<p>When I started to research schools for my kids, I looked at many many degrees were awarded per year by major and was very surprised to see how many undergraduate psych majors are out there. At many of the schools, it was the single most popular major.</p>
<p>My D has a friend who graduated with a psych or similar degree last year, and works as a residential counselor. She seems good at it, but I c ant see doing that long term. </p>
<p>Being a psych tech only requires a certificate after high school I believe. For some reason, psych tech trying opportunities and jobs seem to pop up for me when I’m on the Internet. Takes a year or so, and lots of jobs around here. Again, really tough over the long term. </p>
<p>Certification process
<a href=“http://www.psychtechs.org/cert.shtml[/url]”>www.psychtechs.org/cert.shtml</a></p>
<p>In high school I got certified as a practical nurses. VERY hard work for a teen, but I was able to get relatively well paying work, and several options for the future as I continued my schooling. </p>
<p>In California, psych majors who go on for their phD’s often practice independantly with “mft’s”. Something to do with the licensing process. MFT’s do the majority of therapy with kids in my neck of the woods, although there are also several phD’s, some LCSW’s and, and one or two child psychiatrists. </p>
<p>MiamiDap, I am curious why you are discouraging your daughter from psychiatry? What year is she? Has she done her psych rotation yet?</p>
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<p>I don’t have much to say about job prospects with only a bachelor’s but I did have some stuff to say about your other concerns.</p>
<p>Undergraduate school is very different than graduate school, and I know many people who either struggled or didn’t particularly like their undergraduate education but really loved and excelled in graduate school. It’s a different beast all together, and depending on her or the program, graduate school many be more enjoyable for her or perhaps, not as challenging as one would expect. She may also learn many skills during her undergraduate career that would serve her well in future graduate education.</p>
<p>There is also not a huge amount of statistics or really hard science classes in psychology. If you go onto graduate school in psychology, she may have to do more advanced statistics, but typically at the undergraduate level, it’s maybe a course or two. I graduated with a degree in psychology and I only had to take one (fairly easy) statistics class. There is often at the undergraduate level, statistics classes for psychology majors that she could also take that may be easier than a statistics class in a different department (esp. if she’s not much of a math person). There also aren’t very many traditionally “hard” science classes. She may have to take biology courses on the brain or something similar, but there isn’t a huge amount of them, though that might depend on the program. I took a couple neuroscience classes because I enjoyed them, but there were different tracks within the psychology department where you can take more or less science-intense classes.</p>
<p>All that being said, she has plenty of time to figure out what she would like to major in or what major would best suit her experiences and interests. She also has plenty of time to figure out how to turn that major into a career. Encourage her to get in touch with the career services center at her school (when she attends college), find internships, get work experience, talk to people in fields she’s interested in, etc. Even now, she could set up job shadows or something similar to get a taste for different careers. Work experience, in my opinion, can be more important than the particular major, depending on what she wants to go into.</p>
<p>Oh, how I sympathize with the OP. </p>
<p>I discouraged my daughter from taking psych in HS. That’s okay—she went ahead changed her college major to psych in the first year 
I know young people just love psych. It’s one of the most impacted majors. But, really, what are you going to do with that degree? That was my eternal question.</p>
<p>I discussed this with my daughter, who really couldn’t tell me what exactly she was planning. Fast forward: she just finished her first year in a related PhD program at Berkeley. So, the fact that she’s gotten that far with it, along with the fact that she has tuition remission, tells me that I didn’t really need to worry so much about it. </p>
<p>Sometimes, there really is a plan. They just haven’t sorted it all out yet.</p>