Worried About Career Prospects

I'm gonna be doing Psychology at Uni and although I haven't studied it before I think I'm going to really enjoy it, but I'm a bit worried about career prospects. I really want to do Educational Psychology because I love working with kids/teenagers but I don't want to be a teacher!

I went to MMU the other week and the man giving the talk on Psychology said that its really tough to get into a proper Psychology career... that there are two many graduates in Psychology. I know you have to do well in your degree and get into training and stuff, but how hard is it really to find these placements?

I'm supposed to be going to LJMU in September and in the 2nd year you get a 2 week placement.. but that's not a lot. I don't know if LJMU is a really good uni to get a Psychology degree from to get into training.

I'm worried that once I graduate I won't be able to find work in Psychology! Its even making me think about going into Chemistry instead because the career options seems so much wider and easier.

Reply 1

llacerta

I don't know a whole lot about psychology graduate prospects, but one thing I do know is that it is very very very very competitive. So many people have psychology degrees, but to have a career in psychology it seems that further education is usually required. Psychology is a good degree in the sense that it can be applied to a wide range of non-psychology jobs, but I can imagine that getting a placement will be tough for anyone who's just graduated.

Still, I would say study what you're most interested in and will do well in. If you want to do Educational Psychology, a psychology degree is a good start but a chemistry degree will obviously not lead you to that career destination. I do understand your concern, because one of main points of having a degree is to aid you in getting a better job afterwards, but I've always felt (perhaps naively) that if you really do well in your degree, get plenty of work experience, etc., you've got a chance of getting a placement.

Reply 2

Marshmellow.

Don't let the competition put you off. Who's to say you can't beat the competiton? I would rather try then just accept a second best option.

I have such an interest for Psychology that the competiton doesn't put me off one bit. There's so many routes that you can take after studying Psychology.. Even if you don't get your desired position initially, there's nothing to stop you from progressing in the future.

You'll only get as far as you allow yourself. Just go for it. :smile: