<p>I'm a junior in high school. I've always been interested in psychology and have been looking into majoring in it, but everyone I talk to tells me it will get me no where and I'll just end up doing something else. Is it worth it or should I just do something else from the beginning. </p>
<p>It depends on what you want to do with it. I majored in psychology, but I never wanted to be a psychologist. It was inevitable that I would find a different career path - and I found a great one in human resource management without having ever taken an HR or business course. </p>
<p>There are many paths you can take with psychology. You can do things with just a bachelors degree, but it may be tough and you’d do best to get a few internships under your belt before graduation. You can pursue a masters degree in counseling or social work (or something else entirely), or go all the way and get your PhD or PsyD. You can teach, counsel, go into business and management, and more. But it can take a lot of hard work, perseverance, and creativity. It’s not the easiest degree since there is no straight path into a single career option such as accounting or med school would offer. I had never even considered working in HR until I fumbled into the position during my first job after college. </p>
<p>So you need to decide what kind of lifestyle you want to have after college, and how hard you are willing to work to do what you love as opposed to doing something practical or safe. You could always double major, or minor in psychology (it’s a great major/minor to pair with many different studies, such as education, business, marketing, nursing - psychiatric nursing pays quite well - and more).</p>
<p>Keep in mind that part of the reason psychology gets a bad rep is because many students choose it because it is “easy,” or interesting but they have no interest in the career choices. At least in my experience, many of my psychology peers weren’t really looking to work their way up, so they changed paths quickly after graduating or attended graduate school because they couldn’t find a job (but more education isn’t always the answer). </p>
<p>Thanks for the input @NovaLynnx. If it helps I was thinking about child psychology specifically. A friend of mine is going into psychiatry, but she’s more into medicine so that makes sense for her. I was also thinking about education, but, obviously, that’s not a great option financially. Would psychiatry make more sense? I’m not so sure about going to med school though. </p>
<p>@NovaLynnx I wouldn’t mind HR either. That sounds interesting. </p>
<p>Psychiatry is a long road, from what I understand. You go through medical school and then specialize in psychiatry, so it takes a few years after undergrad until you’re able to work on your own. And medical school is not cheap. Psychiatrists are paid well, though, as they are MD’s.</p>
<p>HR can be difficult to break into, so having internships in that field will be very important. You can major in psychology and minor in business, or major in business and minor in psychology. You can be a generalist/manager, or specialize in a particular area such as recruiting, benefits, compensation, etc.</p>
<p>Missmatch, I just want to point out from a comment you made that there is no correlation between salary and happiness. Don’t discount education because of the salary of the average teacher. If you’re interested in that field, it’s worth looking into. </p>
<p>@Xercultes Thank you, but the issue financially isn’t so much salary, but more the fact that jobs for teachers are hard to come by in Illinois currently and will be for a while and I don’t know if i want to take that chance. </p>
<p>No it won’t </p>
<p>@RoysGoin2College care to explain why you think that?</p>