I’m interested in both the science and psychology of the brain and my dream career is to work in a criminal justice setting as a profiler or researcher (ex. FBI). Is there any benefit in this combination? Would a major in neuroscience and a minor in criminology be beneficial?
Sure!
Most criminal profilers are clinical psychologists or psychiatrists. Clinical psychologists have a PhD in clinical psychology and are licensed in the state in which they practice. There are some clinical psychology PhD programs that have a specialty in law or forensics. In order to get a PhD in psychology, you’d need to take significant coursework in psychology - a neuroscience major would probably work.
If you wanted to do research, the neuroscience major…would still work. Neuroscientists, as you know, do research on the biological structure of the brain and how that’s related to behavior and thought. I’m not sure if there’s any research out there on how criminal brains are different from…non-criminal brains? Not sure there’s a strong argument that there’s a genetic or biological basis for criminal behavior. But it’d be good to check. I would imagine that the FBI (and other law enforcement agencies) has far more people with PhDs in psychology on staff doing research for them than people with PhDs in neuroscience, although it would depend, I think.
Psychiatrists are MDs with special residency training in psychiatry, of course.