<p>Psychology is only as useless as you make it out to be. And child development (especially child language fascination) has a lot of interesting features, both on the macro-level and the microlevel (cell biology + gene cascade sequences). They're not necessarily easy ways out.</p>
<p>I suppose if you go to a questionable school with a questionable psychology programme, you have a questionable psychology major. Now mind you, as a cognitive science major, I happen to be quite suspicious of social psychology people, simply because I dislike how they approach the scientific method, and the less-than-ingenious experimental techniques they use, as well as their lack of effort to try to unify their findings across other disciplines to create exciting findings. </p>
<p>Now at my school for example, the psychology building is a huge extension of the biology building and unless I'm not hallucinating (I was just passing by for crew tryouts, lol) there are also several psychological (including one for children) clinics located there. And mind you, research into child development isn't just to raise good children ... it also helps adults in say, realising what regenerative genes are turned on in children that are turned off in adults, and so forth. </p>
<p>And doesn't it also depend on the coursework? </p>
<p>I came in to my school with 43 advanced standing credits as a first-year. I am taking 16 credits this year, because all the other 1-credit courses were full (first-year credit limit is 17 that cannot be lifted except for very special circumstances) or not worth it to get third-year standing by end of first semester. For example this semester I have intro to linguistics, intro to neurobiology (lots of signal transduction cascades + biochemistry + cell biology, on top of the beginnings of information theory), CHEM 181 (the first of four parts of the honors chemistry sequence), and FREN 334 (advanced oral and written expression or whatever). </p>
<p>Now, do you think I'm taking the easy route out by opting for a cognitive science major with a concentration in neuroscience OR computer science OR linguistics, on top of a second major in economics and maybe using my minor slot for computer science (in which then my cogsci concentration will be something else other than CS). I mean, the only reason why I am not triple-majoring is that my school doesn't allow me to.</p>
<p>I will probably have enough credits to graduate early by the end of 3rd year, but unless costs are a significant factor I plan to accumulate as much advanced coursework as possible.</p>
<p>So ... are my chances of getting a job ruined because I'm aiming for a cogsci career?</p>