I am currently striving to figure out what it is that I want to study in college, and work for in life. I have been interested in human behavior, and how the mind and brain react to situations for a long time, leading to a great interest in Psychology. I took AP Psych my Junior year, and it has been by far the class I have enjoyed the most. Unfortunately, the job market for a major in Psychology is hard, and I have read that unless you have a masters or a PhD in Psychology, there is not much you can do with a bachelors in the topic. I wanted to know if I could get a bachelors degree in something else, for instance, nursing, which is another career I am interested in, and then proceed to get a masters/PhD in Psychology. I am aware that there is a career in nursing where you can become specialized in treating mentally ill patients, but that is not my main focus for studying Psychology, so I rather have a separate degree in Psychology from a Nursing degree. Is this possible, or will I have to start from scratch with Psychology too?
Thank you so much!
Stop obsessing about titles and categories. In real life, it’s more about what you have done than what it is called.
It’s fine if you want to get an undergraduate degree in nursing and then go to graduate school in psychology. All you have to do is make sure you meet the graduate school admission requirements.
PhD programs in psychology (in my experience) don’t typically have set prerequisite requirements. Rather, they expect you to demonstrate that you have sufficient knowledge and experience for graduate level coursework and research in the field. If you can demonstrate that as a nursing major, then I would imagine you could still go that route. However, that will be a very difficult task to do, considering how much time is involved in a nursing major. You would likely have to do additional coursework in psychology and undergraduate research to be a competitive applicant, and you may have to convince people why you didn’t major in psychology if you wanted to get a PhD in the subject. It’s doable, but I think it would be more challenging.
I have a PhD in psychology. In theory, no, psychology programs don’t have specific requirements. In practice, psychology programs greatly prefer people with a BA in psychology or a related major (like neuroscience or cognitive science). I think it would be quite difficult for a nursing major to get admitted to a PhD program in psychology unless he or she took a lot of coursework in psychology - basically, the equivalent of a major - in college or after college. He or she would also need to explain why s/he majored in nursing in undergrad but is now interested in switching to psychology. Uncertainty about career prospects in the field wouldn’t be a compelling answer.
There’s this persistent myth floating around that psychology majors are all either unemployed or toiling away at low-level retail or food service jobs or something. It’s not true. Psychology majors with just a BA go into all kinds of middle-class jobs post-college; I’ve advised some that have gone onto jobs in a variety of sectors and met even more who work at other kinds of jobs. Most of them are in business at corporations; few of them are in social services.
The scoop about needed an advanced degree relates to doing in-field work in psychology. If you want to be a therapist, then you need an advanced degree in psychology. But if you just want to find some kind of work, a BA in psychology can get you there. Just like everyone else, you need to do internships and develop marketable skills (learning statistics and research design well, a bit of coding, and good communication skills are examples).
I am curious, though, about what your career goals are. You don’t appear to want to give direct counseling and services, since you say that you don’t want to do psychiatric mental health nursing (which is probably a better career field, compensation-wise and time-in-education-wise, than getting a PhD in clinical psychology). So is it that you want to go into a career doing research as university professor or something? If that’s your interest, I’ll say that people get PhDs in nursing and go into research and teaching, too - except that there are actually academic jobs for nursing professors, LOTS of them. There aren’t so many for psychologists.