<p>Anyone a psychology major? OR at least taken a psychology class?</p>
<p>How do you like it? How difficult are the classes (papers, research, etc)?</p>
<p>I'm really considering it as my major</p>
<p>I took an intro level gen psych course and an upper level social psych course.</p>
<p>Its an interesting major, but not for me. Psychology classes like to place terminology on seemingly obvious concepts, which is a shared perception about the field. However, these obvious concepts wouldnt be obvious w/out psychology research done in that area. I know this sounds really broad, but you'll know what I mean when you take a psych course or two.</p>
<p>Grading varies w/ each school, but the classes are very easy if you follow along.</p>
<p>Post #1060357513</p>
<p>I am graduating in July with a double-degree in Psychology and Music and will be pursuing my doctorate in Clinical Psychology.</p>
<p>I've liked it (obviously, since I'm continuing with it for another 5-6 years of education and then another few decades as a career). It's a great field if you want to better understand what makes people tick. As the previous poster said, much of the field concerns things that are so much a part of our lives that it can be easy to have what is known as hindsight bias, in which after you hear something in a psych class, it seems like you would have always agreed with the statement (this is especially true of courses in social psychology). In those cases, much of what you would learn are the answers to which piece of "folk wisdom" is true -- for example do "birds of a feather flock together" or do "opposites attract"? (The answer is, not surprisingly, both -- but in different cases; but social psychology asks the question of which one is true in what cases)
Other subfields of psychology, such as Learning, Motivation, Cognitive, Neuropsych/Biopsych, Experimental/Quantitative, and so forth, study areas that are often much less intuitive. For example, Cognitive Psychology explores such questions as how memories are formed, how the brain reconstructs the world around us (and how it relates or does not relate to what is "really there"), and so on.</p>
<p>Classes are generally not difficult, although it's really up to your professor and school. They tend to be writing intensive and require a large amount of self-reflection at the undergraduate level. Papers will vary in length from a few pages for a reaction paper to 40-60 pages for certain clinical assessment papers. Just realize that because most psych students have good GPAs (the median is probably around a 2.7 to 3.3 for most schools -- or a B- to B+ average), you need to be consistent in your work and achieve As consistently as well as get research experience to really stand out. In psych, your GPA really only counts insofar as a low to mid GPA may keep you out of grad programs (need around a 3.6-3.7 to be considered for doctoral programs). Your GRE is probably the biggest critical point for grad school and your research and, to a lesser extent, clinical experience while a psych major is a very strong determinant in your post-college success (especially in terms of grad school).</p>
<p>Basically, you can expect to gain a lot of soft skills as a psychology major. For example, psych majors are known in the job market for their interpersonal abilities (stemming from their understanding of other people). These are valuable no matter what you do post-college. If you want to do anything directly related to psychology (i.e., social work, therapy, etc.), expect to need to get an MA, MSW, Psy.D., or Ph.D. BA jobs will generally want you to have some experience in the area already, so be sure to get good internships during your academic career.</p>
<p>What do you hope to do for a career? Any ideas?</p>
<p>I would love, ideally, to work with an eating disorder facility for adolescents.</p>
<p>ok, then I'd start looking for such facilities and find their employment (or job opportunities) page and look at the requirements for the positions. figure out what actually sounds interesting to you (in terms of work) and aim to fulfill (and surpass) the job qualifications.</p>
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How do you like it? How difficult are the classes (papers, research, etc)?
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<p>I took it last semester. I almost never went to class except for the tests and the only research aspect was everyone had to do 4 credits of volunteering for psychology experiments. I got a 93 in the class.</p>
<p>You can sample the Introduction to Psychology course at Yale at the following site. It has videos of class lectures for a semester.</p>
<p>Sessions</a> - Open Yale Courses</p>
<p>Berkeley also has Psych 1 classroom lectures on video at:</p>
<p>UC</a> Berkeley Webcasts | Video and Podcasts: Psych 1</p>
<p>Our son took it last semester - relatively easy A.</p>
<p>Agentdemon, I assume that's Intro to psych you're talking about. Upper divisions is different.</p>
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Agentdemon, I assume that's Intro to psych you're talking about. Upper divisions is different.
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<p>Of course.</p>
<p>There is so much variation in this. I never understood why people considered psych easy until I took social psych, where the material is more obvious. Cognitive (esp. memory & brain processes) and developmental psych can be challenging. Upper level courses can also involve more research and deeper understanding is often necessary.</p>