What can I do with a Psychology major?

April 2, 2006 10:34 PM

What kind of careers are available for someone with a psychology major and a business minor?

Here's the deal: I'm a first year architecture student in Oregon, but I have "senior" credits. If I chose a less intensive degree like psychology I could graduate in one year instead of the three it would take to do architecture. I think I would like psychology, and its tempting since my boyfriend is moving to the opposite coast to start law school in the fall.
I hate school. I have a really high GPA, but I dread going to classes and all those sleepless nights of homework. I also want to be able to be there for my boyfriend. But, I don't want to sell myself short by taking a crap degree. I've wanted to do architecture all my life so I just don't know what's out there for a psych major (in the Pacific Northwest or the East Coast).

posted by aquavit to work & money (16 comments total)

Marketing?
posted by jimmythefish at 10:44 PM on April 2, 2006

Journalism—but you have to really want to do it.

If you really want to do architecture, you should do it—a boyfriend isn't a good reason to sell yourself short.
posted by limeonaire at 11:04 PM on April 2, 2006

An undergraduate psych degree is almost completely useless. Don't bother unless you're going on to the graduate level.

(I say "almost"... pretty much any bachelors from a university that people have heard of has value. But undergraduate psych won't prepare you for any job in particular.)
posted by tkolar at 11:12 PM on April 2, 2006

Short answer: almost anything.

Long answer: It really depends on what you want to do with it. If you want to do something involving psychology, then you need a graduate degree. You can also go to medical school, get an MD or PsyD and practice psychiatry, go to law school, become a social worker, physical therapist, just about anything involving futher education.

I'd elaborate further, but I'll instead link to many sites online that discuss the topic with much more authority than I can.

• PsychWeb
• Psi Chi (national psychology honors society)
• Texas Lutheran University
• U of Arizona
• University of Rhode Island
• WWL
• Lancaster University
• Many, many more (google link)

With your given situation, I would recommend giving Industrial\organizational psychology a look. It's a growing field with an outstanding outlook that is in very high demand. Required a graduate degree, but it pays very well.

Feel free to e-mail if you have any questions. I'm a junior undergraduate student in psychology who has some pretty ambitious plans for my degree (in 7-8 years I should have a PhD in developmental psychology), and I've done a very large amount of research on the entire industry.
posted by charmston at 11:16 PM on April 2, 2006 [1 favorite]

If you've always wanted to do architecture- do it. That want won't go away.
posted by fshgrl at 11:20 PM on April 2, 2006

I think you'd have to do a lot more schooling if you really wanted to 'do' psychology. Most practicing psychologist have PhDs.

I agree with Limeonaire - if you want to do architecture, do it. You'll regret it when you're thirty, and you're stuck doing corporate usability studies. Unless, of course, that appeals to you - I think undergrad psych majors are desireable for that.
posted by delladlux at 11:23 PM on April 2, 2006

Working for a business consulting firm, but really, if you want to do architecture, do it.

You might also see if you can start talking to the corporate recruiters that come to campus (though they may not be there again until fall).
posted by Good Brain at 11:40 PM on April 2, 2006

Do architecture, if that's what you love.

All the architecture students I know have many more sleepless nights that I can even imagine (like... all the time), but if it's what you enjoy it's not nearly as painful as doing something you aren't really, really interested in. What's 2 extra years of school compared to the next 40 or so wishing you had done what you really wanted to?
posted by ruby.aftermath at 11:44 PM on April 2, 2006

A psych degree is useful for getting a position as a graduate student TA/RA in psychology.

Otherwise, that's about it. Other then jobs which require any bachelor's degree, there is nothing that having a psych degree will get you, as far as I know.

