I’m planning to take psychology with a minor/concentration in neuroscience for my undergrad, but I wanted to have an idea of a possible career so I could kind of orient my courses toward that.
I want to work with children with special needs, especially autism, but I don’t want to be a special ed teacher or a clinical psychologist. I definitely want a job that’s more medical, so I was thinking about research, but that doesn’t fit me completely either, and neither do speech pathology or anything sort of therapy related.
Are there any jobs out there that I could look into? Sorry for all the criteria.
You excluded most of the possible careers with special needs children…so that leaves…
Medicine (Psychiatry, Neurology, Developmental/Behavioral Pediatrics)
Yes, you would need to complete the premed requirements if you wanted to go to med school.
Though you only plan to do a minor in neuroscience, you might have to take at least some of the premed requirements anyway for that minor, e.g., general biology; general chemistry and/or physics. These also might satisfy general ed distribution requirements in the natural sciences area. Increasingly, I see psychology programs that require calculus and/or a physical science course or two. If you were to major in neuroscience, the strongest programs basically require the equivalent of the premed requirements, even for those more interested in the psychology side of things. In any case, completing the premed requirements certainly give you a lot more options for fields and careers to enter.
Another possible career I didn’t mention in my earlier post is dentistry with a focus on special needs dentistry.
There are definitely options for research involving autism. For example, I work in a lab studying motor learning, and we are about to start a collaboration with autism researchers to study motor deficits associated with autism. Getting an MD definetly isn’t your only option. Also, keep an open mind in college; you may discover a direction you’d never considered before.
Sorry to bump this thread, but I have very similar interests to the OP, except I probably have a larger interest in chemistry and biology- the hard science of medicine, that is. Behavioral neuroscience/psychology is something I really want to learn more about…what would be the best path for me? Medicine, or something else- if so, what?
@MindCastle15 - are you still in high school? Currently an undergraduate? You don’t have to decide right away whether you want to go into medicine or research or something else. Based on what you described, it sounds like neuroscience would be a good major to start with. It would also give you options/flexibility if you realize you want to go more in the direction of hard science or psychology.
There’s also occupational therapy, clinical neuropsychology, and nurse practitioner or physician assistant roles.
Occupational therapy sounds like a good fit for OP and for the new poster - lots of OTs do a good amount of work with people with autism and other developmental disorders.
There’s also social work - that doesn’t have to involve direct therapy, but arranging for social services for people with developmental disorders.