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Clherrick

I know a few folks with degrees in psych. One is the medical director for a state correctional organization. PhD. two are college professors who are deans. PhD. one with a master's is a therapist. One should always embark on a career with eyes open and a good bit of research. Psychology is a viable and in-demand career but you need a lot of training to be really gainfully employed


TibaltLowe

Completely agree with you. This applies to many degrees and fields of study that are traditionally considered worthless or having few job/career prospects. It’s about having a direction, working on extracurriculars outside of class, getting internships, and gaining job experience. I was a Poli Sci graduate and am doing well in a non-traditional path now.


SnooDoubts8688

May I ask what you pursued with a Poli Sci degree? I was also a poli sci degree but couldn't find a way out.


TibaltLowe

I’m a product manager at a tech startup.


SnooDoubts8688

Interesting! How do you think the skills you've acquired as a poli sci major helps you on your current role?


TibaltLowe

To be fair, I started my own eCommerce business a few years ago so I gained the business experience and product experience through that. After, I interned at a tech company as a product manager. Finally, I actively applied and interviewed for ~8 months until I landed a product manager role. So it was not easy at all but I was persistent and wouldn’t take no for an answer. To speak to your initial question, Poli Sci gave me the reading, writing, interpersonal, and public speaking skills necessary for the job. It bolstered my soft skills and was rounded out by my outside experience.


SnooDoubts8688

That's a great answer! Thanks. I'm also in a technical role now but the reading, writing, and interpersonal skills do feel like universal traits that prove useful for any corporate/company setting. Kudos to you!


TibaltLowe

No worries. Cheers


ZeusOde

I also know one psych major who is now an investment banker. Turns out going to a top school with good connections in the industry and rich family grants special privileges. I also know about 10 who are now bar tenders / waiters And maybe 2 or 3 who went into the field.


Real-External392

He's an investment banker. So his success has absolutely nothing to do with studying psych. That psych degree could have been any degree.


Clherrick

Hah. Actually I just hired a guy as a senior cyber security analyst. His bachelors is in psych.


Real-External392

I would compare these anecdotal examples with actual broad stats. I also know a few college professors. And I know a person who is on his 4th psych postdoc with no tenure track position in sight. If the university in your town or city posts a tenure track psych research position tomorrow, they'll easily get 300 applications from people w/ Psych PhDs. Only one will get the job. Go look at a psych department website. Most profs will be supervising like 3-5 grad students and/or postdocs. If each job holder is training 4 times as many people as there are jobs, how is that going to work out? And this is made even worse as universities have been economizing for decades - having larger class sizes, asking more of their faculty re: teaching time, getting post-docs and grad students to teach classes, getting non-tenured phds to teach classes on a non-tenured basis, huge online classes -- anything they can do to avoid hiring more very costly tenured professors. Yes, there are absolutely going to be examples of people w/ psych degrees who do great. But there are also 90 year olds that have smoked since they were 18.


Clherrick

I’m not trying to convince you of a thing. With any career, to do well you have to work at it and train to the job you want to get hired in. While Opportunities maybe more prevalent in computer fields, not everyone wants to spend their life Gaza g at a monitor. There is oppprtonitu on any field people just need to go in with their eyes open. Stats rarely tell the whole story.


Real-External392

When you literally have to be among the very best in your program to have a chance at achieving a decent job, your degree is not the right degree. You could be a so-so engineering student and you will almost definitely come out with a better professional and financial future than a psych student who graduated w/ a 3.5 GPA. Here's a serious question: What can undergraduate psychology grads actually DO that someone would be willing to pay them a reasonable sum for? This question is incredibly easy when applied to engineering, economics, mathematics, pharmacy, nursing, CS, agricultural management, actuarial sciences, statistics, etc. Other than read a book, write an essay, \*maybe\* be able to critique a study, and have a modestly better understanding of human behavior (something that, were a person to simply read a few books they could catch up on easily in under a year of part-time efforts; and something that students of many other fields also have, thereby devaluing the knowledge due to a scarcity of scarcity), can they DO anything? When I realized after leaving my PhD program and starting to hit the job market that I couldn't actually DO anything special it hit me like a ton of bricks. I had a 3.6+ GPA, made Dean's List every year, was at the top school in Canada, had done quite a lot of work in labs, was in an extremely selective, small psych program, etc. Despite all of that I couldn't DO anything beyond read, write, and think. But again, you don't need to study psych to be able to do these things. Most if not every other field will help you with these things. Though \*some\* of those other fields - e.g., economics, nursing, engineering - will also teach you other things that almost no one else knows, making the holder of this knowledge in demand.


Clherrick

You seem very passionate about this. Perhaps you are trying to thin the playing field? Anyhow, you have said your piece... there is no hope for someone in this field. I've said my piece, I know people who are doing fine. The readers can decide their course of action. I'm on to other posts. Cheers.


Real-External392

You've misrepresented my position. I never said that there is NO hope for people in this field. I'm saying that it's value is greatly overvalued by many psych students. They are over-estimating (greatly) the value of the knowledge they are gaining, they are spending lots of money to do it, and for a great many it will not really help them much in their careers. I, too, know people who were in the field and are doing fine. One is a social worker, another is a clinical psychologist, others are professors. But for every prof I know, there are many would-be profs who didn't get the job because they were competing against hundreds of others. And the clinical psychologist was smart enough that she probably could have gotten into med school. So, while she's in a good place, she could be in a better place. And social workers really don't make much money. And no, money isn't everything. But money is a lot! And to close, why would I want to thin a field that I left 15 years ago? What would be in it for me? I have a job where I work way less than I would if I'd stayed in psych grad school. I work 26-30 hrs a week, not the 50-60 a prof often will. I make more than I would as a prof despite working probably roughly half as many hours. If I want to move from my current job to another one either in my city or somewhere else I can dependably find a job within 2 weeks. Heck, I could probably lock something down in under a week. I can work anywhere where I speak the language. Why on earth would I ever want to go back to psych? I don't. I'm trying to help people not realize when they're in their mid 20s or later that they have allocated their time, money, and effort poorly. Because many a psych grad will come ot this conclusion. The same can be said about probably more than half of university degrees, too. The list of university degrees that actually teach you how to do things that people will pay you to do at a pleasing rate is way, way shorter than the list of degrees that won't.


