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What Are Careers For Psychology Majors

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UC Davis Psychology | Career Paths for Psychology Majors

Selecting the best BA in psychology program requires extra consideration, as this field offers multiple professional opportunities. Prospective students should identify specific goals to develop a career pathway. Additionally, tuition varies and many universities offer in-person, hybrid, or online format options.

What Are The Education Requirements To Become A Rehabilitation Psychologist

Below is the complete educational path for the Psychologists:

Psychologist Educational Track
Online or Campus

Individuals interested in a rehabilitation psychology career should start with a bachelor’s degree in general psychology, clinical psychology, or counseling psychology. Students should also try to minor in rehabilitation psychology or rehabilitation counseling. The courses that aspiring rehabilitation psychologists should take will generally depend on their preferred are of specialty. Those interested in becoming substance abuse rehabilitation psychologists, for example, should take courses on addiction and substance abuse.

Graduate degrees are also usually required to start rehabilitation psychology careers. Many psychology schools offer graduate degree programs in rehabilitation psychology. Graduate students are often required to conduct original research in this field and defend that research, as well as complete an internship.

In order to finish you education and become a Rehabilitation Psychologist you will need to finish you education with a doctoral degree program.

Learn more about rehabilitation degree programs online.

Career Paths In Psychology

As a multidisciplinary field, psychology encompasses many different career paths. For example, if you want to help people overcome drug and alcohol addictions, you may find employment as a substance abuse counselor. Alternatively, if you prefer working in a business environment, helping managers develop and hire new talent, you may choose to work as an organizational psychologist.

If you are interested in working directly with patients in health and social care settings, you may consider a career as a clinical psychologist however, most clinical positions require a doctorate and license to practice. Each psychology career path has different licensing and educational requirements, but all psychologists should possess strong communication skills, patience, and analytical skills.

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Substance Abuse Behavioral Disorder And Mental Health Counselor

Substance abuse, behavioral disorders, and mental health counselors assist patients struggling with one or more disorders. Duties include assessing a patients condition and readiness to begin treatment, educating the clients families, uncovering factors that prohibit recovery, developing treatment plans, and collaborating with other care team members.

Entry-level positions require a bachelors degree from an accredited institution. However, many organizations also require applicants to hold a masters degree, as many states require licensing and up to 4,000 clinical hours for upper-level duties. A bachelor of arts in psychology offers fundamental knowledge and skills that helps students launch their career.

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Psychology Careers: What Jobs Can You Do With Which Degree?

A psychology degree can lead to many different careers, making it one of the most popular majors for undergraduates.

Psychology is the scientific study of human behavior and the mind. A psychology degree can include training in abnormal psychology, human development, and experimental psychology.

With psychology degrees, graduates can find work as school psychologists, clinical psychologists, and therapists. The degree can also lead to job opportunities in marketing, human resources, social work, and education.

This article introduces prospective students to popular psychology degree jobs, explores careers at different psychology degree levels, and examines earning potential for psychology careers. Read on to find out exactly what you can do with a psychology degree.

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How To Start A Career In Psychology

Careers as a clinical psychologist usually require a doctoral degree and state licensure. However, a bachelor’s degree in psychology can open the door for entry-level roles in fields like business and education. Bachelor’s degree-holders can work in marketing, advertising, and sales positions, applying their understanding of human behavior through a consumer lens.

Most careers in psychology can be unlocked by earning an advanced degree. With a master’s degree, you can pursue many nonclinical psychology roles, such as a school counselor or an industrial-organizational psychologist both of these positions feature strong earning potential.

With a doctoral degree, clinical positions in counseling, social work, and therapy become available. Graduate students can earn a Ph.D. or a Psy.D. These programs often include at least one year of supervised clinical experience. Once completed, candidates must successfully pass an exam to become a licensed psychologist.

Industrial And Organizational Psychologist

Of the non-prescribing psychologists, industrial and organizational psychologists, often called I/O psychologists, are typically among the best paid. On average, they earn well over $90,000 annually while those with over a decade of experience can expect to earn much more than this, typically bringing in over $106,000 annually. According to the BLS, those employed in scientific and research settings earned far more than this while those working in college and other educational settings earned significantly less.

According to the American Psychological Association, these psychologists generally work for large business organizations and practice psychology as it applies to employees and employers in public, community, industrial and business organizations of all types. They may work to address a variety of organizational problems, such as ineffective employees, lost work hours, lack of business development and unhappiness on the job, or they may look at customer and client behaviors and satisfaction ratings to help create effective marketing strategies. Not only must they have solid backgrounds in psychology, but also they must understand statutory and case law in regard to work ethics within business settings.

