Any psychologists here?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m heading to college come fall, and planning to major in psychology (well, theatre too, but I’m not worried about that). I’m curious about actually becoming a practicing psychologist, so I wondered if any of you could answer some questions for me.

  1. I plan on getting my doctorate in psychology. How long does that take? What do I have to do? What were your experiences?
  2. To those of you who are practicing (as in office) psychologists, how does one go about getting a license? Did you rent or build your own office? Do you share it with other doctors/specialists? How many people do you employ?
  3. To those of you in research or other fields (please specify), what exactly do you do? How did you get those jobs? Were you a B.A. or a B.S. in psychology?

I think that’ll do it for now. Thank you all in advance.

2

As your questions are broad, so shall be my response.

If you’re serious about pursuing undergrad/grad studies in psychology and in practicing in some capacity in the distant future, prepare yourself for major changes in the field by the time you are licensed and ready to hang out your shingle. No one knows what the profession (an exceptionally broad, imprecise term) will be like in, say, 10 years, but if you are a direct provider, managed mental health will certainly continue to force changes, some unwanted. BTW, if memory servers, I believe “psychology” as a declared major among incoming freshmen ranks in the top five.

As you will eventually be required to focus your studies, are you more interested in direct clinical work, research, academia, industry, policy, or what?

First, I would suggest you analyze very precisely why you want to be a psychologist. In other words, what is driving you, other than some vague interest? If your desire is to “help others,” why specifically as a psychologist? Plenty of professionals help people. If your goal is to cure others, consider a profession as a physician or financial adviser. Curing is not part of psychology.

If your goal is primarily focused on money–as Q. 2 implies
–realize that some psychologists do fairly well, some do rather poorly. Depends on lots of factors. Also this: many individuals who undertake the long journey toward being a psychologist discover along the way that the profession wasn’t really for them after all. Is your personality suited for the profession? How so? We could go on like this for hours…

A doctorate in psychology can take anywhere from eight years to never. Depends on your aptitude, the university you will ultimately attend, your advisers, etc. Competition for entrance into the better grad programs is exceptionally keen. Plan on scoring in the mid to upper 90th percentile in your boards. Are you interested in a Ph.D. or a Psy.D.? Figure four years for undergrad, plus at least 3 for grad–but more likely 4 and possibly six.

Re: licensing–call the state licensing board. Re: money–talk to three pscyhologists in the area in which you want to focus. As grad school is rigorous and you would not want to be at an academic disadvantage with others, a B.S. in pscyhology is probably a good idea. Of course, realize that the vast majority of persons who currently have that credential are not working in any aspect of pscyhology.

A message board isn’t the place to decide on the rest of your life. Talk to plenty of professionals. Good luck.

3

When you start school this fall, check to see if your school’s psychology department has any graduate school workshops or informational meetings you can attend. Those should give you a good idea of what you’ll be getting yourself into.

Also, find out who the psychology department undergraduate and graduate advisors are, and see if you can meet with them to talk . They’re your best source of answers for the questions you have. Plus, you’ll also get to know your department faculty, which should pay off big time in the future.

4

<raising hand> Me, me!!!

First of all, while I agree with much of what tsumanisurfer said, I want to be a bit more encouraging. Yes, it is hard to get into grad school in psychology (especially clinical)and yes, it is a hard road, and even yes, many people don’t make it or are disappointed with the field. S/he is also right that managed care is changing the field–and not for the better, IMHO.

On the other hand, you certainly have a better grasp than I did when I started looking into grad school–I remember having to ask if one got a master’s before a PhD. More importantly, psychology can be a fascinating and richly rewarding field. I get to talk to people all day about how they feel and what they think–how cool is that?

I really like AudreyK’s advice about going to psych dept informational meetings. Right now, you have some good questions. The answers will come eventually, and if psychology is a good field for you, that will become clear in time–which you have lots of at this point.

One last point: Don’t let Intro Psych scare you too much. If you don’t make an A or at least a B, that is cause for concern, but don’t worry if you don’t love it. Intro is a survey course and they tend to be deadly.

Best of luck to you.

5

Intro Psych is the very definition of a survey class . . . at least at Mason:) I didn’t buy the book, didn’t go to half the classes, and still pulled off a C (don’t ask me how) because a lot of what was taught was kinda mainstream knowledge. Once you get higher up, though, you do have to try. And go to class, and buy the book, and study, and all that other stuff I still don’t do.

IANTOP, but I think Nocturne wants to go into some therapy aspect of psychology. She only mentions it every other day or so:D

::running::

6

I’m a research psychologist.

I got my B.A. in psychology and then went on to graduate school to get a Ph.D. in social psychology.

I taught at the college level for 6 years and then decided to move on, for family-related reasons. Now I do research for the Navy–a job I found through the classified ads. I really enjoy it. I get to use all the skills I developed and the pay and benefits are much better than I was getting before.

Bottom line: Research and academic jobs are very competitive. There are far more Ph.D.'s than tenure-track jobs and a lot of people get stuck in low-wage post-doctoral research positions for a long time. (Gary Trudeau once did a Doonesbury series comparing new Ph.D.'s to migrant farm workers. It wasn’t an entirely outrageous comparison.)

Fields such as clinical psych, neuroscience and industrial/organizational psychology put you in a much better position to find a job later. It used to be the case that graduate schools just assumed that their students would be either academic researchers or private practitioners, but with the job crunch that is changing.

Graduate school is expensive and can go on for a long time. Programs are nominally 4 or 5 years, but usually going on much longer–another fallout of the lack of academic jobs. Clinical programs can be very long, since they usually have a required period of supervised practice.

7

[hijack]Hey,cher3, I am a social psych PhD, too. Small world. I trained at UNC-CH and then taught for several years at small liberal arts colleges before I decided to retrain in clinical. I did my respecialization at UMass-Amherst and now work as a clinician with spinal cord injured patients. How cool that there is another social psychologist here! [/hijack]