<p>I'm planning on majoring in Psychology and going for at least a Master's, but I'm not entirely sure what I want to do after school. It's not possible to become a psychiatrist with a psychology degree, right? What kinds of careers would be available?</p>
<p>And does anyone know of good psychology programs in California?</p>
<p>You are right, you will want to at least go on to earn a masters in Psych. With a masters, you become a psychologist, but in order to be a psychiatrist, I think you need a med degree (?). Really not sure on that, so hope someoe answers this! In CA, (only if you are in-state since the cost is absurd OOS), UC Santa Cruz has a strong psych program. Have you considered Cognitive Science as well? There are some great books at B & N that have lots of career ideas, related to what major you choose -may be worth investing in one.</p>
<p>I never applied to Santa Cruz, but I got into UCI, UCSB, and UCD. Do you happen to know anything about their psychology programs? Thanks for your help so far!</p>
<p>So with a masters you can become an LMFT (licensed marriage and family therapist). With a Ph.D. or a Psy.D. (less researched based than than the Ph.D) you can be come a psychologist. Many wonderful professionals have any one of these degrees. There isn’t that much, as a therapist, that you can’t do as an MFT that you can as a psychologist–mostly things like psychological testing, etc. If you want to be a therapist, there’s many routes to take. Of course, the Ph.Ds/Psy.Ds make more money.</p>
<p>You can find all sorts of work, however, outside the field. Human resources, business, social work, career counseling, etc. A degree like psychology leaves you with good transferable skills. I expect many psychology majors find something entirely different to do with their lives in the long run. You can always get an MBA, go to law school, medical school. It’s a really open ended degree.</p>
<p>Psychiatry is another field. What you would need to do is go to medical school. You can study psychology now and still be premed, maybe a B.S. degree to help you fill the proper prereqs. I believe after medical school, you would have to then study psychiatry. You cannot be a psychiatrist through a graduate degree in psychology. You simply cannot be qualified to prescribe the scheduled, dangerous drugs otherwise.</p>
<p>I’m assuming you’re a freshman applicant? Any of those UC programs would be excellent, I would expect. Take classes. Try a psychobiology course, see if the medical side of things suits you. Try different things. You have plenty of time to decide what you want to do after your bachelors in psychology.</p>
<p>newsoul, thanks so much for all of the information! I also want to major in psychology and I’m just hoping that while I am in college, I’ll be exposed to different aspects of it and figure out exactly what I want to do with it.</p>