INTP Biology or Psychology?

[durentu]

Try before you buy

1. informational interviews
2. internships

 

[Stevo]

A lot of you seem to be under the assumption that psych is "more" feeling oriented, more about "loving others" plus Freud stuff or something, and that hard-nosed empirical minds have no place in the psych field. This is not so.

Trust me, an INTP can LOVE psychology once they have thoroughly studied William James and Skinner. Even if these scholars were too reductionistic about human minds, psyches what not, behaviorists do a very keen job of cleaning up the "muddiness" spoken of in psychology, leaving a pure empircal science behind. Cognitive psych is what remains of that sterilization done by the behaviorists in psychology.

If you want to abstract more (and shoot down abstractions more) often, go psych. Bio is extremly "hard" and unmoving - the principle abstract questions surrounding biology have not changed since Aristotle.


EDIT: actually, go both and go into Neuro like I am I am becoming.... SUPERNERD

I agree. I think that SolitaryWalker is completely mistaken in his assumptions that INTPs will find Biology more intriguing. I, personally, hate biology. It is quite possibly my least favorite natural science. Mostly this is because chemistry absolutely bores me out of my mind due to being excessively about memorization and all the things that are not fun about mathematics. To me, the field of Psychology is infinitely more fascinating. It captures my imagination a whole lot more effectively than thinking about the interactions between cells I can't even see does. Although, yes, I would abhor a job as a psychological counselor, I would very much enjoy working as a research psychologist which is all about logic and rationality, and has nothing to do with subjective feelings.

 

[Reflection]

I think the problem is that most people nowadays equate psychology with Freud's psychoanalysis. There's a lot more to psychology than the woolly, unscientific mumbo-jumbo of Freud. Besides, there are other things which can be done with a psychology degree other than counseling. I personally would not feel right in counseling, for the simple reason that I lack the empathy for it, however, psychology interests me far more than biology (even though some aspects of biology are fascinating).

 

[Randomnity]

and all of those things involve a PhD. 400,000$ anesthesiology. 65,000$ working in academia, or even shit, as a lab rat in the private sector. If you want to make money with Bio, you go to med school :steam:

You're absolutely right, money IS the most important only thing to consider in choosing a career.

 

[Chris_in_Orbit]

Isn't there a major that combines psychology and biology?

Behavioral neuroscience - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But if your school doesn't have it then (personally) I would major in biology and minor in psychology.

You can jump into psychology with a Biology degree.. its a little harder to jump into a biologist's job with a psychology degree.