵盖文科课程的专业中脱颖而出并茁壮成长。

因为该专业有如此多的课程可供选择，学生有能力根据自己的兴趣创建一个专业（例如，数学专业将主要集中在数学课程上），从而允许灵活性——并且此外，在考虑职业道路时，将创建一门具有可应用于无数领域的课程的学习课程。简而言之，由于认知科学专业的学生学习多样化的课程，因此他们可能有更多的工作机会。正如波莫纳学院的一名学生所说，“我想探索尽可能多的不同学习领域。认知科学允许我作为我的专业做到这一点！”

拥有学士学位可以做的事情没有限制。在认知科学。因为学生经常将各种兴趣结合到他们的课程中，它会自动创建一个不拘一格的学习课程，从而为学生提供多种不同的职业选择。

加州大学伯克利分校报告说，他们的认知科学毕业生找到的职业范围从治疗师、教师、产品开发人员/设计师到用户体验设计师、软件开发人员和企业家。那些寻求进一步教育的人将发现自己有资格参加临床心理学、认知科学、人工智能和机器人学、计算机工程和医学院的课程。其他机构报告说他们的学生找到了游戏设计、法律和数据分析方面的职业，而还有一些机构则扩大了学生的职业选择范围，包括语音合成和语音识别、人为因素工程、市场营销和消费者行为以及软件工程。截至 2022 年 1 月 27 日，美国认知科学的平均年薪为 61,416 美元，目前大多数认知科学的薪水在 31,500 美元（第 25 个百分点）到 73,000 美元（第 75 个百分点）之间，收入最高的人（第 90 个百分点） ) 在美国每年赚 122,000 美元。认知科学的平均薪酬范围差异很大（高达 41,500 美元），这表明根据技能水平、地点和经验年限，可能有很多晋升机会和增加薪酬。

认知科学专业提供的灵活性是非常有益的，它让学生不仅可以了解大脑的重要认知功能，还可以了解如何将更广泛的人类行为框架应用于众多学科。

Why Not Cognitive Science?

Admittedly, I never enjoyed the physical sciences during my academic career and found myself in love with many aspects of the social sciences.  It spoke to my interest in understanding myself and the people around me given I grew up in the U.S. as a minority while Asians; in my hometown there were three Chinese kids — myself, my brother, and one other student.  Eventually, I fell in love with psychology and majored in this, earning advanced degrees in the field and ultimately applying my knowledge to working within higher education.  During my college days, Cognitive Science was not a relatively prevalent major and I wonder if it had been around, would I have merged my interest in social science with the physical sciences to land in this field – after all, I did study developmental disorders for a good part of my post-grad studies and I appreciate a liberal arts course of study.

Thus, as I now advise students who have an interest in the physical sciences but also appreciate the social sciences, Cognitive Science is an apt field to consider.

While psychology is the study of thinking, cognitive science is the interdisciplinary investigation of mind and intelligence that also includes philosophy, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology.  Let me share with you what this field of study actually involves.

What is Cognitive Science?

Harvard

Harvard’s Cognitive Science Department describes this major as an “”interdisciplinary community of investigators whose research aims to elucidate the structure, function, evolution, development, and pathology of the nervous system in relation to human behavior and mental life.” In fact, Harvard fully takes on the interdisciplinary nature of this field, referring to their Cognitive Science studies as Mind, Brain and Behavior — a wonderful way of truly describing the merge of the physical sciences with the social sciences.  In many ways, this major is a way to unify a diverse set of interests around how people behave. At Harvard, the courses are extensive, blending Psychology with Linguistics, Philosophy, Human Evolutionary Biology, History and Science, Neuroscience, and Computer Science. Cognitive science, therefore, goes beyond the social sciences, creating a more holistic understanding of human behavior by also training students in the physiological.

Stanford

Stanford chooses to describe their Cognitive Science major as “the interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence, embracing philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology.” Citing its origins to the mid-1950s, cognitive science is no longer about how humans behave but also incorporates technology — through AI — into its understanding of mind and behavior. One can easily anticipate that with the rapid development of artificial intelligence and technology, cognitive science itself will also continue to evolve and grow as markets for those with this academic background grow.

To concentrate in Cognitive Science at Stanford, students take diverse courses to better understand the mind – with a breadth of courses in neuroscience, statistics, research methods, psychology, philosophy and computer science.

Yale

The Cognitive Science major at Yale “…was initiated in part because existing majors in the contributing disciplines did not allow for a full interdisciplinary investigation of the mind.”  At Yale, the goal of cognitive science students is to understand how the mind works.  As the discipline has evolved, courses that students take will encompass Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Robotics, while also incorporating courses from areas such as  Anthropology, Economics, the School of Management and even Music and Art. As with other programs, the interdisciplinary nature of the program allows for a great deal of flexibility, and Yale’s Cognitive Science major allows students to choose a theme around which they build an individualized custom set of courses from affiliated departments.

Why Study Cognitive Science?

Cognitive science majors study how the mind works. Students learn about cognition through an interdisciplinary curriculum that engages them in critical thinking and problem-solving.  Given its interdisciplinary nature, Cognitive Science majors are training in quantitative skills while also answering questions qualitatively and quantitatively.  A student with a strong interest in mathematics but also curious about the nature of the mind and how this intersects with technology would excel, and thrive, in such a rigorous major that spans the liberal arts curriculum.

Because the major has such a wide variety of courses to choose from, students have the ability to create a major based on their interests (e.g., whereas, say, majoring in Math will be focused largely on mathematics courses) thus allowing flexibility — and also, in thinking about a career path, would create a course of study that has coursework which can be applied to a myriad of fields.  In short, because Cognitive Science students take diverse courses, they may have more job opportunities available to them because of this.  As one Pomona College student states, “I wanted to explore as many different areas of study as possible. Cognitive science allows me to do that as my major!”

Cognitive Science Career Paths

There is no limit to what you can do with a B.A. in Cognitive Science. Because students often combine a variety of interests into their coursework, it automatically creates an eclectic course of study, thus giving students several different career options.

UC Berkeley reports their Cognitive Science graduates find occupations that range from therapists, teachers, product developers/designers, to UX designers, software developers, and entrepreneurs.  Those seeking further education will find themselves qualified for programs in Clinical Psychology, Cognitive Science, AI and Robotics, Computer Engineering, and Medical School.   Other institutions report their students finding careers in game design, law and data analysis, while still others expand the range of career options for students to include Speech Synthesis and Voice Recognition, Human Factors Engineering, Marketing and Consumer Behavior and Software Engineering.  As of Jan 27, 2022, the average annual pay for a Cognitive Science in the United States is $61,416 a year with the majority of Cognitive Science salaries currently ranging between $31,500 (25th percentile) to $73,000 (75th percentile) with top earners (90th percentile) making $122,000 annually across the United States. The average pay range for a Cognitive Science varies greatly (by as much as $41,500), which suggests there may be many opportunities for advancement and increased pay based on skill level, location and years of experience.

Summary

The flexibility that the cognitive science major offers is hugely beneficial and allows students to not only learn about the important cognitive functions of the mind but also how to apply the broader framework of human behavior to a multitude of disciplines.