assistantships/scholarships for grad school

<p>So I need some advice about grad school. Currently I am a psychology major at Suny Oswego, and I am kind of a senior and kind of not (technically I should be but I switched my major from forensic science and now I am a little behind). Don't know why but when I switched my majors I never really put too much thought into life after college, and I have realized that in order to make a decent living from a psychology degree (or even find a job at all) I have to go to grad school. But the problem is that my parents don't have that kind of money, and neither do I (since I make minimum wage at Dunkin' Donuts). I've heard of assistantships/ fellowships, and I have a general idea of what they are...but my question now is, how would I go about getting one? </p>

<p>It would be heaven if I could get into Syracuse University or even Rochester University, but even if I was able to get in I probably couldn't afford it. I know I have to apply to these scholarships and things but what makes someone stand out? When should I apply? What are the necessary steps I need to take in order to ensure a placement for an award like that? Especially when I am not 100% sure as to when I'm going to graduate with my bachelor's degree. </p>

<p>Please disregard my lack of knowledge on these subjects...being a senior I probably should already know about these things and have applied for them, so thanks for any responses, as I greatly appreciate them! </p>

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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>

<p>Thank you so much juillet! Your post has been very reassuring, because, in a way, I’m not quite sure just exactly what I would want to do in terms of grad school. I’m very versatile, and there are a lot of different things that interest me. My sister in law was talking to me about the clinical social work program at SU, which seemed interesting. Yet I went into psychology hoping I could go more in the direction of criminal psychology, as I love researching the minds of people like Dahmer and Bundy; looking into their past and trying to figure out their motives. But I also like marketing psychology. I guess I am just nervous because I’m a senior in college who isn’t getting a degree in something like engineering or accounting, and now I feel like I have so many different options, leaving me overwhelmed. Your post has definitely given me good insight!</p>

<p>That’s okay; it’s totally normal to be interested in a lot of things. I am, too, and I’m a postdoctoral fellow, lol. I still haven’t entirely decided what I want to do, although I’m closer. With that said, though, you can look at a lot of jobs! If you’re interested in criminal profiling there are jobs you can do in law enforcement without being a police officer (or you can do that as well, if you want) - for example, becoming a probation officer or in administration in that area. I already talked about marketing. There’s a whole world of employees with interesting jobs who do things other than the engineering-accounting pre-professional major type jobs. The key is to get out there and discover what you like by working, and then talk to anyone who’s willing to talk to you about what they do and what’s interesting about it. People like to talk about themselves and their jobs, so I’m sure you’ll find someone who does something you find intriguing who is willing to tell you about how to get there.</p>