Career Opportunities with a Psychology degree

In the psychology discourse community, students have a variety of choices when deciding career paths when obtaining their psychology degree. One of these paths is to become a clinical psychologist. Clinical psychologists requires a psychology bachelor’s degree and taking the Graduate Record Examination or GRE to apply for a Masters in Psychology. In the Bay Area, San Francisco State University offers a Masters of Arts in Psychology and San Jose State University offers a Masters of Science Clinical Psychology. Both of these masters programs provide the experience and skills needed for future clinical psychologists. In SFSU, the masters program has a two year duration. Once a MA in Psychology is obtained, future clinical psychologists will become an interim for a clinical psychologist for about three to five years. Once that is completed they will then become licensed to practice clinical psychologist in their state. A good chunk of time will be focused on writing nonfiction and descriptive psychological key terms to diagnose patients that they will be interviewing. However, if graduates who wish to enroll in a MA in Psychology later can enter an entry-level position, such as an ABA behavioral therapist. The requirement for an ABA behavioral therapist is a Bachelor’s degree in psychology, minimum of six months of experience working with children with special needs, and passion to help family and children to overcome obstacles. Moving forward, once a student has completed their degree and interim they can find jobs as a clinical psychologist that require at least a two year post license and license from that state where the job is located. Lastly, internships and research opportunities can be taken before they graduate college. These research opportunities can provide additional one on one patient exposure and provide insightful perspective on how clinical psychologists work on their writing and procedures.

Students who want to become an important career decision maker can apply to become a human resources manager. Human resources manager has the power to create a productive and safe workplace environment for all employees under a certain type of business. HR managers have also the authority to hire or fire prospective employees. A great factor that contributes to the HR position is understanding the communication of humans, specifically psychologically. In addition, HR managers can work under almost any company, whether that be businesses on Wall Street to businesses ran by psychologists or doctors. To become a HR manager, students need to obtain a bachelor’s degree, usually four years to complete, in industrial psychology and would need to gain some work experience as either a human resources assistant or specialist. There are no special licenses that are required to becoming a HR manager, however, voluntary certificates can make applications more appealing. Once HR assistants have around four to five years of experience, they have the chance to apply to move up to HR manager that will oversee all of HR assistants in the company. These entry-level positions as an HR assistant require a bachelor’s degree in psychology, excellent communication skills both verbal and written, and prior experience in human resources. These prior experiences before applying can come from internships at companies that shadow HR assistants or HR managers. Moving, forward, the types of writings that is crucial as an HR manager is policy development and documentation, recruiting and staffing, and other paperwork that deals with employee’s health benefits or monthly reports.

Students with obtaining a psychology degree can actually apply to become a medical doctor. A doctor is able to provide medical attention and treatment. Having a psychology background helps the doctor understand the psychological impacts that stress or anxiety can have on the body that can lead to cancer or psychological disorders. When trying to be a doctor, students must obtain a bachelor’s degree from any subject they like, however they must complete the pre-medical requisites in order to apply. These pre-requisites are a year of biology, year of chemistry, year of organic chemistry, and a year of physics. Once the student has completed these courses they can then take on the Medical College Admission Test or MCAT. This challenging exam tests students on the pre-requisite courses taken. After students complete the MCAT they then can apply to medical school. Medical school requires students to study for 4 years. Within these 4 years, students will study the human anatomy, pathology, and clinical rotations at the hospital. When medical school is completed, students will then be licensed to work at a hospital under the specialty that they have chosen. That is the traditional route on becoming a medical doctor. Some entry level jobs in the medical field are nursing assistant, medical technician, and medical assistant. In the medical application, students will need to provide a personal statement that is focused on why they want to become a doctor. For this portion of the writing, students should draw on past experiences with patients or organizations that show how passionate they are to become a medical doctor. Psychology has many roads to take and is not just limited to one path.