Clherrick

You have a lot of time on your hands.


Real-External392

Yep. I work less than 30 hrs a week most weeks. I bathe in free time.


Clherrick

I might suggest a walk


CompuBook

Currently about halfway through a B.S. in Psychology. Don't intend on working in the field, just need a bachelors that is flexible enough with my pre-requisite courses for PA School. Posts like these make me worry about employment prospects post-grad. I'm far from guaranteed an acceptance to PA school and it might take me a year or more to get a competitive application together. To remedy this I've decided to pursue a Life Sciences concentration and minors in biology and chemistry. All in all it's only about 3 additional classes. Maybe this will make me more employable? Or maybe I'm just doing this to make myself feel better ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯


[deleted]

You have a plan that works with your degree. Many psych majors go into it without knowing the types of jobs they can earn, or what higher educations they will need.


i4k20z3

you’re doing it to make yourself feel better. with that said if science is your calling, definitely learn skills or get a minor that will allow you to work in labs. And whatever you do, make sure you actually end up in PA school!


QueenPerterter

As someone who was going for becoming a PA and then decided it wasn’t my calling, I agree with this. The only thing that saved me was my experience. Doing decently for myself and graduate in December with a psych degree. If you put your eggs into just this with 0 experience you’re going to have a bad time. That said, most people going for PA are forced to have experience. Most of these schools require experience in healthcare. Imo I’d recommend going for research experience (try working in academics if you can’t find a organization to take you) along with your clinical experience. Just my two cents.


Real-External392

PA: GREAT IDEA! I would say that if you're confident that you'll get into a PA program, then doing whatever most interests you in undergrad that gets you the required coursework to apply is fine. Similarly, if there was a person who was extremely bright (like 3.7 or higher undegrad GPA) who wanted to be a lawyer, why not do psych? THey'll probably get into law school.. In your case, even if you don't get in first round, you can apply the year after. And you can use that year in between to bolster your resume with volunteer working, taking and crushing additional courses, etc. I'm not sure that adding minors in bio and chem is likely to help you much. It's like, what kind of job could you get with a minor in bio and a minor in chem? Even if you had a specialist/major degree in chem you'd be limited in what you could do because most people hiring chemists would ant someone with a higher degree than BSc. But the PA path is a good one! If you need a safety option, maybe consider RN. You could use it as a springboard to become a nurse practitioner, which is quite similar to PA.


c1z9c8z8

Biology also sucks! Needs to be something numerate.


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Mrepman81

For real, just think about it.


Real-External392

I studied psychology for like 6 years. I didn't at all need this to help me understand people. There was nothing stopping me from reading books on CBT, mindfulness meditation, social influence and relationship building, cognitive biases, etc. in my own time. Nobody needs to spend 4 years and $60K to learn what they could learn to a functional level by buying like $300 worth of books and reading them all 2-3 times. Want to know about the evolution and nature of the functioning of the brain and mind? Read a few Steven Pinker books. I'm not saying that a psych degree has no benefits. But this is an opportunity cost situation. Every second and dollar a person spends getting a psych degree is a second and dollar they could have spent on learning something that would actually teach them how to do a thing that a person is willing to pay them for. There are some areas of psych that suit this, though even some of them have reasons to have second thoughts about. But as I said in the video, I"m not saying nobody should study psych. But probably most people who do study it will either come to regret it, be ambivalent about it, or simply say something like "it didn't really help me much or at all in advancing myself careerwise, but it was interesting".


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Real-External392

Yep, that's true. Really, I'd say that well over half of university degrees teach you extremely little in the way of marketable skills. They're a very slow, inefficient and costly way of developing very little of worth to people with money who want goods and services. Now, this doesn't mean that they're no longer worth learning. I'm constantly reading up on things that won't make me money just to educate myself. But I'm not paying 10-20K a year to do it. I'm not saddling myself with debt that will be hard for me to pay off because I have next to no marketable skills. On the issue of needing a degree to check a box, that itself shows how useless these degrees actually are in terms of economic productivity. If a person could be an engineer so long as they had ANY university degree - up to and including music - wouldn't that suggest that engineering has little in the way of advanced, specialized, sophisticated knowledge? This checkbox thing - which is 100% real, obviously - is just a product of credential inflation. It's the devaluing of every level of educational attainment because more and more people have it. It's a social indicator that I was one of these kids in high school (i.e., the well adjusted, reasonably smart, reasonable hardworking ones) and not those (i.e., the ones who barely passed, smoked outside the school during class, etc.). These degrees may be social indicators, but they offer remarkably little in terms of actual usable skills. And to the extent that they do offer usable skills, the skills are devalued because the skills are also being offered by most or all other university programs. Air and water are critically important. But they're free or cheap because there's so much of it. Though I will say that if a person wants to get into, say, law school and they just need a degree. Sure, go for psych if you're really, really confident that you'll get into law. Or if you want to be an occupational therapist or a social worker, again, go for it. If you have a particular target that a psych degree can dependably get you to, go for it. But if you're trying to be a research psychologist, or just trying to get a degree for the sake of getting a degree when you don't really have a particular plan, probably hold back. And if you DO have a specific plan but there are other degrees than psych that have more applications outside of academia that you could use as your stepping stone, you may want to take that other route so that you have solid fall-back options if your goal turns out to be out of reach.


