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<p>Well, this isn’t true, first of all. Very common myth. But most bachelor’s degree holding psychology majors are employed. It also depends on what you mean by “decent living”, but by that <em>I</em> mean a yearly salary of at least about $35-40K. So if you don’t want to go to grad school right away, and would rather work, you should launch a job search. There are lots of kinds of jobs you can do - many (I daresay most) jobs don’t require any specific major. It just really depends on your interests.</p>
<p>I supervised a psych major who went to work for a marketing firm; marketing/advertising/market research is very popular for psych majors. Several have gone to be research assistants/associates at nonprofits, think tanks, government agencies (city and state and sometimes federal), and private corporations. You could go into entry-level jobs in business/organizational management and move your way up later - a psych major friend ended up working at Target’s corporate headquarters, doing what I’m not really sure. You can go into management consulting; although the big rich firms tend to have target schools, there are lots of boutique consulting firms that recruit more widely.</p>
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<p>You also didn’t say what you wanted to go to graduate school for. If you really are determined to go, please don’t get an MA in psychology. That degree actually IS pretty useless. If you want to do counseling/therapy, most MAs in psychology actually won’t license you for that. You’ll need a master’s in mental health counseling or an MSW to become a licensed clinical social worker. (The exception is school psychology, which you can get a master’s in and get licensed if you wanted to work in schools with children).</p>
<p>Another MA in psychology that’s not pretty useless is industrial-organizational psychology. If you are interested in business, look into that.</p>
<p>With that said, if you did want to go to grad school, there are generally two kinds of grad school aid: external and internal. Internal means they come from the university or department itself. External means some other organization gives you the money. Assistantships are usually internal, and take two forms: research (in which you assist a professor with their research for 15-20 hours a week) or teaching (in which you help a professor teach a class, or sometimes teach a lab section on your own, usually about 15-20 hours a week). Doctoral students and master’s students can both get assistantships, although doctoral students have priority in many departments.</p>
<p>Fellowships can be internal or external. They’re usually awarded to doctoral students, and they tend to be competitive. Fellowships are generally ‘free’ money - you may have to meet some requirements (like grades and progress) but you don’t necessarily have to work for the fellowship; the money is granted to you so that you can do the kind of research/scholarship you want to do.</p>
<p>Usually you don’t have to apply separately for internal money; generally your application is used to consider you for any funding that’s available. If that’s not the case, usually a school’s website will say what you need to do to be considered for money.</p>
<p>What makes you stand out? You need to have good grades, high GRE scores, strong letters of recommendation, and a good fit with the department. For university-wide fellowships, the professors should really want you, because often they refer the top applicants to their departments to compete for the university fellowships.</p>
<p>You should also know that neither Syracuse nor the University of Rochester offers a master’s in psychology; their psychology departments only offer PhDs. (Syracuse mentions a master’s on their page, but they mean a non-terminal master’s that you get on the way to the PhD.) In case you meant RIT, they don’t offer one either. Most departments actually don’t because they’re mostly…useless. Most MA programs in psychology that do exist are to prepare students for application to PhD programs in the field.</p>
<p>I am also assuming that you want an MA. If you want a PhD - first of all, DON’T do it if you’re just doing it because you think you need one to get a job. You absolutely do not. But if you really want one because you need it, most reputable PhD programs in psychology will offer full funding for 5 years (enough time for you to finish). That means tuition, fees, health insurance, and a stipend to cover room and board (usually between $25K and $30K before taxes).</p>