I’m currently thinking about majoring in psychology but to be honest… There’s not many job opportunities with such Ba degree. So after I do, I might go into a Physician’sAssistant program in Stony brook for grad school. It says that I need certain prerequisites in order for me to get in but psychology major doesn’t seem to fulfill any of those requirements. I heard from my friend that this person majored in psychology and is thinking of going into a pa program as well, which I’m pretty sure she is by now. But how does that exactly work? Say if I did graduate with a psych degree how would I apply for a PA program?
There are lots of things you can do with a BA in psychology - research assistance/coordination, market research, middle management, HR, user research/HCI, industrial-organizational psych at a basic level, program management, technical writing, policy analysis, and more. There’s not a lot of direct counseling work that you can do with psychology, so people often misinterpret that to mean that psychology has no BA-level jobs. It’s not true.
That said, if you want to be a PA you will have to take classes outside of the psychology major, just like if you wanted to go to med school you would have to take pre-med classes. Honestly, none of the majors you pick are going to fulfill all of the PA requirements - you’d have to take classes outside of them anyway. (Note, for example, that there are arts/humanities courses and social science courses required as well). You would take the classes as part of your electives. Note that most private colleges without nursing programs don’t offer anatomy and physiology, so if you’re planning to attend a private college you may have to plan to take anatomy and physiology over the summer or by cross-registering at another school that does offer it.
More important - and tricky - is the health care experience.
Prior to admission 1,000 hours of documented, direct patient care and/or health-related experience (either full or part-time) is required. Preference is given to those candidates with direct patient care or a broad range of health-related experience. Work experience as a nurse, nurse’s aide, medic, corpsman, medical laboratory technologist, respiratory therapist, emergency medical technician, counselor in a health care setting, etc. can meet this requirement. Up to 500 hours may be satisfied by direct patient-care experiences completed during clinical training in the health professions (e.g., practicums in nursing, clinical practice clerkships in allied health, graduate psychology internships, etc.). Volunteer direct patient care experiences may meet this requirement. Shadowing can be used towards this requirement, however, the program will only accept up to 200 hours of shadowing. The remaining 800 hours must be direct patient care experiences.
Most PA programs (because you shouldn’t get too fixated on one - they’re competitive) require between 1,000 and 2,000 hours of direct patient care experience. Stony Brook is one of the few schools that I’ve seen that actually accepts any shadowing hours; most programs say that shadowing doesn’t count. (A lot of places also won’t take lab work, since most of that doesn’t require working directly with patients either.)
The PA degree/profession was originally designed for allied health care providers with work experience to be promoted to a mid-level provider role in which they could provide primary care. PAs do much of the same things that a primary care doctor would do, and given that the education is two years less than an MD, the goal was to ensure that PAs had enough prior experience that they’d know what they were doing in primary care. For that reason, most PAs are former nurses, CNAs, or EMTs/paramedics. It’s for that reason that I personally believe that the best major for an aspiring PA is actually nursing. You can get a BSN, work for a year or two and then go into a PA program without needing to get a whole bunch of extra licensing or training.
If you wanted to go straight into a PA program after college, you would have to get certified to provide direct patient care before you entered college or while you were in your first year (probably as an EMT/paramedic or as a CNA, as those programs only take a few months). Then you could earn 1,000-2,000 hours by working part-time or volunteering 10-15 hours a week.