Architecture is a very, very demanding program at ISU, and I would imagine at other schools as well, but you're life will be enriched by having the experience. Your bf could be gone in a year.
posted by delmoi at 2:33 AM on April 3, 2006

I used to work in massively online multimedia games. A surprising percentage of the designers and producers have psychology backgrounds, especially in the cognitive and social fields.
posted by meehawl at 3:45 AM on April 3, 2006

I was originally going to suggest that you try to get into human resource consulting or organizational change/behavioral consulting, but the one issue you might dislike about these positions is that some of them might require travel and/or long hours in which case, you still wouldn't be there for your boyfriend (p.s. speaking as someone with more experience in this kind of stuff -- don't make your boyfriend a reason for anything you do in life, you're young, you don't know if he is "the one", it's very sweet of you to be concerned for him, but if he's a good boyfriend then he will understand that your school/career is taking up a lot of time and will work around it). If it's architecture you want, then go for it -- in the end, it could be very fulfilling and well worth all of the pain that went into it (so say all of my architect friends).
posted by echo0720 at 7:37 AM on April 3, 2006

If you want to work as a psychologist, then yes, you will need graduate training.

However, that does not mean that BA in psychology is useless. In fact, your employment options after a BA are probably much more varied than after specialised graduate training - in other words, all the jobs open to any BA or BSc. (Which would your program be?) Your high GPA will be more important to your employment opportunities than your concentration/major.

That said, if you are serious, you should go to the career centre at your university and talk to a career counsellor. They will know more about employment from various programs, and, most importantly, they will know the best ways to go about looking for employment, which will save you much agony. (I say this as someone who has a BA with a high average, but I would need this kind of counselling should I leave my current graduate school. I know there are jobs out there and I know I am as qualified as the people who hold them, but I don't know where/how to look and apply for them).
posted by jb at 10:12 AM on April 3, 2006

Just to reiterate - there is no such thing as a "useless" degree. Most BAs do not lead to work directly in that field without graduate training, but they do lead to more employment opportunities than not having a BA, and different concentrations give you different skills. (History trains you to be a good writer and researcher, whereas psychology will give you excellent computer skills and statistics knowledge most historians never have, and philosophy is just about the best training for reading, writing and argument you can get - philosophy BAs actually have some of the best employment opportunities and pay.)

That said, it sounds like you might be somewhat burned out. (I was pretty burned out at the end of undergraduate, so I know what it feels like, but if I'm just projecting, please ignore - but it does happen to a lot of people). It is possibly and often recommended to take some time off school when you are burned out - it doesn't hurt you one bit (most of the people in my graduate program have taken between 1 and 20 years off school, at different times), and actually helps you do better when you return to study (because you are rested, and because you have a clearer sense of what you want and thus more motivation). If you think you might be burned out, then the best thing might be to talk to someone (a counsellor, a good friend who has no stake in what you do, a trusted instructor or advisor) before making any large decisions.
posted by jb at 10:23 AM on April 3, 2006

jb wrote...
Your high GPA will be more important to your employment opportunities than your concentration/major.

Hmm, in my experience your GPA is good for your first job out of college and that's it. Your degree you carry with you, but the last time anyone sees or hears about your GPA on a resume is straight out of school.
posted by tkolar at 11:06 AM on April 3, 2006

No, I didn't imagine they would, but getting that first job does really help you get a second job.

I was bringing up the GPA because I used to help on faculty committees when I was an undergraduate, and I kept seeing cases of people doing computer science or economics or something "useful" and getting Cs when they had As in their English course - and refusing to changemajors (we were seeing their cases because some were on probation). Now, with a bad computer science degree, maybe you get picked up for boring network support. But a good English degree will help you much more than a bad economics degree.
posted by jb at 3:28 PM on April 3, 2006

Hmm, I realize this is anecdotal, but my grades were crap (probation and everything) and I didn't find that it hampered my getting a good software engineering position at all.

Perhaps because of this, whenever I look at resumes from college fresh grads I pretty much ignore the GPAs and go directly to the "projects" section.

But yeah, I take your point re: English vs. Economics.
posted by tkolar at 4:13 PM on April 3, 2006