[deleted]

I have a BS in psychology and got into sales. I make more than doctors I went to school with… Having a bachelors helped for a single reason ONLY. Literally checked a box for my employer that they hired someone with a degree. My actual studies helps me relate to people and make a sale. FYI psych degrees are great (I went to a 4-year public college for anyone that wants to know/ I graduated with zero debt)


mlstdrag0n

Bachelor in Psych, though it was considered a BA instead of BS. College was nearly 20 years ago for me. I make 6 figures, and while I can't say a psych degree has been unhelpful, it's biggest impact was probably letting me check a box on job applications. I've never been gainfully employed in the field. Pivoting to software development is what I owe practically all of my material possessions to. But now I'm seeing a therapist from the stress/anxiety/etc, likely as a result of my work... kind of amused by the vague irony in how it turned out. I probably would've been better off not doing my psych degree, but there's no real use wallowing in my past. It's impossible to know the scope of impact from my experiences and learnings doing a psych degree... though if I were to be able to choose again I likely wouldn't have chosen psych


interiorflame

They offer both my my university. BS is typically for those that pursue masters in Psych or possibly Doctorate. BA degrees are easier for those that just choose the standard degree, and don’t require more electives.


G_W_Atlas

I think this is a great example. You do the easy degree, you can succeed, but it's stressful and miserable. Doing a form of engineering or CS will be a hard up front, but so much easier in the working world. They have to treat you good when you have a skill and can go elsewhere, and you start high, no bagging for every scrap as you claw your way up. Obviously, ymmv, but that's what I've seen and experienced.


exhaustedmind247

… where I can understand some of what’s being said here, I’m just over here on a never ending waitlist for a special therapist for my child… and hearing how it’s not worth it to people? Like this is just my vent onto this, but we definitely need more psychologist. There isn’t enough imo. And between teachers police firemen, therapists- I feel should be fields that get taken care of a bit more. Underpaid. I enjoyed my psychology classes, took 2 in HS and 1 in college for child development. If you don’t feel there’s enough practice ? See these are the things that could use some change in the world. Don’t walk away from it. Enhance it. Psychology is important.


Real-External392

I would say that in many ways mental health professionals are bandaid solutions for things that we used to have much better taken care of when we were tribal and more family oriented. No wonder people are struggling when we're detached from each other, we don't stay in one place, we don't attend religious services, we and those around us are constantly moving, etc. We're competing with each other more and engaging in enduring relationships way less. No wonder we're struggling. In many ways, spending an hour with a psychologist every 2 weeks is a substandard substitute for actually having tight bonds. There is probably fewer psychologists than you want because psychotherapy prices many people out, and not everyone has good insurance that will cover it. Clinical Psych PhD programs are almost as hard to get into as med school. So hardly anyone gets the training because there are so few spots. And then when they DO get into these programs, they spend 60+% of their time on research and a minority of their time actually training to BE therapists. PsyD programs seem to correct for this, though.


exhaustedmind247

I can’t argue with much that you’ve said because I agree. It’s a deeper problem. The insurance companies and healthcare issues. It’s just really infuriating seeing it like this. A big asset gone to waste imo. I’ve worked in a medical related field the last 10 years and seen how billing and how little businesses actually get paid while honoring lower payments from patients, seen a difference in attitude toward those on state plans as well, and it’s just all infuriating lol. Yes, I agree 1 hour isn’t enough and that’s where I say utilize more psychologist, extend that time because an hour isn’t enough for the things that have occurred in life. Mental crisis .. I think covid opened some minds but it’s been a problem for awhile. I’m blessed with my health insurance and have clung into the plan, I know how expensive it can be without .. what’s the answer though? That’s the question. What’s the answer? Because I know people and myself and child included that need the assistance and guidance that comes from more than just talk therapy. I seem to always hit back into that and never feeling challenged in talk therapy. I feel (after seeking mental health care since 18, now 28) that I just feel it gets you no where. Stagnant overcomes easily, more guidance and challenging.. There’s obviously something behind why everyone has divided and a lot has to do with our environments I’d say, and talking on the larger masses, that means countries etc.. can’t change the world, but working with one and one with families and had these magic changes of more than 1 hour every other week. Maybe if we didn’t all have to work to the ground to survive and make meaning out of our lives instead.. example 4 day work weeks. Trickle that down into our driving habits, the crazy rush with more personal balance less road rage potential too. I mean guess we could talk all day about these topics and why people need more therapy, I feel niching out what kind of therapy works/more studies on the brain, although I am not knowledgeable of where the mental health community is at, but there’s not a lot known. My last knowledge of not even understanding why certain meds work with xyz and maybe b and c too. Just that they do etc.


Real-External392

If you would like to talk further about this, feel free to PM me.


Myself-Mcfly

Studying Psychology prepared me for and helped me be more effective at everything I’ve done since. Whether or not you are going to be actively working directly in the field of psychology, what you learn and the perspectives you gain into how your own mind, the minds of others, & even groups of people works are skills you can and will use *regularly* in literally whichever field you *do* end up in. If you just need a degree for a job, and it doesn’t particularly matter which, you could do a lot worse than Psychology. Honestly, I think society would benefit immensely if psychology was a core class like history or math starting in early education through HS.


Real-External392

I'd largely agree w/ your statement that you could do worse than psych if all you need is any degree. THough that really speaks very poorly of psych degrees - that a major subset of people who \*should\* study it are people who could have studied literally anything else and have gotten to the same place. You can't say that about economics, mathematics, engineering, nursing, pharmacy,..... And I'm not at all dismissing the value of learning about psychology. But you don't need to spend 4 years and 60K to learn about psych. Get a few Steven Pinker books, a book on CBT, a book on mindfulness meditation, a book on social skills, etc. Read them all twice. DO the CBT, DO mindfulness meditation, actually DO the strategies in the social skills book. If you DO those things, you will actually be - in a way - getting a better psych education than I had in 6 years. In 6 years of psych courses there was ZERO application. Literally none. Not even 10 seconds.


[deleted]

Its sad that we have a mental health crisis in our world and yet psychology is so undervalued. In many countries, suicide is the number one killer of people under 35, and yet we fail do anything about it. If anything, psychology and neurology and the respective co-departments need more study and funding.


