You don't need undergrad psych to study psych in grad school
When deciding an undergraduate major, I urge you to consider your future career goals.
Majoring in psychology is rarely, if ever, required.
Minoring in psychology may be sufficient.
If you are curious about psychology, but not planning to make psychology your career, a minor in psychology is more than sufficient to get you started. If your interest remains, you will have learned to read psychology papers and books, which you can do on your own time. You don't need to formally major in psychology for curiosity and other majors are likely to provide superior job prospects after graduation.
If you want to go to grad school to do psychology research, you do not need to major in psychology in undergrad. A psychology minor would still be more than sufficient, even if you plan to study psychology at the graduate level. Majoring in another science, technology, engineering, or maths program could even make your graduate application stronger than the much more common psychology major. If you are interested in grad school in psychology, what you need is volunteer research experience in a lab so start as soon as you can. You do not need to major in psychology to volunteer in a lab.
If you want to go to grad school to do clinical psychology, a major in psychology becomes the most applicable, but even this career goal does not require a psychology undergraduate degree. As above, a psychology minor would be sufficient and other majors could stand out. Whatever the case, clinical psychology graduate applications are extremely competitive so you need more than just your degree. Clinical psychology applications are largely beyond the scope of this book.
- If you want a job that requires any bachelor's degree, a psychology major is sufficient, but so is any other major. You don't get anything special from getting an undergraduate degree with a major in psychology.
- If you want a job in psychology, a bachelor's degree with a psychology major is insufficient. To work in the field, you will need to go to graduate school, but you don't need to major in psychology during undergrad to go to grad school in psychology. Again, you don't get anything special from getting an undergraduate degree with a major in psychology.
Overall, my advice is that a minor in psychology can be great, but a major is likely overkill. If you are already far along in your undergraduate degree and have majored in psychology, don't worry about it: lots of people major in psychology and go on to great things. However, if you are early enough in your degree that you have not decided your major, I would strongly recommend a more technical major if that would suit your career goals.
A psychology undergrad degree opens the same doors that are opened by having any undergraduate degree.
A psychology undergrad degree does not open any special doors that are only opened by a psychology undergrad degree. With just the Bachelor's, you don't get to do psychology research.
Note: This caveat does not apply in the UK.
Which non-psych majors?
If you can successfully study any of the following majors, these would arguably make your graduate application much more unique and attractive. You would bring a rarer and more technical skill-set to research:
- computer science
- statistics
- maths (any type)
- engineering (any type)
- natural sciences (any type)
Applicants excelling in any of these degrees are likely to be seen as more desirable than applicants with psychology majors applying to grad programs. This is in part due to their relative rarity in graduate applications and in part due to the technical skill and prestige associated with these majors.
As a bonus, the above-listed majors provide alternate career exit-points.
Bachelor's degrees in the above majors make you eligible for additional jobs immediately out of university. These other majors open doors that a psychology bachelor's degree does not. When you only have a psychology undergrad degree, there are no backup careers because the psychology major does not qualify you for any particular career in psychology or any particular field. With a different STEM degree, you can enter the adult world of work and use what you learned during undergrad.
Other non-psych majors could also catch a PI's eye when looking over grad school applications, though it may be more difficult to pitch yourself and you'll need to make sure you've got some evidence that you have learned proper scientific method. I could imagine a philosophy or history major applying to grad school in psychology, but I would want to see some scientific methods and statistics courses on their transcript. You really don't need to major in psychology during your undergrad degree, but a psychology minor wouldn't hurt.
Again, a non-psych major is not required so, if you are already majoring in psychology, don't be discouraged. You will just need to make your application stand out in other ways. My own undergraduate major was eventually psychology and I converted my many STEM courses into a computer science minor. My advice here is aimed at helping you use your undergraduate time more efficiently than I did, not to discourage or limit you.
Supplementing a non-psych major: Courses
If you are considering a non-psych undergrad major, a psych minor could be a great option. Even without a minor, you can get into psych grad school, but it would be wise to take at least a few psych courses to get a general exposure to the methods and to test your interests.
Focus on methods and statistics courses and on upper-level courses where you read papers and critique them. These are all valuable skills.
Make sure you take proper scientific methods and statistics courses.
Focus on courses that teach skills as opposed to courses that teach information.
Limit enrollment in psych content courses that teach information for you to memorize.
A few content courses in your area of interest will suffice. Do not focus on taking lots of psych content courses, though. Unfortunately, psychology content courses are mostly outdated by the time they reach you. Professors need to put courses together in time to teach them and research gets outdated quite quickly. If a professor hasn't updated their course in a few years, the findings will be stale. The most current information changes every year, with the exception of courses about the history of psychology (and even that seems to get revised).
For example, professors in my undergrad taught about the Stanford Prison Experiment and discussed how important it was as a study. We have since learned that the Stanford Prison Experiment was a case of research fraud. All the information I learned about that study, and many others like it, turned out to be false, which isn't a very efficient use of time spent learning! The replication crisis has undermined countless studies that have been taught in countless content courses. Millions of students learned false information through their undergrad content courses.
The courses that have stuck with me were the methods courses and skills-focused courses. These included courses in which I learned statistical methods, courses in which I learned experiment design and critique, and courses in which I learned to engage with the literature by critically reading and synthesizing findings. Happily, many of my computer science courses also taught useful skills.
If you want to learn information because you are curious, learn to read papers, then read review papers!
Supplementing a non-psych major: Experience
Outside of courses, focus on getting experience in labs and on publications, if you can.
It would be ideal if you can volunteer in more than one lab and learn different technical skills in different environments. These volunteer experiences provide varied perspectives that can help you figure out what you like and dislike, not only in terms of interest but also in terms of research environments. Volunteering also results in much higher quality reference letters, which are crucial for graduate school applications.
Maybe you think you want to do research on kids so you try to volunteer in a developmental psychology lab at your university. Maybe, after eight months of volunteering there, you realize that the work itself frustrates you!
This sort of experience is invaluable for testing your expectations of what might make an enjoyable career!
Conclusions
I think getting a minor in psychology is the perfect compromise for most people who think they want to major in psycholody. A couple years of volunteer experience and a number of methods courses is great training. Show initiative, do a thesis or independent research project, and try get your work published. Learn enough to understand how research is done, but don't over-commit to memorizing information about published research, much of which was likely outdated by the time it made it into the curriculum or subject to failures to replicate.
Index
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