<p>Hey again!</p>
<p>I'm interested if anyone knows of some schools on the West Coast that have amazing psychology programs...any hints? I'm looking for a wide range of psychology options, including any type of child/adolescent psychology. Just spit some names out there...although a medium sized school with no religious affiliation in either California or Oregon would help! </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Most well-regarded schools will have a solid psychology department-its usually one of the bigger departments, like econ and bio. All the ‘usual’ majors are generally going to be fine at most reputable schools. It’s the unusual majors where you might have to do some digging to ensure that there is sufficient breadth and depth. And graduate school in psych is where you usually have to start thinking about the focus (research vs. clinical etc…) and whether its going to meet your professional goals.</p>
<p>My suggestion would be to find a school that’s strong overall: You may think psych is your passion now. But two years from now it may something you never expected to love-neuroscience or anthropology or whatever. If you’ve picked a solid school that’s a good fit for you, you’ll be able to adapt the academic program to fit your changing/evolving interests.</p>
<p>That makes total sense, thanks for your help! I completely agree, and there’s no doubt that my mind’s going to change, although psychology seems really interesting to me. I’m going to take a community college class in it this fall. </p>
<p>I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Sonoma State University, but if you have, do you have any comments about their psychology department?</p>
<p>Realize also that depending on your exact career goals, becoming a child/adolescent psychiatrist or specialist in adolescent medicine should be considered. However these options would require you to go to medical school. </p>
<p>To become a child psychiatrist, there are a couple of options, but all begin with earning an MD or DO degree which is 4 years. After that, you can do a number of things
<p>There are 2 other options that are less psychiatry based, more medical in nature but still offer a lot of opportunity to help children and teens who are having problems. </p>
<p>3) Complete a 3 year general pediatrics or internal medicine (or 4 year combined medicine/pediatrics) residency program then finish a 3 year adolescent medicine fellowship. You’d primarily be focused on the “medicine” portion of care (and by this I mean, you wouldn’t be focused exclusively on just psych issues) but since the physical health of teenagers is so intertwined with their mental health, adolescent physicians are VERY good at helping their patients through problems at school, work, home and with friends. </p>
<p>4) There is a new program (I’m having trouble finding the link at the moment) which is aimed at training general pediatricians to be better and more comfortable with psychiatric conditions in childhood. I believe it’s two years, and would follow general pediatrics residency with the idea being you’d still be a community pediatrician, but better equipped to diagnose and treat the variety of problems kids experience.</p>
<p>The biggest difference in these options compared to being a school/child psychologist is the prescription aspect. You have to have an MD or DO to prescribe medications. The difference between options 1 and 2 as compared to 3&4 is that the psychiatrists receive training in things like psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, with less emphasis on other aspects of illness (though the triple boarders do have the two years of general peds). It may not seem like much, but it does make a difference - when I was on my psych rotation during the third year of medical school, I had a schizophrenic patient show one of the psych residents (a doctor training to be a psychiatrist) a rash they had, to which the psych resident said “you should really see a doctor about that”. </p>
<p>This is probably more information and more choices than you thought existed!</p>
<p>After medical school, you could also do peds, then Behavioral Pediatrics, but it would be a LONG time before you get to study Psychology. Most behavioral peds I know seem to focus on younger kids with behavior problems (like ADHD) and developmental delays. Not exactly “psychology”. I wonder if that’s what Bigredmed means? I believe there are many projects underway to help Pediatricians (and Psychologists, for that matter) do " Psychiatry". You should know that in Psychiatry, you will primarily be expected to prescribe, and will need to work hard to resist it’s lure ($$$, for example), if you want to do something more “psychological”.</p>
<p>Bigredmed, I think Psych residencies vary a lot. From what I’ve heard (my own was in the 80’s, but I meet recent grads at meetings . I started out looking to triple board, and I did two years of peds. Can’t imagine how I would use the Peds board now.), there’s a lot of biological psychiatry training programs, that seem to provide a more medical than psychodynamic/analytic model. I didn’t realize you could now do ALL psych with NO medicine?</p>
<p>Shrink…no, it’s not behavioral peds…the problem is that the only way I’ve heard about it is through one of my good friend’s, and he’s only heard about it from one of his good HS friends, whose mother (a general pediatrician) is going through the alleged program now.</p>
<p>I’ve always had that same question about the triple boarders, if there are major benefits to the pathway (other than time) or if they keep up their board certs.</p>
<p>I’m not sure I understand your last sentence…but I definitely understand what you mean about the lessened emphasis at many programs on the analytical/dynamic model (I had the pleasure of following one resident who really loved that stuff and got to hear his lamentations on the issue frequently while on my Psych clerkship). I’ve personally never heard of anything going the other way, but then again, I was flying around the country this year interviewing for peds residencies and not psych ones ;)</p>
<p>Thanks for all your suggestions! I definitely agree that there are many more options out there than I’m considered. Although, I think one of the main psychology seems interesting to me is because it seems to be more of a social science. The medical career advice is excellent, and I really appreciate that, but are there any type of careers that differ from medicine.
I’m willing to get my Masters, but not to go as far as becoming a doctor that involves a residency program. Anything towards the more “liberal arts” side of psychology?</p>
<p>How did you do on the SATs? Pomona might be a good choice for you. Or USC if you want a big university. Any of the UCs will probably be good. Psychology is one of the most popular majors.</p>
<p>I haven’t taken the SAT yet but I’m signed up to take both the SAT and ACT in June. As much as I love California I’m not a big fan of any of the UC’s. I’ve researched Pomona but it’s just not my type of school. USC is also big for me.</p>