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| Acmlm's Board - I3 Archive - Officer's Club - change in life plans... |
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spiroth10 Paratroopa                 Since: 01-28-06 From: USA Last post: 6279 days Last view: 6279 days |
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| I always thought I'd want to be a game programmer when I got out of school. But looking at it now, it's such a steep goal, and I find myself losing interest in the subject of video games.
Not only that, but the lack of sleep involved, and nature of the job just aren't for me. I'm now thinking about going into the field of psychology. I really want to help people with the job I get, and already know a great deal on the subject of human behavior and psychology. I also want to make a decent (living) wage. Not to mention that the subject really interests me. I think I can accomplish this in that field. If I go through with it, I'll probably become a psychologist (not a psychiatrist -- I don't want to go to medical school) And opt for non-medicinal treatments wherever possible. I don't think every kid who has a hard time in school should be drugged to pay attention. What do you guys think? Is this feasable? I've only got 2 more years of High School before I go off to college/grad school and make the decision final. College tends to take time + money, which I don't have unlimited of. If I decide to go through with this what will I have to take in college and grad school (I do need a Ph. D., I think) |
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Yoronosuku Toss Tortoise   Since: 11-17-05 From: Massachusetts is my new home.. Last post: 6279 days Last view: 6279 days |
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My big sister recently decided to persu a career in psychology (she wants to be a relationship councelor, I think), and from what she's tells me its such an interesting field. If its something you love, its a great way to help people and make a difference in thier lives. Go for it if its something you really want--that's what counts when you choose your life paths. You can make a ton of money but if you hate what you do to get it, its not even half as fulfilling. Best of luck whatever you decide  |
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Young Guru Snifit   Since: 11-18-05 From: Notre Dame, IN Last post: 6285 days Last view: 6279 days |
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| Not sure if where you're going to school so I'm just going to give you my perspective from an american university. First things first, you're not even in college yet so you definately have time to decide what you want to do, hell I didn't decide until I finished my freshman year of college. I came into college with the same dream I had had since I was 4 when I got an NES and Mario and Zelda. I started out in Computer Science so that I could eventually go into game design. After a year I realized that I didn't really want to do that and transfered over to the electrical engineering department to work on signal processing and power systems. I guess both disciplines are in the engineering college but they have very different course loads and subjects and my final goal is very different (automotive sound systems and automotive controll schemes). So I'm going to say go for it. My roommate is a psych major and he wants to do family psych (which seems similar to what you want to do). He's not getting a doctorate and I don't think he needs to get a PhD to go into practicing as a psychologist (I think he's only getting a post graduate degree but not a doctorate, not positive about that though). Do what you love and the money will come, don't follow a subject because it's going to make you money, you'll just end up as a business major (I had to do it, I'm an engineer) uniterested and working in a dull workplace and the money won't be enough to make you happy. Most importantly, don't stress too much, you're in high school and you have plenty of time to decide what you want to do and if you already know what it is that you love you're way ahead of nearly everyone in your situation. Hell, knowing what I wanted to do with my degree after my sophomore year of college was shocking to most people, they still didn't know what they were going to do after they graduated. | |||
witeasprinwow Since: 12-29-05 Last post: 6388 days Last view: 6388 days |
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Originally posted by spiroth10 Dude... Deja Vu. That is almost my same exact story. About three and 1/2 years ago I was holding an application for Digipen, now I am a psych major. I'm not through the undergrad program yet, so I can't answer any workplace questions, but I guess if there's anything you want to ask me about it, then go ahead. But it's definately feasible at your point. I pretty much made up my mind in my senior year of high school, but even then I didn't figure out I wanted to do psych (and change my major to represent that) until a year of college had gone by. If you arrange your classes well and take the necessary non-major classes early on, you could probably get away with changing your major up til the start of the junior year of college. Also, you don't need a PhD to be a practicing psychologist, but you should DEFINATELY plan on getting a master's degree. Bachelors degrees in psyc are in abundance and their pay / usefulness is usually limited. State laws vary from state to state about owning a clinic (Some states require a PhD, others a masters) but you can work for someone else in any state with a Master's. (edited by witeasprinwow on 10-24-06 11:12 AM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 6280 days Last view: 6280 days |
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| Yeah, my best mate's doing a Bachelor of Psych right now, I'm mainly just posting to echo the "get a masters" thing--there's a glut of Bachelors of Psych out there not doing much, partly because they're relatively easy to get as far as degrees go--low entrance marks and I guess it sounds both interesting and useful to a lot of people. That said, based onwhat I've heard from people at 3 different unis... there's a lot of dumb and/or crazy people studying psychology, so if you're halfway competent you'll do well.
