Considering doing a Psychology Degree. How many legit Universities offer the option to do classes both online OR in-class and if so, where can I find them?

March 1, 2011 4:54 PM

Considering doing a Psychology Degree. How many legit Universities offer the option to do classes both online OR in-class and if so, where can I find them? The reason I ask is because of the restrictions of my F/T job.

I'm interested in doing a Psychology degree this year or next but my job (although it will be part-time) may require me to travel on days I would need to be in school. Also there is a chance I might have to move halfway into the school year so I wouldn't want my progress to be interrupted.

I did a technical college degree two years ago and I was very disappointed with how "legit" the degree turned out to be. Also it wasn't taken very seriously in the "working world".

If you kind people could please point in the direction of resources that would be greatly appreciated as a simple Google search "psychology online degree" brings up 99% spam and mainly "pop up colleges".

posted by audio to education (5 answers total)

University of Houston
posted by Houstonian at 5:01 PM on March 1, 2011

Have you checked with your state university system yet? A good friend of mine just did her four-year degree almost entirely online from Western Illinois. She was also able to easily throw in some online classes from the local community college with assurance they would transfer due to agreements between the state Us and the state CCs.

Online classes have become so incredibly common it might be easier to just start your search at the nearest Directional State University and find out how far they could go in accommodating you. Probably cheaper in the end, too!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:26 PM on March 1, 2011

Is this in Canada? Or any country? Does financial aid matter?
posted by lesli212 at 5:46 PM on March 1, 2011

Arizona State University
posted by LyndsayMW at 8:00 PM on March 1, 2011

As someone with two Psychology degrees (BA and MA) from two Canadian Universities I'll tell you right off that a Psychology degree is not seen as terribly 'legit' in the business world. It is essentially a certificate of advanced reading and writing. A psychology BA or BSc opens pretty much no psychology specific doors. A psych MA can open some counseling opportunities in Western Canada. For almost anything else you the whole meal deal PhD which is damn near impossible to do part time in under 10 years (hell, full time it clocked in at an average 8+ years for my cohort) .

If you do insist on going ahead anyway (I did and I am bit undecided if I would recommend it) what you need to look for to be sure you are getting a real education in psychology is that the department is APA accredited. That means the American Psychology Association has verified that the curriculum has the expected content and that the department has properly qualified faculty.

Also be aware that there are actually two types of Psychology. There is the Applied side - Clinical, Social Work, Education side of things and there is the Research Side with experiments, cognition, neuro-science. The two sides tend to barely touch and have surprisingly different world views.

I recommend working backwards from where you want to end up in order to determine what you need to do to get there. Unless you quite specifically want to be a psychologist, research or applied, odds are there is a better route to get where you to go.
posted by srboisvert at 6:19 AM on March 2, 2011