Questions about College Majors

My best friend is trying to decide on a major, and she's really leaning towards psychology. I've heard that it's a really bad idea to major in psychology because there aren't a lot of jobs out there, but she really loves it.

So, my questions are-
Is majoring in psychology a good idea? What kind of jobs can you get with a master in psychology? Is there a major that can accompany psychology that would help her further in her career? What are some things she consider other than psychology that is similar?


Thanks everyone!

I think a good question to ask your friend would be, "Why do you want a degree in psychology? What do you want to do with it?" There's a big difference between just loving a subject, and then finding a profession you will enjoy that uses those skills. For instance, I love to write, but do I want to become an editor when I grow up? Heck no. I'm actually majoring in nursing. But does that I really love science? Nope. It means that I want to be able to work with patients some day and help them with whatever problems they come to me with. If that makes any sense.

Also, getting a master's degree in psychology is a huge goal to start out with. To get a master's, it will take you several more years of schooling past your undergraduate degree or bachelor's degree. That's looking a little too far in the future, before you've even gotten your feet wet. There are a lot of jobs out there, like counseling, that require less than a master's.

As for if she should major in psychology or not, that's really a decision she will have to make. Sure, there are a ton of psychology majors out there, but the job market sucks for everyone right now so she's gonna face the same "your degree won't be worth nothin" attitude just like everyone in college gets x)

There are a ton of other fields that use psychology. Mostly everything in the health field requires knowledge of the brain and nervous system. Like I mentioned before I'm studying nursing, and I have to take several psychology courses for that. A friend of mine plans to work with disabled kids so she's a psych major, but she also takes a lot of other requirements too.

Hope this is a little helpful Good luck to your friend!

Just out of curiosity, where is this friend at in this whole process? Is she in her second year and has to declare a major right now? Or is she in high school and first year, with more time to explore?

For the record, I think most counseling jobs actually require a master's degree if not a Ph.D. A quick search suggests that most undergraduate majors end up outside the field, as it's a popular major. http://psychology.about.com/od/careersinpsychology/a/careersbach.htm

Social work might be a good option, although it's low pay and long hours, so she might not want that.

Maybe she can try getting a research job with a favorite prof? This would give her a real taste of what psychology research is like before she pursues graduate school.

A business degree co-major or minor might be a good option, since that seems to be where most psych majors end up. Criminal justice might be good if she's interested in that side of psychology. Or she could major in something else and minor in psychology. I'm doing science now, but I minored in Spanish in undergrad and might do a policy minor in grad school.

Hope this helps!

She's in the end of her second year of highschool, so she has a little time, but she's really trying to decide soon.

I chose my major about a month before I started college lol. Mostly because I had no idea if I would even be able to afford college, but still.

My cousin's the same way though, she started obsessively searching out universities in like her sophomore year of high school.

My best advice to your friend is to not worry about it. Almost no college requires you to declare your major when entering, and something like 75% of college students change their major at least once after starting college. You have no idea what you're actually going to feel about the major until you get into classes and start learning!

If your friend feels they must declare when they enter, then she can go ahead and choose psychology (or math or english or whathaveyou) but she shouldn't feel like she's forever committed until she's taken a few classes to really see what she thinks. Plus, Blacksheep's advice about finding an actual career she might like to pursue is really great! If there's not a career she wants in that field, then she shouldn't pursue psychology. xD

Psychology, as fun as it may sound, is difficult at times and some subjects are pretty boring. It isn't all emotions and mental disorders and has stuff to do with intelligence and learning. I have only taken a high school course of it due to interest and taking the class really made me realize this is not what I want.

Plus, being in the 10th grade gives you much time to look at major and switch it multiple times before you graduate. I did so once I hit my junior year and it took all the way until early this year for me to finally decide on an MFA in Creative Writing (I do plan on becoming an editor and possible author). I could not even count the many times I changed my mind on my future major.

I will agree with everyone else that the subject must be researched into a lot because I know many people who plan to major in psychology and the subject itself is popular and not in demand in the slightest. She will certainly have to look into other careers that involve it if she wants a job soon after college.

I am also considering majoring in Psychology, so I have done some research about the field, and I was able to find a few sects of psychology which I thought was pretty interesting. Clinical psychology is the generic for of psychology, and you can work in a variety of places from your own practice to working in a hospital. Another option I found interesting was Forensic psychology, which is where you would try and understand the mind of a criminal and figure out how they work. It's basically what the people on the show Criminal Minds do. Last semester I took A.P. Psychology, but dropped it because it was kind of hard to keep up with everything due to the amount of reading that was required every night for my class, plus some of the topics were kind of boring. I enjoyed taking the class and the teacher was really fun to have but I needed to focus on passing classes that I actually needed to graduate. I'm still going to consider psychology and I hope this helps your friend.

Thanks for the replies guys! I'm going to go ahead and lock this thread, because you've all given us such diverse and good opinions, we don't think we'll need anything else. Again, thanks!

Unlocked because this is a pretty amazing resource and more discussion would be rad for anyone else considering Psych out there!

Sooo amaaaazing!

This isn't directly psychology related, but something to keep in mind when picking your major in general.

It's always a good idea to pick a major and minor that add a lot of flexibility to what you can do job-wise, but which will also help you reach your ultimate goal. In my case, I went in for a general Biological Sciences degree with a concentration in pre-vet, because I want to become a veterinarian, but I can't quite afford it at the moment. Since my degree is so broad in scope and a science degree, it basically allows me to qualify for a huge range of biology-related jobs, and right now, I'm looking at a few conservation and wildlife management jobs (which would involve field work, which I love), or research (even though I hate lab work, but the pay and benefits are great).

