I heard that majoring in psychology is very bad because most students end up jobless. I am not a smart person, but I work very hard. I mean VERY HARD. So, I have a high GPA. My GPA right now is a 4.18(weighted and cumulative). I am considering of being a career counselor. I know that I must get my Master’s Degree for this. Can anyone share their own personal experience or anyone’s experience that they observed?I would be glad to hear everyone’s responses.
Thank you for reading this.
In what setting do you wish to do career counseling or advising? That might determine which type of degree you’ll need. I’m guessing you’ll need a masters degree at any rate.
You will need at least a master’s degree to do most levels of professional counseling. You might consider school guidance counseling. An undergraduate degree in psychology may lead to an uncertain employment situation, however beyond that, the outlook is decent.
I want to do career counseling.
A huge component of school counseling is career counseling. But you can do career counseling with other professional counseling degrees. One thing you can do is research what is required for licensing and/or certification in your state for career counselors, school counselors, licensed professional counselors, etc to see what level of degree is required to practice in that field. That will give you an idea as to what degrees you will need to complete.
Thank you very much for the information!
Remember that most psychology careers require a masters, most of which students are left to fund for themselves. Some programs cost upwards of 40k per year for masters programs. Most programs are 2ish years, so that’s 80k just for a masters, not counting debt incurred for undergrad.
If you enjoy science in addition to psych you might want to consider a degree in neuroscience.
And MSW with or without the BSW.
This is NOT true. The vast majority of college graduates with a psychology major have jobs. One recent report showed the unemployment rate for recent college graduates in psychology was about 9.2%, which is not that much higher than it is for mechanical engineering (8.1%), accounting (8.8%), and computer science (8.7%), and actually lower than the rate for economics (10.4%) and information systems (14.7%).
([Source](https://georgetown.app.box.com/s/9t0p5tm0qhejyy8t8hub)).
It is also not true that you have to have a graduate degree to get a job with psychology. If you want to get a job in the field of psychology, then yes, you will likely need a graduate degree. But a bachelor’s in psychology - much like a BA in any of the social sciences - is widely applicable to a vast ocean of jobs that don’t require any specific major, or that would actually prefer a social science major because they have to do with social services or understanding how people think and behave.
You will need a master’s for career counseling, though, although what the master’s should be in will depend. If you wanted to do college career counseling, an MA in counseling or in higher education or student personnel administration could work. Most other facilities that hire career counselors will probably also require you to have a master’s, either in counseling or maybe adult education. If you want to work as an independent career counselor, your degrees don’t matter so much as your sales skills - whether you can convince people to hire you.
Personal experience: I majored in psychology in undergrad. I got my PhD in social/health psychology, and I currently work in industry doing research on interactive media. I make a very good salary. When I was in graduate school, I taught and mentored many psychology majors; they all have jobs doing something interesting. Many of them went into market research, advertising, or consulting; a few went into banking; many went into nonprofit or think tanks; some went into social services. Some went to graduate school, but most of them didn’t.
Jobs are about skills, not just your major. Develop skills that are in-demand and do internships in college.