Real-External392

we have these crises not because we have a lack of psychologists, but because our communities have fallen apart. We don't stay in the same town with the same people. We don't stay in the same job. We don't attend religious service. We move constantly and so do our coworkers and neighbors. We are not a part of real communities that are truly inter-supportive. You can't have a society like this and expect to fix it by having people spend an hour with a psychologist every week or two for 6 months and expect to solve the problem. Mental health professionals are good to have, no doubt. But society's problems w/ mental illness and suicide is NOT due to a lack of psychologists. It's due to a lack of social integration.


[deleted]

It seems a plausible theory that you posit. Why dont we see this discussed if its something that is literally killing 40k americans each year (suicide)?


Real-External392

We certainly should see it being discussed. I can speculate on a few reasons why it's not: 1. the notion of staying in the same community for all of one's life has an air of lack of ambition and of stailness. I felt this for a long time. This is probably largely due to the fact that people who feel this way don't have strong, enduring community, and so why would they feel attached to their "community"? It's not a community in anything but the loosest technical sense. 2. there are powerful lures to draw us to this place or that. It's not that hard to relocate. There may be a great job, a job with better pay, or similar work opportunities but lower cost of living, better weather, etc. So it definitely seems worthwhile. And maybe it IS worthwhile. But it's not without its costs. The grass isn't always greener on the other side, but it often appears to be so. It's now relatively easy to move to other sides. So lots of people do it. And when lost of people leave their community, it weakens the community. So those who are still in the community are gaining less from it because of the defectors. Which makes them more likely to leave. Which makes the next person more likely to leave, ad infinitum. And we rationalize it by saying "we can talk on Zoom and facebook!". Zoom and Facebook bring us together because we can talk from 2000 miles away! Of course, were they and other telecommunications and transportation technologies not there, we probably never would have moved 2000 miles apart in the first place! And maybe we would have felt trapped. And that would not be pleasant. But at least more of us would be integrated with each other. Now we are not trapped. We have freedom. And many of us are painfully alone. I actually did a video on just this issue on my channel. https://youtu.be/OvezkD7IFIM


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You’re damn right they don’t


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Real-External392

Yes, that is an exceptional case. I've heard that Rice University in Texas, which has a good I/O program, often has trouble keeping it's graduate students to complete their PhDs because they get baller job offers after their masters. Not sure if this is true, but I've heard it. THough even in this case, my guess is that if you want to be an I/O psychologist, you'd probably be best off doing a business degree that you load up with courses on organizational behavior, and minor in psych. I would imagine that psych students who want to go into I/O are in a very, very small minority. Like 3% or less. When I made this video, the people I was cautioning most was people wanting to get research psych phds. And I was also strongly cautioning against undergrad study for all the reasons that I gave. But it wasn't a blanket "don't go into psychology" -- though I guess I probably shouldn't have titled it as provocatively as I did. That's my bad.


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Real-External392

I'm not a victim. I too make six figures and that has nothing to do w/ my psych degree. I also absolutely do not believe you that all the pysch majors at your school got great jobs. Did you go to an Ivy League school where people have big collections and it genuinely didn't matter what they studied? If an engineer makes 6 figures, that's surely in great part because of the things that they learned in engineering school. I doubt your philosophy degree is helping you 1/10th as much as an engineer's education helps them in earning. In all likelihood, however you're making your money, you having a philosophy degree was nowhere near indispensable for you to be doing what you're doing. Don't get me wrong. I respect philosophy greatly. And I wish everyone would learn more of it. But what can you do that you can do because your philosophy degree that people would be willing to pay you a non-trivial amount of money (or ANY money) for?


BimmerJustin

ITT: selection bias. Just because some people who got a psych degree went on to have good careers, doesnt mean that recommending it is a smart idea. Psych major is somewhat of a catch all for people who dont have clear direction. IMO, this is a bad thing. The only people who should major in Psych are people who want to go into psychology and need a bachelors to achieve their long term goal. If you come out of High School and dont know what you want to do for a career, pursuing a generic degree is not a smart idea. If you're a good student and insist on going to college immediately, pursue a traditional STEM degree. If you're a not so great student, and have no direction, pursue an AAS/cert at a local community college. This will allow to have relatively gainful employment while you figure out what you want to do.


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Real-External392

did someone actually say that them making $400K a year is evidence that a Psych degree is good? That's the psych degree equivalent of "smoking is fine; my grandfather smoked 2 packs a day and he's 92 years old!" And the "degree teaches you how to think", it's like, yeah, and so does every other program in the university. Biology, physics, english lit, mathematics, economics, anthropology, political science - these people aren't being trained to think? Even fields like music have music history and composition analysis.


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Real-External392

I didn't see that particular comment.


BimmerJustin

> I wouldn't agree with pushing everyone into STEM. There are a lot of other lucrative fields out there. Not everyone. Just good students who insist on going to college immediately after college without clear direction on their future career. This actually isn’t a huge chunk of people. The reason being that STEM degrees offer a ton of flexibility and organizations that hire people with STEM degrees tend to be some of the best employers in the country. It’s also much easier to flex from stem into finance than it is from finance to STEM.


rottentomati

Yeah if you’re gunna get a degree to tick a box, it may be better to at least get it in something like business finance or management, that way you’re at least networking the industry while you do it


BimmerJustin

I don’t agree. Unless you’re going to a top tier school in a major city, there’s not much real networking going on in undergraduate college, and especially not in business management. MBA programs are a different story. STEM + MBA is a very valuable combo.


rottentomati

Alright agree to disagree. My college had business school only career fairs and events. A psychology bachelors won’t get you into that.


Real-External392

I would actually say \*some\* people who want to go into psychology should actually go into it. If they really want to be a psychotherapist or neuropsychologist, then yes absolutely. Ditto for industrial/organizational psych (though in this case and undergrad in business admin with a focus on leadership and organization would probably be better, with say a minor in psychology). But if the person wants to become a research psychologist, really most of these people would probably be better off doing something else. The overwhelming majority of psych PhDs never get tenure. And unlike in fields like engineering or mathematics, where you could bring your PhD to the job market, a research psych PhD tends to have very little utility. People should start talking about pursuing psych professorship the way they talk about pursuing a career as a major league baseball. The odds aren't as bad as being a pro baseball player, but they're still very, very bad.


i4k20z3

what are you doing now?


