I am a current student at Tufts University, and I’m struggling with the knowledge that I need to declare my major/minor soon. I have a strong desire to study general psychology as my major and possibly have a finance minor. I’m thinking that I might want to go into research analysis or possibly business consulting, using psychology to understand human and group structure as well as for the research training it can give me, and finance would be for obvious reasons. I’m not certain what I want to do in the “real world” yet, but I know that I’m interested in psychology. I’m wondering if places would hire me? Obviously I’m concerned about the high unemployment rate of psych majors. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
If you are worried about the desirability of your pure psych degree, you could try one of the concentrations. My roommate is a comp sci and engineering psychology double major and he seems to be enjoying it. You’d have to get some programming experience to major in engineering psychology, but it would definitely serve you well in finance if you knew how to do some basic coding. CBS is also a great degree and has a lot of interesting courses to choose from. I think that the finance minor is a bit light on math to be honest. The quantitative economics major seems like a much stronger choice for someone who’s really interested in going into finance. However, if you’re not really interested in a math-heavy degree, that is probably a pretty terrible choice for you.
But if you’re really worried about how great your psych degree will be, it’s worth noting that Jamie Dimon – the current CEO of JP Morgan/Chase – graduated from Tufts with a degree in psychology
The ‘high’ unemployment of psychology majors is a little it of a myth. Compared to some other majors the unemployment rate is a little bit higher, but overall the vast majority of psychology majors (>90%) are gainfully employed.
Psychology is a great major for research analysis or business consulting. And yes, places will hire you. Do some internships, work as a research assistant for a professor (maybe a business professor or a psych professor doing some applied work?), and learn some skills - especially statistical analysis.