What do you mean "what do I study in college?" -- I don't really understand American universities and their talks of "majors" and stuff--I get the impression it's open slather to take any courses from anywhere you want and thne you have to piece together a coherent degree from that mess. Wouldn't you just, rather obviously, take psych classes? (edited by Arwon on 10-25-06 08:59 AM) |
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witeasprinwow Since: 12-29-05 Last post: 6388 days Last view: 6388 days |
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Originally posted by Arwon ...Huh? Are you asking how American universities work? Usually you have a choice from a set of classes that are part of your degree ("Classes for your major"), basic classes in certain studies, especially math, english, and science, that your specific university requires all students to take regardless of your major ("General requirement classes" in most colleges), and then a number of classes of which can be from any discipline you want ("Electives"). So the idea is that you take mostly general requirements and only a few classes from your major early on in college, to get a taste of your major before you jump head-first into it. Then if you decide you want to change your major a year or two in, all of your general requirement classes still count, and all of the classes for your old major can count as elective credits towards your new major. Is that what you're asking about? I didn't know Australian colleges did it any differently. (edited by witeasprinwow on 10-25-06 12:26 PM) |
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Arwon Bazu Since: 11-18-05 From: Randwick, Sydney, NSW, Australia Last post: 6280 days Last view: 6280 days |
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| It's sort of different, but mainly in emphasis rather than structure I think. In terms of pure self-identification, there's somewhat more emphasis on being an Arts Student or a Science student or a Commerce student, less so than on what you major in. I think that's a function of the way entry into university works. Calling oneself a "politics major" sounds odd to me when Americans here do it... to me they're Arts students. Likewise, here you'd simply be a Psych Student rather than a "psychology major" or whatever. (Also, depending on the uni, psychology is either part of Science or Arts... at my Uni there's a distinction between a Bachelor of Science majoring in Psych which is a 3 year program, and a more prestigious Bachelor of Psychology which is basically the same thing but with a 4th year which is inherently an honours year, and if you don't qualify, you just get the Science degree... the APA here requires at least a bachelors with honours to be a practising clinical psychologist. This is all from my flatmate who's relieved that he has the marks to do the 4th year.)
But then psychology is weird as far as subjects go, being an inherently applied and interdisciplinary field. All the cognition related stuff really is (see also: linguistics, artificial intelligence, etc). Anyways, here when you first apply to uni* you go into a specific program rather than just generally entering the university... there's nothing inherently preventing you from taking outside classes but it's silly to do so. So you enter, say, the Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Psychology or Bachelor of Petroleum Engineering or whatever program with a reasonable proscribed direction and path-of-least-resistance to follow. Your first-year courses are mostly set in stone as grounders, then after that you can mess around with them, transfer degrees, choose majors, and so forth. So the question of "what do i study if i want to study psychology" is doesn't make sense to me because when you enroll in Uni here, you would enroll in the Bachelor of Psychology program specifically. So here, the answer to "what do i study if i want to study psychology" is "you study psychology". ---- *Here, university applications are done through a single centralised body, you indicate preferences for course and university and rank them. You get offered a place in the highest preference you qualify for through your exam marks (it's a percentile ranking, from 99.95 down to "less than 30"). In theory entry into any university is through supply and demand based on marks, but in practise the elite schools have more resources and are good at working the system to boost marks. Hence the top private and selective schools monopolising the top percentiles and thus entry into the more sought-after, prestigious or limited-places courses. Anyways, in my case, my first preference was Communications at Sydney Uni and my second was International Studies at UNSW, but the entry requirement for Communications was something like the 98th percentile whereas I got 92.1 and the BInst entry cutoff in my year was about 91... So I got into UNSW's Bachelor of International Studies instead of having to lump for Communications at Newcastle. The key point here, as relates to the topic, is that entry to university here is tied to the specific course program, not the overall institution. |
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