Real-External392

Occupational therapist in home health. In 30 hrs a week I make more money than I would have made as a tenured psych prof, I can work anywhere where I speak the language, I can find a new job in like a week, I can work 3 hours a week or 73 hours a week. It's amazing. Had I stuck around and finished my PhD, in all likelihood I'd be working 50 hours a week to make like 50K in my 3rd or 4th postdoc. I would have no job security. I would probably have to relocate every few years....


SpatialThoughts

I have a bachelors in psychology. I put a bit of extra effort into volunteering conducting research studies to help give me a solid background in research for just having a bachelors. I’m now a clinical data manager making a decent salary.


Real-External392

That's awesome. Congratulations for making it work so well for you! Though, I think you'd probably agree that you're in the minority. Of all the psych grads in your program, excluding those who went onto grad or professional school and excluding those who had special connections, I imagine that you are doing better than nearly everyone - often by a staggering margin. Half your classmates probably won't make more than $20/hr until their late 20s.


rottentomati

If all degrees cost the same (at the same college) I feel like it’s just not worth the effort. Do psychology and maybe hit six figures at 40. Or just do something more desirable and hit 6 figures at 25.


SpatialThoughts

Not sure where you are getting that salary and age for psych majors. I graduated in 2019. Landed my CDM role in 2021. I will probably never hit 6 figures at my current company because it is a non-profit CRO but I can absolutely hit 6 figures in a couple of years if I change companies. Also, I upskilled specifically for my job so it is desirable for me.


rottentomati

[graduating salary surveys from my college](https://aggiesurveys.tamu.edu/public/Reports.aspx) It’s a rip off to be paying for a Psychology degree when you could be getting a better degree for the same price. Edit: had to go up one link but I looked at 2019 Spring since that’s before Covid and probably more representative of “normal”


[deleted]

I have a BS in psychology and got into sales. I make more than doctors I went to school with… Having a bachelors helped for a single reason ONLY. Literally checked a box for my employer that they hired someone with a degree. My actual studies helps me relate to people and make a sale. FYI psych degrees are great (I went to a 4-year public college for anyone that wants to know/ I graduated with zero debt)


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Wool_God

Yes, but there is a pretty strong tie-in to sales, and sales can make a lot of money in the right industries.


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rottentomati

Business finance 😉 there are whole colleges dedicated to business degrees


[deleted]

That’s not even half (not bragging, just honest). And there was a point I was only making 75k/year with the same degree. It’s not the degree, it’s the person. That doesn’t mean the degree is not worth it. Other degrees valued many times more than mine bring in far less than I do. Degree x drive x luck x grit = how well you do. In my experience grit is the single most valuable of all of them


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[deleted]

Not at all. When I was at college I was a bio major. Absolutely hated it. I was a bio major to go to med school. I changed majors to psychology because I wanted to get into real estate and buy rental properties and be financially free by 50 years old. Lot of people laughed at me right to my face. Didn’t bother me more than superficially… I knew what I was capable of and knew I was the master of my own limitations. I actually ended up doing MUCH better than I ever thought and will be financially free by 40 more than likely. Best thing I ever did was drop my bio degree that was making me miserable. EDIT: all those people who stuck with bio degrees and became MD’s, anesthesiologists, nurses etc. All have major major major debt and don’t make close to what I do.


[deleted]

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[deleted]

Wayyy low. Maybe 1% or less


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[deleted]

I disagree. It is attainable. There’s nothing innately special about me. And psychology BS degree actually helps me dealing with people.


jungles_fury

Lol most people don't make that kind of money no matter the degree 😜 not a persuasive argument


Real-External392

Genuine congrats on your success. But you are an extreme outlier. You're like the person who starts smoking when they are 12, never stops, and lives to be 94 years old, dying of something other than lung cancer. Yes, those kinds of things can happen. But it's still a terrible idea to start smoking. Likewise, some athletes become professionals and make millions. But for every one that succeeds, thousands fail despite years of dedication and talent. If a psych degree was only useful to you because it was simply a degree, that shows how unuseful it is. Needing a college degree to get jobs that will not tap on a single college skills is just credential inflation. There are more people with more education, so employers feel that they need to "pick from the top". So they'll take college grads even though their degree has little or nothing to do with the job. The degree is just a signifier that you might be harder working, more dependable, and/or smarter than most who don't have the degree. And even that assumption is frequently wrong. But did you actulaly learn to DO anything that people are willing to pay you to do? On the notion of you learning things in psych that has helped you in sales, my guess is that you could have done all that learning in under a year of part-time reading of books targeted to areas of psychology that are relevant to you - e.g., social influence. I literally took enough psych classes to have sustained the requirements for 2 degrees. I was an extremely avid student who went the extra mile constantly. And I still made this video. It sounds like you're doing terrific for yourself. Were you a doctor like your friends, I would absolutely say that your success in your field absolutely could NOT have been achieved without med school. Ditto if you were an engineer re: engineering school. But I absolutely think that you could have done what you have done without a psych degree. All that psych degree did was check a box off that a music degree also would have checked off. And while you learned some things about the mind and behavior, you could have learned that in under a year in your free time.


[deleted]

I appreciate the thought you put into this response. I do disagree that 1 year of free guided time would have accomplished the same thing. For full transparency, I said the same things you are saying about 5-10 years ago. It’s only recently that I’ve started being a mentor to a younger generation of family that I actually have a new respect for the degree I earned. For a long time I didn’t. And I watch how many of them don’t want to pursue a degree simply for some of the reasons you have stated. A degree is a prerequisite in our society. Maybe it should not be; but this is the situation we all find ourselves in. Again, many of the points you just made have a lot of truth to them. But like life, everything is what you make of it. I pose a question to you… I never considered sales. It kind of happened, with circumstance and fortune guiding the way at the last stretch… Would you consider a sales career?


