I'm starting a PhD program in a few months. I've technically earned an undergrad degree in psychology, but I'm not claiming my psych degree, and here's why I abandoned it.
Psychology, in terms of it being theory of mind, is fascinating.
The most fascinating thing. Hands down. However, the day-to-day study of it sucks. Psychology as an academic field is trying to gain respect because everyone sees it as a watered-down science. Because science is so powerfully respected, instead of the field of psychology doing what it does best on its own terms with some science where it's useful, psychology keeps deferring to science as the only authority figure worth attending to. Thus their journals are dry and methodological. (And I'm speaking as a lover of biochemistry who started out earning a chemistry degree. I'm a bit of a knowledge-whore
) Basically, psychology makes the thing that most fascinates me in the world into a painfully dry and lifeless shell instead of a squirmy and life-filled gooey awesomeness that I try to gather together and grasp and hold blissfully.
I'm not lying when I say I'd rather read biochemistry articles than psychology articles--with biochemistry the data is more secure and thus greater fodder for imagining possibilities. When you foreground the hard data of psychology more than it, IMO, rightfully should be (because so much of your data is likely socialized via gender/cultural norms or insulated to small sample sizes of Western, white, middle class 18yo psych students) you get a bunch of headache and disappointment.
If you want, PM me and I'll email you some stereotypical examples of psychology journals, which are boring to read, full of statistics, and representative of what psychologists do with their lives: gather the cattle of first-year psychology students required to participate in tests, test them, and then do statistical analysis. Psychology journals are full of numbers and data. Which means graduate studies in psychology is pretty much numbers and data. Especially when you're a tenured prof's workhorse.
If you get into an interpersonally rewarding field like clinical psych or counseling as you mention, then yeah, it's probably pretty great. But at least in Canada, the Clinical Psychology applicant-to-slot ratio is depressing. I'm talking worse than medical school, because there's fewer clinical psych programs than medical school programs--a trend I expect holds consistent across the 49th parallel. And take it from someone with many friends with perfect GPAs, a volunteer list a mile long, and a great MCAT score: when a field is oversaturated, the qualified applicants not getting in are going "what am I missing!" and are f*cking up their self-esteem and self-image. The truth is, they are missing nothing.
This is pretty much why people advise against entering saturated fields in academia or elsewhere. There are a lot of really bright and otherwise mentally healthy individuals with suicidal thoughts or severe depression because they invested their everything and sacrificed their relationships and resources for something that is not reaping any sort of reward. When people asked my biopsych prof why he picked our university, he said "because there were 302 other applicants vying for 3 open spots across the country and they offered me the job." Ask yourself: do you want to live a life with an external locus of control? Where you do everything in your power and are unlikely to experience much of any rewards?
I do know some loopholes or alternative paths that you might be interested in investigating, if you were still interested enough to PM.