In hindsight, I'm really glad I stuck with a more general Biological Sciences degree because of all the things I learned during my college years, such as my hatred of lab work. Just because you're good at something, doesn't mean you will want to make a living off it, so it's a good idea to find a balance between doing what you're good at and doing something you love.

You might also find a job you love that's tangentially related to your major/desired field that you never would have considered otherwise. My current job is one of those, and if only it paid better, I would stick with it, but I have college loans to pay and vet school to save up for, among other things...

Basically, the key is to find a good balance between what you need and what you love. Going for a more general degree or picking a few complementary minors is a really good idea since it allows for greater versatility when you do get out into the workforce, which means you'll be more likely to find that balance between your needs and love.

Kyll says wonderful things! I have other general things to say, more specifically targeted towards UK degrees.

Since here you apply for a subject and graduate in that subject, rather than picking majors and minors at a later point (which appears to be how the US system works? I don't entirely understand, but that's the impression I get), I'd lay a lot more emphasis than Kyll on doing something you like - unless you negotiate a course change with your uni, you're going to be doing this for (at least) three years, so pick something you think is interesting over something you think will get you a good job. It's harder to do well in a degree you don't like!

Also worth noting as a difference from the US system: it's not as horrifically expensive to go to uni here. The student loan system pays for your tuition fees up front, and then you pay it back (1) once you're earning over a certain threshold and (2) in little bits, and after a certain number of years whatever's left is written off. As well as this, lots of unis have bursaries and grants available if you're struggling with living costs. So, whatever you've heard in the media about tuition fees, money shouldn't scare you off going to uni. (We emphasise this a lot on Oxford open days, because lots of people think they can't get into Oxford because it'll cost too much - Oxford and Cambridge are actually some of the cheapest unis, because they're so old (they've been saving up for so long) they can afford to pay for things for their students.)

My biggest thing when it comes to higher education is: do what you want to do. Family pressuring you to aim for top academic unis when you'd much rather get a vocational qualification? Remember that it's your life and your choice, and three years in a degree you don't want to be doing will be miserable. On the flip side, if you think you're interested in a degree, but people tell you you won't get it, apply anyway! There's literally no cost to submitting an application, and worst case scenario is you have to have a back-up plan for not getting in. Best case scenario, you get to spend three years having an awesome time studying something cool.

I can't promise that the what-you-want-to-do attitude will secure you a job when you come out the other side of a degree. But you can spin marketable skills out of any degree (and the extra-curricular opportunities that university provides), and it's probably better for your emotional health to enjoy your degree than to slave through it because you feel you have to.

Take opportunities where they arise. Make them where they don't. Have fun in both cases.

Since here you apply for a subject and graduate in that subject, rather than picking majors and minors at a later point (which appears to be how the US system works? I don't entirely understand, but that's the impression I get)

In the US, you also declare a major (and concentration if your field is broad) upon entry. However, if you're undecided, you either go into General Studies (the most common option) or declare a placeholder major/concentration. In both cases, it's very common to switch majors, and some colleges/universities allow for dual majoring. It also takes four years to get a full degree over here, though there are some specialized degrees (usually for technical fields) that take only three, and associate degrees which act like half degrees that you get from community colleges which you can use to transfer into a four-year institution with. Some jobs do accept associate degrees as-is without requiring a full four-year degree.

Minors are usually optional, but you need to declare your minor by the third year at latest otherwise you won't have time to fill all the requirements to graduate with the minor, as minors act like mini degrees, meaning additional credits and class requirements that need to be met in addition to the requirements of your major. Concentrations, on the other hand, are basically variations of a major, and so while you have different class requirements than other people in the same major with different concentrations, there aren't any additional classes involved.

To elaborate further on my story because I apparently didn't emphasize the like/love part (which Cadi is spot on about), I started college really young (fifteen), so, back when I had to declare my major, I honestly had no clue what it was I wanted to do with the rest of my life. What I did was I looked at the subjects I liked, was good at, and had good/decent job prospects. In my case, those subjects were all science-based, and so I decided to be a science major. Then it was just a matter of picking which science to major in, and since I love animals (and they love me) and I already had a history of saving them, I chose biology with the intention of becoming a veterinarian (or something wildlife-related). I also loved and was really good at inorganic chemistry, and so I figured why not major in that too because a lot of the courses for the chem and bio degrees overlap! :D

And so I declared a Biology-Chemistry dual major (which is not something I recommend anyone EVER do because the course load is INSANE), and wound up dropping the chem major bit in my third year because, when it came down to it, even though I love chemistry as a subject, jobs in the field of chemistry are all lab work, and lab work is really, really tedious and the workload was kicking my butt. And dropping the chem major was the best thing I ever did.

So, in my case, I wound up graduating with a major I declared all the way back at the beginning, which I honestly wasn't expecting considering I went in fully expecting to change my mind along the way, but it didn't really surprise me either because I love animals and biology and good-paying jobs involving both are good (and almost always hiring in my area).

So, it's a good idea to figure out what you love, are good at, and would provide decent job prospects before you even apply to colleges because doing something you don't love just because it makes/will make you money is a great way to make yourself miserable. Also, it makes finding colleges to apply to much easier because different colleges focus on/excel in different fields, and you'll want to find a college that has a good program for whatever it is you're majoring in.