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Psychologists Promote Physical And Mental Health

Psychologists as health providers span a large and diverse spectrum of subfields. Some psychologists work alone, with patients and clients coming to the psychologists office. Others are involved in health care teams and typically work in hospitals, medical schools, outpatient clinics, nursing homes, pain clinics, rehabilitation facilities, and community health and mental health centers.

Increasingly, psychologists in independent practice are contracting on either a part-time or a full-time basis with organizations to provide a wide range of services. For example, a psychologist can join a health practice and work with a team of other health care providers, such as physicians, nutritionists, physiotherapists and social workers, to prevent or treat illness. This team approach, which is likely to become more common in the future, frequently includes efforts to change unhealthy behaviors and ensure that patients follow the recommended treatment. The team also helps patients cope with stress.

Psychologists also instruct students who are training to become health care professionals, such as physicians and nurses, about the psychological factors involved in illness. And they advise health care providers already in practice so that illnesses with symptoms that have a psychological component can be better diagnosed and treated.

Dr. Daniel AbrahamsonClinical psychologist, administrator and advocate

Dr. Dorothy W. CantorClinical psychologist in independent practice

Psychologists Study Social Development

Careers for Psychology majors

Developmental psychologists study the many behavioral and psychological changes that occur throughout the life span.

Dr. Pamela Trotman ReidDevelopmental psychologist, researcher, professor and college president

Developmental psychologists look at the changes that occur across an entire lifetime. It is a fantastic area because you can do so many different things. You can focus on language development, for example, and study why childrens speech may not reflect their thinking. You can look at adolescents and the problems they have in establishing identity. Or you can examine families, from how they use discipline to how they develop attitudes.

There is also a growing interest in adult development and aging, partly because of the graying of America and partly because we are beginning to realize that we dont stop growing when we reach puberty. Instead, we continue to change and develop in many areas all our lives. Developmental psychologists can investigate adult learning issues at the workplace or the effects of aging on cognition.

In some of my past studies, I investigated why girls act in certain ways and why boys behave in different ways. One small body of research had suggested that women and girls are typically more interested in babies than men and boys are. But all this research had been conducted on White children and adults.

Dr. Miguel YbarraCounseling psychologist and director of a VA substance abuse treatment program

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Parole Or Probation Officer

Provide assistance to people who are re-entering the community after being released from prison. Or advise and supervise criminal offenders who’ve been sentenced to probation instead of being sent to prison. Your understanding of the psychological aspects of human behavior could play a big role in helping to prevent such people from committing additional crimes.

  • Average yearly pay: $59,910
  • Employment growth: 3 percent

Board Certified Clinical Psychologist

The American Board of Clinical Psychology offers board certification for candidates who meet educational, training, and experience requirements in clinical psychology. Candidates must have a doctorate in psychology from an accredited program. The certification also requires one year of experience in a psychology internship and one year of post-doctoral supervision.

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Available Jobs For Psychology Majors

And now, the step you’ve probably been waiting for – getting a job. But we assure you, mastering your skills and getting an internship first are invaluable.

Psychology is applicable to more research or hard-science based fields like therapy, counseling, and research, but the understanding of motivations and behavior also lends itself naturally to social fields like

With our map, you can click the Job Titles and learn more specific information for each position But here, we wanted to call out some of the most common jobs for recent Psychology major grads.

Here are the three of the most interesting entry-level jobs for recent grads such as yourself:

Sales associates interact directly with customers and provide them with information about the products themselves. While the product information itself is obviously job-specific, having a background in psychology makes it much easier to understand a customer’s motivations and ultimately make sales happen.

What Can You Do With A Bachelors Degree In Psychology Like This Title The Actual Answer Is Complicated

What Jobs Require a Psychology Degree?

Sdl.Web.DataModel.KeywordModelDataR. Eric Landrum, PhD

Stop me if you have already heard this one. Psychology is one of the most popular undergraduate majors in the U.S. in the last year the data are available , 117,557 bachelors degrees in psychology were awarded. Said another way, in the past nine years, 1 million individuals received psychology baccalaureates .

Asking the question what can you do with a bachelors degree in psychology? is a very relevant question to a lot of people. Allow me to assure you from the start that if someone tells you the answer to that question is nothing, that answer is patently false. About 25 percent of psychology baccalaureates go to graduate school in psychology, about 18 percent go on for more education but not in psychology, and 57 percent are workforce graduates .

If no one was getting a job with a bachelors degree in psychology, that tidbit of information would have made the news by now and I suspect the popularity of the major would decrease substantially. But a quick, short answer, such as nothing, is a blurb and a sound bite easy to understand yet meaningless. The actual answer is much more complicated and nuanced, and it goes like this the psychology bachelors degree qualifies a person for a large number of jobs, but the degree does not uniquely qualify a person for any particular job.

Huh?