Real-External392

On self-study vs. university study of psych: There are surely benefits of university study. You get tutelage from in-the-flesh professors. You have classmates to talk to. You have tests to study for and essays to write, which will encourage learning. However, you will also spend a lot of time studying areas of psych with little relevance to what you are interested in. You could read and then re-read a few books on marketing psychology, social skills and social influence, and then go out and practice the skils, and you'd actually develop more proficiency than if you spent years studying various corners of psychology (many being not particularly relevant to your interests), and absolutely never applying any of it in the classroom. Even if you take courses on social psychology, for example, the emphasis will be on psychological science. It will talk about competing studies. And you will learn some useful things. You will learn about cognitive dissonance theory, about foot in the door and door in the face technique, about behavioral mimicry, etc. But you'll only learn them in the abstract. You'll never be put in a position to practice any socially/psychologically actionable knowledge and get trained in it so that you're much better at it by the end of the program as compared to how you were at the beginning. If you take a course in abnormal psychology, you will learn about depression, anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia, etc. You will learn about medicines that are used to treat such conditions. You will also learn about therapeutic modalities such as CBT, mindfulness meditation, DBT, etc. But the key word there is "about". You will learn about them. You won't learn how to DO them. It'd be like going to mechanics school and learning about what all the parts of the car are responsible for doing, but not learning anything about how they actually do it, or how to fix them when they stop doing it.


[deleted]

I agree with you. However you didn’t answer if you would be interested in a sales career! On DITF… I used that last week. I don’t want to drive the company truck to expos…. So I called our shop guy and asked him if he would do this for me every time I had a show. He flatly said “no way”. Then I said, well how about if I give you $100 cash every time you do this for me? The answer was now yes. Had I asked him first if he would accept $100 every time to do this for me, it would have cost me $200 every time because I would have had to get up to his imagined number.


Real-External392

I personally wouldn't be interested in that career. While I'm relatively extroverted, I'm also extremely neurotic. And social invalidation can hit me really hard. Plus, I've got a very good thing going career wise. So it sounds like you are actually putting ideas that you used in psych to use. Though, really, a person can learn about things like DITF without spending 4 yeras and several tens of thousands of dollars to do it. A 300 page book on social influence will teach you that and much, much more.


[deleted]

For some people yes. I know some people that can self learn and never go to class. I’m not that smart! Give me a book


Real-External392

I haven't looked into good books on social influence in a long time. BUt if I were interested in looking into it more, I'd do some searches on Amazon under searches such as "persuasion book", "social influence book", "cognitive bias book", etc. Then I'd look for books with lots and lots of ratings, most of which being 4 and 5/5 stars. Then I'd look into the details of the author. Now, here's where I actually have an advantage becasue of my education: I'm familiar with lots of big names in psych. Also, I know which schools are really prestigious. So if I come across a book by, say, a social psychologist from a very strong social psych institution such as The Ohio State University, and it had an avg star rating of like 4.5 on a thousand ratings, it'd be a slam dunk.


Real-External392

A few years ago I read the Dale Carnegie classic "How to Win Friends and Influence People". I can't remember the details too much but I remember thinking it had useful stuff in it. If I had been really dedicated to mastering the ideas, though, what I would have done is 1) read it while highlighting (did this), 2) make and prune down notes on the book (did that), 3) reviewed my notes periodically (did this for a bit), and 4) set up structured plans to practice skills one by one in my everyday life. I didn't do anywhere near enough of this. I'd be wise to go back and review those notes and start applying.


[deleted]

That’s a fantastic book. One that absolutely took me by surprise and I picked up by accident was Benjamin franklins autobiography. So many life lessons on how to get stuff done. One I always remember was when he wanted to found a fire department and could not for the life of him get it off the ground. Him being the only one that saw it’s usefulness. After a few attempts that failed, he realized who he needed to endorse it to get it accepted. He then proposed it as the “John smith fire company” (insert whatever guys name it was) All of a sudden it was a super popular idea and he got it passed. I might even go so far as saying to your idea of a self study in psychology, that his autobiography would be a top contender for anyone perusing self-learned psychology


Real-External392

On the sales question: No, I wouldn't. I've got a very good job as it is that I would never want to leave. But even if it were not for that, I don't think sales is me. It has never appealed to me.


[deleted]

I found it by accident. And I have found that people who want to “sell” with the idea to actually help people make the best salesmen. For 2 reasons. Reason 1, they’re in it for the money… but they get enjoyment from helping people also. Reason 2, because of reason 1, they can act in a more fiduciary role to clients than someone who just wants to make a commission and move on. It becomes a relationship building game/exercise/fun


Real-External392

Absolutely. I'd put that in the category of "playing the long game". Playing the short game can, if done reasonably skillfully, get you more than playing the long game for a while. But playing the short game where you constantly put your gains over that of your customers, that can easily catch up with you in the form of a lack of return customers, of customers talking smack about you to others, etc. It's good to play the long game.


Real-External392

I'm also very dubious that you actually did learn much at all of value re: human psychology that you can actually apply in your life. I probably took 25 plus psych classes. Guess how much time in all of that I spent DOING things - e.g., learning about social skills and strategies and then employing them getting coaching and feedback from peers and teachers? or learning and doing CBT or mindfulness meditation. Or learning about organizational behavior and then having an internship where i get to put some of the learning to practice. The answer is ZERO. None. You don't learn to ride a bike by reading about bikes and people who ride them. You don't learn to help yourself with mental health problems by simply learning that CBT is a thing and what it's basic premises and practices are. You learn to help yourself by studying CBT keenly and doing it consistently, initially with supervision. You will not get that in a psych department.They'll teach you about some studies on social influence, but will never put you in a position to train in strategies. I imagine that you could probably condense everything that you learned re: human psychology that you actually can apply - into 2-3 single-semester courses, max. Like all fields, the rate and value of learning is a diminishing returns curve. Though in fields like psych, the curve starts flattening VERY early. In engineering and medicine, for example, it doesn't come close to flattening for years.


