Hello everyone!
I am currently in my first year and I was a really hard medical science major but I switched to psychology recently. I want to go on and get my PhD in something and be a professor. I love psychology and am not all that interested in chemistry which is why I switched to psychology. However I do not want to limit myself later on down the road as I want to kind of mend my interests in evolution and psychology as an academic career. I don’t know what I should do. Since I dont want to go straight into biology with hopes I get into a PhD program and continuing that. Would it be really far fetched to apply to an evolutionary biology graduate program as a psych major? Should I minor in biology or should I just maybe over the summer do evolution research and go from there?
I am already in two research labs now working with social and educational psychology.
Any insights would be nice!
Interests in biology and psychology sound like neuroscience could be up your alley. Have you taken any neuro classes or looked into related research?
Since you’re in your first year, relax. You have tons of time to figure out what you want to do with your life post-college. During my undergrad I went from goals in psychology to medicine to neuroscience to bioengineering and have finally found my fit doing research on biomimetic robotic control and human robot interaction - something I never would have imagined when I started. Keep exploring, both in classes and in research.
In terms of the possibility of going to an evolutionary biology program from a psych major, that could be challenging. Some programs have flexibility in what degrees they expect from prospective students, but the best way to know for sure is to see what the schools say. Look at the admissions sites for PhD programs and see what background they expect students to have. If they do accept people who weren’t life sciences majors, you’ll still have a deficit to make up. You’ll need prerequisite courses, relevant research experience and letters of recommendation.
I think it would be difficult to get into an evol biology grad program without core courses in biology and supporting sciences. Certainly, you’d be at a disadvantage compared to other applicants.
There is a theoretical approach to psychology called evolutionary psychology, that attempts to explain psychological phenomena within an evolutionary framework. Some anthropologists have theorized along similar lines about human behavior. Also, aspects of the study of animal behavior draw on evolutionary concepts. These theories should, of course, be grounded in a strong biological knowledge of evolution (and related areas, e.g., genetics).
I will say that most psychology programs take an evolutionary framework to explain psychological phenomena - in the sense that psychology is a science that accepts evolution just like biology or physics do. Evolutionary psychology is simply saying that our current psychological processes are influenced by our biological evolutionary history, and the vast majority of psychologist operate under that assumption in their research. So you can go to a PhD program that’s not explicitly an evolutionary psychology program and use an evolutionary framework in your work. (For one example, Frances Champagne in my former department - psychology at Columbia - uses some evolutionary explanations in her work and her work is heavily tied to biology, specifically neurobiology and genetics. Her PhD is in neuroscience and she teaches in a psychology department with no formal evolutionary concentration.)
That said, there are PhD programs specifically in evolutionary psychology. They tend to be interdisciplinary, but are more generally focused on linking psychological processes with genetic and biological development. They are not always named “evolutionary psychology.” For example, there’s UCSB’s developmental and evolutionary psychology PhD; Arizona State’s psychology department (where you can specialize in anything but study it through an evolutionary lens); UT-Austin’s program in individual differences and evolutionary psychology; and the general psychology PhD program at University of Pennsylvania (which doesn’t have specific specialties but does allow you to develop a research area in evolutionary psychology).
I’d say that regardless of whether you want to go to a PhD program in evolutionary psychology or evolutionary biology, you should take some biology classes. Both programs are going to have connections to biology and genetics, and having those classes will make you a stronger applicant. If you know you want a PhD in evolutionary biology you should totally major in biology. Biology is a discipline and graduate work in the field is going to require an undergrad foundation. If you want a PhD in evolutionary psychology, then major in psychology, but do take some classes in biology (I would recommend around 4-6, focusing on neurobiology and genetics).
Another related area is biological or physical anthropology; biological anthropologists are heavily concerned with human evolution. However, they use completely different scientific methods to answer different types of research questions.