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What Does A Psychology Major Learn

A wide variety of transferable skills can be gained while earning a psychology degree, including:

  • Communication and empathy: Any psych major needs to be an excellent communicator and have empathy towards others. These qualities can prove beneficial in almost any career. According to AACU research, 96% of employers agree that college students should learn how to solve problems with people whose views are different from their own.
  • Critical thinking: Thinking critically can make psych students better problem solvers and more considerate workers. A 2018 study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers discovered that surveyed employers unanimously deemed critical thinking and problem-solving to be essential skillsbut only just more than half considered recent graduates to be proficient in these areas.
  • Ethics: Psychologists are held to a strong code of ethics and conduct by the American Psychological Association , which can be applied across other fields to ensure high standards.
  • Understanding of diversity: Having learned the importance of diversity during their studies, psych majors may be better prepared to respect, value, and understand individuals differences. This is a rare quality to have, with only 21% of employers saying that recent graduates are highly-skilled in this area.
  • Understanding of trauma: Psych students have a deeper understanding of the impact trauma can have, making them well-equipped to navigate difficult situations carefully.

Careers For Psych Majors

A degree in psychology opens the door to a wide variety of career paths, ranging from counseling and clinical psychology to marketing and human resources management. At its core, psychology gives insight into the motivations for human behavior.

The first step toward those rewarding careers begins with a psychology degree. While many psychology-related jobs require at least a master’s degree, graduates of Arkansas State University’s online B.A. in Psychology program will find a number of career opportunities open up immediately upon graduation.

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Why Psychology Majors Are Desirable In Other Fields

According to research from the Association of American Colleges & Universities , 91% of employers agree that a candidates ability to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve problems is more important for success than their undergraduate major is.

Its not unusual for psych majors to work across a variety of industriesin fact, its the norm. It may surprise you to learn that only 27% of students go on to work in psychology or a field closely related to their major, according to the APA Center for Workforce Studies. The survey also found that 35% said their job was somewhat related to their major, while the 38% stated their job was not at all related to it.

The Value Of The Undergraduate Degree

CES: Careers for Psychology Majors

Psychology majors, whether they have gone on to careers in psychology or other fields, cite courses in the principles of human behavior as especially important to life after college. The additional insight gained from these courses helps them, whether they are functioning as parents at home, managers on the job or professionals in other fields. Many bachelors degree holders credit their college psychology courses with teaching them how people, including themselves, learn. I use information on learning theory every time I conduct a training session for my employees, says a manager in a consumer products company. Above all, it is the rigorous training in the scientific method the need to do thorough, objective research, analyze data logically and put forth the findings with clarity that stands psychology majors in good stead as they pursue their future careers.

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How Do I Become A School Counselor

To become a school counselor you will need to go through a rather rigorous amount of schooling. This includes obtaining a Bachelor’s Degree, then a Master’s Degree, and finally entering into a Doctorate or PhD program. Visit our school counseling degree page to learn more about the educational pathway.

Everything You Didnt Know You Could Do As A Psychology Major

Interested in pursuing a psychology major? Thats not surprising, since psychology is one of the most popular areas of study for undergrads.

Given how popular it is, you may wonder whether its worthwhile. If everybody is studying the same thing, doesnt that mean more competition in the job market? Less opportunity for you?

Not at all. In fact, a psychology major seriously broadens your job prospects.

The reason is because of how incredibly versatile it is. Having a psychology degree is attractive to all kinds of employers, from clinical and business environments to social services, criminal justice, Christian ministries and more.

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The Importance Of Accreditation

Accreditation is the mechanism used to ensure educational quality at the institutional and programmatic level, as appropriate. At the institutional level, there are regional and national accrediting agencies. There are six regional accrediting bodies that accredit colleges and universities in different geographic regions. National accrediting bodies accredit institutions or specific vocations. Specialized and professional accrediting bodies generally accredit at the program level. To ensure the accrediting body acts in a reputable manner, both the U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation recognize or accredit the accrediting bodies.

requires that ones education and training occur in a regionally accredited institution. Accreditation of programs in psychology occurs only for the specific practice-related areas of clinical, counseling and school psychology . As such, most state licensing boards in psychology require, at a minimum, an applicant to have completed a program in a regionally accredited institution. Many also require graduation from an accredited program.

Best Jobs For Psychology Master’s Degree Graduates

Psychologist Career Information

Graduates with a masters degree in psychology can work in a wide variety of sectors, including research, clinical therapy, business school systems, law enforcement, and public health agencies.

The number of available psychology degree jobs are much larger for those with a masters degree versus a bachelors, though to practice as a clinical psychologist, youll still need to continue for your doctorate. However, a terminal masters program that focuses on a designated specialty area offers a path to jobs in fields such as forensic psychology and mental health counseling.

So, what job can you get with a psychology degree at the masters level? Here are some of your options.

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