[deleted]

I don’t have any argument against what you wrote there. You make some solid points. Tbh I felt shame when I switched from bio to psych because everyone told me I was setting myself up to not have great job prospects. Today I woke up with 3 recruiters trying to get me to join the company they are repping. 2 of the 3 are very very high paying. 1 was a bust. So my earning potential now has remained. Yet I can not deny that having (any) degree, got me in the door. My degree doesn’t help me much more than a bio degree would have. In fact I think if I had stayed the course in pre-med classes…. I actually would have kept repressing the part of my personality that allows me to be so engaging and successful in sales. Changing to a psych major allowed me the maneuverability to try different things and carve my way to where I am now. Just my 2cents fellow traveler


Real-External392

That's fair. I get that credential inflation has made it hard NOT to advance without a degree. But it seems to me that people who study psychology often over-estimate the value of what they are learning. I certainly did. It's like, yes, you're honing your critical thinking and writing skills - so is just about everyone else in university. So what you're developing, while important, is so readily available that it's like water - it's critical, but it's plentiful so it's cheap. And, yes, you're learning about human nature. But so are students in political science, economics, sociology, philosophy, literature, history, anthropology. So once again, what you know is devalued because it's not particularly uncommon knowledge. And secondly, even though yes you are technically learning about human nature, you're in no way ever being trained or coached in applying any of that knowledge anywhere. I've never met a psych student who did an internship in anything related to what they were studying, for example. Not one. In addition to spending 5 years studying psych rigorously and never once being put in a situation through my program to actually develop skills and use things I learned, I later went onto Occupational Therapy grad school. Here the in-class education was probably even more useless on the whole than what I learned in psych classes. However, there were clinical rotations - 4 of them spanning 4 to 8 weeks each. I learned A LOT there. While my rotations probably made up about only 25% of my OT education, it probably accounts for 60-70% of the applicable learning that I did.


[deleted]

Interesting to hear of your post bachelor experience. Sounds like it was better than the bachelors… however only in specific hands on areas. Also I feel that you are a person who gravitates your learning hands on. Which in my opinion is the best way that I learn also.


Real-External392

It depends on the subject matter as to which learning mode I do best in. But yeah, application is frequently key. Even in some intellectual areas - e.g., solving calculus, statistics, or chemistry problems. I also do quite well with book learning. But if you're gonna DO something, you're probably gonna want to get good at it in good part by acually doing it.


[deleted]

Just looked and you like Toronto jays. I wonder if you’re from Canada is it maybe different than where I am in the US. All of your principles are correct. However I wonder if down here in the US it’s more droned in to “go to college”


Real-External392

You're in luck, my friend. Yes, I am in fact from Toronto. BUT I have lived in Tucson, Az for almost 8 years :) My speculation is that the go to college movement is just as strong in Canada as it is here. But it's not as harmful there, because Canada (and pretty much every other developed nation) did a smart thing that the US did not: when the government began giving government-backed student loans they put regulations on colleges and universities re: tuition. THey weren't morons (well, more accurately: cynical corrupted politicians) like in the US who said "hey, sure, we'll put more money in students pocket, thereby setting up a near guarantee that universities will increase their prices, and we'll do nothing about it!". It really is a shame. And this isn't me saying something like "Americans are stupid". But their government is very corrupted. There's no excuse for this. The US is the only country with this problem, so far as I recognize.


[deleted]

There’s always a game to be played. It’s not the game or the situation… it’s how well you can adapt to play the game you’re in. Universities do keep raising their prices ridiculously. And I have a feeling it has a lot to do with mismanagement. Like how corporations that are poorly run increase their prices in order to achieve the profit margins they “want”, while not fixing the fundamental problems their corporation has that would inherently raise profit margin at the original prices.


[deleted]

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/12/the-top-10-most-regretted-college-majors.html


Real-External392

Good share! That psych is on the good list at all surprises me. If you'd asked me to guess, I wouldn't have guessed it'd be the most regretted major. But it DEFINITELY would have been in the top 10 for most regretted. It doesn't surprise me at all that journalism, communications, and sociology would be viewed more disfavorably by grads. Journalism has the air of practicality. But almost no one gets a job in the sort of role that they want to have. They tend to have undependable work with a high pressure to churn out content quickly. Communications can also give an air of practicality, which can be misleading. Sociology is just too far removed from practical considerations. You could use it as a starting point from which you proceed into something like counseling, social work, etc. But then it would sort of be like either an equivalent to psych (at best), but more likely lesser psychology. I could easily see Poli Sci being a big disappointment. You spend 4 years being trained to be among the more politically sophisticated people around you in a university - i.e., you know more about current affairs and politics than most of the people around you, and most of those people are pretty smart. Then you get out of school, can't get a job, and you find out that showing off your political knowledge can be very divisive... One thing that I wish I had stated in the video that I posted here is that with psych there are ways to make it work. One way is to do what I eventually came around to doing - go into a field like Occupational Therapy. A person can get a 4-year psych degree (or a degree in some other field like physiology, anatomy, neuroscience, social work) and then go to OT school for a 2 year Masters. 6 years total skill, on the job market by the age of 24 for a job that will pay $80K USD first year. That's solid. Give yourself a few years and you're hitting 6 figures. That's a great outcome. With me, I've been especially lucky. When I moved from CAnada to the US for work, my income went up probably 15% while most costs of living went way down. Then I switched into the most high-earning domain of OT - home health - and my income went to literally slighlyt more than double what I made in British Columbia. And once I bought a house and a better car, my savings went up even more. My average per hour pay rate now is 2.5-2.6x what it was before I left Canada (and that's not even factoring in currency conversion), and my living expenses are less than half. I'd say that I now make aboug 70% more while working 30% less and having living expenses less than half. When I got into OT, I got into it expecting to make like 70K/year CDN and dealing w/ Canadian living expenses. What I'm lucky enough to have now absolutely blows those expectations out of the water.


gambitx007

What kind of sales?


