<p>I really, really want to become a clinical neuropsychologist. It's something I'm VERY passionate about and I really want to make it work out. My parents keep telling me to forget it and go to medical school or pursue hard science research/teaching. I'm a rising college sophomore with a 3.6 GPA (in really difficult and honors classes.) I'm also involved in two committees and work part time. I'm 99% sure my GPA will rise significantly (I made the bad move of starting freshman year early (the summer after high school) and continuing while I was having some medical issues and needed treatment.) I'm trying for late admission to the honors college which requires I do a lot of additional internships and projects, take honors classes, and not earn anything less than an A in certain classes. </p>
<p>Right now I am headed for a B.S. in Psychology, a bioethics minor, biology minor, and neuroscience minor. I'm avoiding calculus at the moment because I have a feeling it's not going to go well (this kind of limits my hard science career options.)</p>
<p>I do like bioethics and the science and society-type stuff (few job options there), wouldn't mind teaching high school students or undergraduates, and I like the more science-wired sides of psychology (I wouldn't want to be a therapist, but enjoy the research, teaching, and "hard science hybrid" branches of it such as neuropsychology and biopsychology.) I don't see medical school in my future because of the whole calculus issue. I know most medical doctors never use it, but it's still part of the pre-med path. While I'm not a calculus person, I would say I have much better people skills than some of my math-minded friends and I enjoy being with people (not cooped up in a lab.) I'm kind of stumped on where to go from here. Do I listen to my parents and find another path, or my adviser and go with what I'm passionate about then risk few job options or having to take additional classes after I graduate? Is there a realistic chance I (given my brief background) could still make this work or go a side route as a teacher?</p>
<p>Comments:
-That’s a pretty ambitious program—a major + 2 minors, a job, honors college. If you want to get into a clinical neuropsych program, you need top grades. UG research experience wouldn’t hurt, either. Clinical psych grad programs (which is the usual route to clinical neuropsych) is very competitive for admission.
-The pathways your parents favor (med school or hard science research) are not possible without calculus, as you noted. Not having calculus won’t preclude you from a clinical psych grad program, but it doesn’t hurt as other applicants increasingly will have taken calc.
-Teaching: Limited opportunities for high school psychology teaching. You could enter a graduate teacher prep program in areas like special ed incl learning disabilities.
-Clinical neuropsych requires a doctorate in clinical psych with a clinical neuropsych specialty or a postdoc specialization in clinical neuropsych. Even if you’re primarily doing neuropsych testing, neurocognitive rehab, etc., you still need clinical skills. Since you said you don’t want to do therapy, you should broaden your current understanding of therapy. In your training and practice as a clinical neuropsychologist, you’ll need to work with a variety of clinical populations.
-As you might not gain entry to a clinical psych or clinical neuropsych program due to competitive admissions, you should have other options in mind as well. These will require graduate study–at the masters-level, some at the doctoral-level. Some other options: a grad program in bioethics, either a stand-alone program or a program in conjunction with a religion or philosophy program. Healthcare practitioners or lawyers with this training also seem to have some advantages. School Psychology. Gerontology. Rehab Counseling. Applied Behavior Analysis (with work in brain injury rehab). Health Psychology/Behavior Medicine/Rehab Psychology (possibly as difficult for admission as clinical psych). Communication Disorders. Occupational Therapy. All of these areas would utilize your psychology and neuroscience background to varying extents. Note, however, that in most of them you’re going to do “therapy”, just not your currently limited view of therapy.
-Find out more about clinical neuropsych. Many people use that term interchangeably with neuroscience. My use of the term refers to clinical neuropsych, which involves neuropsych testing, cog rehab, etc. Check out the current version of the APA book on “Graduate Study in Psychology” to identify programs that might interest you and their admissions requirements.</p>