Senior Seminar

[Analysisfailed]

I'm actually looking into pursuing a career in psychology, and was wondering if anybody here has any suggestions as to what I could do as the "product".

An example for those of you that have no idea of what I'm talking about is someone planning on being a mechanic actually fixing something up, psychology is more abstract and thusly comes my issue.

And for those of you that have been through the class, how do you feel about it?

 

[Kingfisher]

hi Analysisfailed,
my wife has one of her master's degrees in psychology. she has worked as a children's counselor and loved that. she has a real interest and pull to child development and education, so when she focuses her psychology knowledge on something it is towards kids.

we have two married friends who both have their doctorates in psych-- the husband is really interested in mental health so he works as a psychologist at a mental hospital.
his wife is also an artist, so she works with at-risk teenagers doing art therapy, combing art and psychology in a really interesting way.
so i think that is one path, to combine psychology with your other interests.

my wife also worked in mental health psychology at a mental hospital, but it was HUGELY emotionally overwhelming for her. so some people like our friend take to mental health and are driven by it, but for her i think it was too much for her heart to handle.


if i were going to go into psych i would want to tackle it from a social aspect, to work with social programs in low-class and poverty neighborhoods and apply psych skills to that.
i don't know anything about the research side of psych, but i guess that is huge too!
Good luck!

 

[ChocolateMoose123]

I was a psychology major and my advice is to volunteer or get hands on experience in the field. Even if it's entry level stuff. It will help you realize if you can "handle" it emotionally, mentally, etc. For instance, I volunteered as a Guardian Ad Litem (child advocate in dependency/abuse/neglect cases) and found that while I could handle the subject matter - getting things done via government red tape was really frustrating. That made me realize I didn't want to go into social work and that I preferred a more one on one approach (mental health counseling). So real world experience can only help you.


Good luck!