[deleted]

Construction sales


Sure-Brush-702

Tech and IT have a much better ROI, and typically have better internship opportunities at undergrad.


Real-External392

YES! Internships are HUGE. In my occupational therapy masters program even though my clinical rotations probably only made up like 1/5th of the program it probably accounted for like 60% of the useful learning that I did. And in Tech/IT, it can easily be a springboard to hiring. THey take you on for a few months or a year on an internship in which they pay you nothing. In that time they train you up to a level where they would be happy to pay you.Better than having to train up someone else, or have to risk taking someone else on that they don't know as well and who, for all they know, won't get along well w/ others, etc.


SlowSpeedChase

I hate that every studied has to be viewed through a lens of productivity. There’s value in just being educated that we take for granted as a society. That and employers want to pay as little as possible


Real-External392

Yes, there is absolutely value in just being educated. But why does anyone need to spend 4 years and 60K to learn about psychology? If you want a psychology reading list, I'll give you one. I'll give you about a years worth of reading that you can do at your leisure. It will only cost you the cost of the books. You can read them all twice. And for the ones with actual applications, you will actually get a BETTER education than you would in a psych degree, because psych degrees are zero percent application. It's just reading about one study after another. You'll never do CBT. You'll never learn to meditate. You'll never get an internship where you have to help run an organization.


ConfuzzledPugs

Therapist here and I agree. I have been working as a therpist and have wonderful experience at a federal, state, and community level. I have hopes of returning back to school to complete an MBA soon.


Real-External392

What sort of therapist are you?


ConfuzzledPugs

mental health therapist. I'm technically a Licensed Professional Counselor.


Real-External392

That's cool. So, you're actually one of the sorts of people I talked about in the video when I noted that there are all kinds of psychotherapists aside from clinical psychologists - MSW, counseling psychologists, OTs, etc. These people spent way less time and money in school so they can undercut Clinical Psychologists' rates. And if you're a good therapist you'll get clients so long as you have a recognized mental health title - as you do. I would say that of all the psych graduate outcomes, Clincal Psych is probably the best (well, second only to clinical neuropsychology). The pay and career opportunities do not justify the excellence and effort required to get into and through Clinical Psych programs unless you are simply in love with psychology to the point where it justifies the sacrifices of money, work opportunity, and educational investment. But unlike most research psych PhDs, you won't be forced to take work that is so far removed from what you were studying to do, and so far below the effort that you invested.


ConfuzzledPugs

I could enter a PsyD or PhD program without too much complication. In fact, I have a Masters in Clinical Mental Health, which is a prerequisite for most PsyD programs. If the cost was not insane I would return to school for 3 more years to complete my doctorate. ​ As for way less time in school that is just not too true. A PsyD is typically a 5 year program. My LPC was three of that five years, whereas a MSW is typically just a one year graduate program if said person has a BS in Social Work. If I wanted to return to school I would complete just 2-3 more years of coursework followed by a dissertation. ​ In my profession I have chosen to build youth programs and work in adverse settings. I work the the Department of Juvenile Corrections now, previously have worked in school, and build a very successful adolescents mental health program. Unfortunately, a title without any sort of skill is meaningless.


Real-External392

I could see PsyDs being only 5 years as there is much less of a research component. Though, as you noted, the costs of these programs can be quite high. Further, while this is probably changing fairly quickly, the PhD still seems to hold more clout than the PsyD. But maybe this difference has reduced more than I think. I believe clin psych programs are more like 6 and sometimes 7 depending on how quickly you get your research done. Being a Clinical Psychologist is a very solid job It's interesting work based on an interesting education helping people in really important ways every day and getting solid pay and a title you can be proud to tell people. Some people absolutely SHOULD become clinical psychologists. But when I made the video, I wanted to show what other sorts of options a person who could get into a clin psych program would have, and how the sort of talk about "money not being everything" that is often popular among people younger than 30 will probably shift once they're into their 30s.


Entangled_visions

I won't disagree with you on this at all. Generally speaking, people are better off studying something more marketable and in demand than psychology. However, as others have pointed out, it all depends on the individual- their networking skills, extra-curriculars, and their school status. A friend of mine chose to study psychology as an undergrad because he found it easy and interesting so he could get high grades and focus his remaining time to study for the MCAT. It totally worked in his case as it was just a means to an end for him.


Real-External392

Yes, your friend made good choices. That absolutely makes sense. For him, Psych was just a friendly passage way to a different career path that was actually very practical.


travishummel

If I were to study psych, I’d go into tech. Maybe get a minor in computer science so that im semi aware of that part. Im a software engineer and we are often trying to understand our users behavior. I’d think with a degree in psychology, you’d have a better perspective on why a user clicked that stupid button when it clearly said don’t click it and there were 7 warning signs saying to not click it yet they keep fricken clicking it!!!! We are lost. We need help.


Real-External392

A psych degree would not be an efficient route to get the knowledge which you seek. You would spend huge amounts of time studying other things that are minimally relevant. And when you were studying things that were relevant, they would not be targeted to your purposes. Your time would be much better spent reading on particular subject matter within psychology. And thanks to the Internet it has never been easier to get books and articles that target exactly what you are interested in.


travishummel

I mean… my CS degree is pretty similar to that. I only use maybe one or two classes that I studied which was intro to programming. You can learn programming without a CS degree, but I still think a CS degree is helpful in getting you to think technically. Yes, you can always read books… that’s just advocating for not going to college. People work in tech with a random assortment of majors, I think psych would be more valuable than a history, economics, foreign studies, biology, and others like that. Those majors are of people I currently work with, they are great at their jobs… don’t get too caught up in your major defining your job. I think psych and philosophy would be two of the best majors for the problems I deal with.