Why is a Psychology Degree so heavily slandered?
I hope I do not come across as naive as I am truly tying to understand this from all points of view, but as a 16 year old student who aspires to pursue a career in Occupational Psychology at postgraduate stage, I cannot understand the hate that the course gets. I have had this career in mind from year 7, but my reasons are far from the cliché "I'm interested in the human mind". I feel that Psychology has a much deeper and more intimate relation to us as humans and, whilst not strictly on par with Neurology, can help in more ways than we could possibly imagine.
Psychology has been helping us to gain understanding of the mind AND the body for centuries. However, I feel that the reason for such slander is due to the lack of jobs and opportunity that can come from it.
I totally understand this, and it is always something that will be in my head throughout my education, but I cannot understand how it is said to be 'impossible' to get a job with it! SO many different things can come from Psychology, but I see where getting a job strictly in Psychology can be hard in such a competitive business.
I will still take psychology as I am passionate in that it means something more than I can possibly explain and I am willing to write a million job applications to stay in the psychological field. But there no hope for me job wise after Uni?
All your opinions are valued. Thank you
Psychology has been helping us to gain understanding of the mind AND the body for centuries. However, I feel that the reason for such slander is due to the lack of jobs and opportunity that can come from it.
I totally understand this, and it is always something that will be in my head throughout my education, but I cannot understand how it is said to be 'impossible' to get a job with it! SO many different things can come from Psychology, but I see where getting a job strictly in Psychology can be hard in such a competitive business.
I will still take psychology as I am passionate in that it means something more than I can possibly explain and I am willing to write a million job applications to stay in the psychological field. But there no hope for me job wise after Uni?
All your opinions are valued. Thank you
Scroll to see replies
Original post by LenniesRabbit
I hope I do not come across as naive as I am truly tying to understand this from all points of view, but as a 16 year old student who aspires to pursue a career in Occupational Psychology at postgraduate stage, I cannot understand the hate that the course gets. I have had this career in mind from year 7, but my reasons are far from the cliché "I'm interested in the human mind". I feel that Psychology has a much deeper and more intimate relation to us as humans and, whilst not strictly on par with Neurology, can help in more ways than we could possibly imagine.
Psychology has been helping us to gain understanding of the mind AND the body for centuries. However, I feel that the reason for such slander is due to the lack of jobs and opportunity that can come from it.
I totally understand this, and it is always something that will be in my head throughout my education, but I cannot understand how it is said to be 'impossible' to get a job with it! SO many different things can come from Psychology, but I see where getting a job strictly in Psychology can be hard in such a competitive business.
I will still take psychology as I am passionate in that it means something more than I can possibly explain and I am willing to write a million job applications to stay in the psychological field. But there no hope for me job wise after Uni?
All your opinions are valued. Thank you
Psychology has been helping us to gain understanding of the mind AND the body for centuries. However, I feel that the reason for such slander is due to the lack of jobs and opportunity that can come from it.
I totally understand this, and it is always something that will be in my head throughout my education, but I cannot understand how it is said to be 'impossible' to get a job with it! SO many different things can come from Psychology, but I see where getting a job strictly in Psychology can be hard in such a competitive business.
I will still take psychology as I am passionate in that it means something more than I can possibly explain and I am willing to write a million job applications to stay in the psychological field. But there no hope for me job wise after Uni?
All your opinions are valued. Thank you
The whole point of University is in order to get a good job. Sure, it's great to pick a subject you love and is interesting but honestly, if it doesn't end up getting you a decent paying job, then you're in debt for £27k+ for no reason. Psychology seems to be one of those degrees that it's VERY hard to get a job offer for but it's obviously not impossible. I'm sure Mother Psychology would find it sweet and flattering that you would submit a million job applications to stay in the Psychology field but what are you going to do for money in the mean time? It doesn't appear out of thin air and you also have to entertain the possibility of never finding a job in Psychology so you had definitely wasted a lot of time and money and effort at Uni.
Original post by LenniesRabbit
I hope I do not come across as naive as I am truly tying to understand this from all points of view, but as a 16 year old student who aspires to pursue a career in Occupational Psychology at postgraduate stage, I cannot understand the hate that the course gets. I have had this career in mind from year 7, but my reasons are far from the cliché "I'm interested in the human mind". I feel that Psychology has a much deeper and more intimate relation to us as humans and, whilst not strictly on par with Neurology, can help in more ways than we could possibly imagine.
Psychology has been helping us to gain understanding of the mind AND the body for centuries. However, I feel that the reason for such slander is due to the lack of jobs and opportunity that can come from it.
I totally understand this, and it is always something that will be in my head throughout my education, but I cannot understand how it is said to be 'impossible' to get a job with it! SO many different things can come from Psychology, but I see where getting a job strictly in Psychology can be hard in such a competitive business.
I will still take psychology as I am passionate in that it means something more than I can possibly explain and I am willing to write a million job applications to stay in the psychological field. But there no hope for me job wise after Uni?
All your opinions are valued. Thank you
Psychology has been helping us to gain understanding of the mind AND the body for centuries. However, I feel that the reason for such slander is due to the lack of jobs and opportunity that can come from it.
I totally understand this, and it is always something that will be in my head throughout my education, but I cannot understand how it is said to be 'impossible' to get a job with it! SO many different things can come from Psychology, but I see where getting a job strictly in Psychology can be hard in such a competitive business.
I will still take psychology as I am passionate in that it means something more than I can possibly explain and I am willing to write a million job applications to stay in the psychological field. But there no hope for me job wise after Uni?
All your opinions are valued. Thank you
You basically answered your own question. It's slandered because of the lack of jobs it directly leads to. It isn't vocational like law or medicine and its not considered 'hard' or impressive like economics and history, therefore it's not a good degree to get UNLESS you do it at an excellent university and are genuinely highly passionate about the subject, which you sound as though you are.
I think a lot of people do psychology when they aren't sure what else to take as it sounds moderately interesting and not too difffcult, therefore it's associated with people who go to university just for the sake of it or because they want to lead the 'uni lifestyle' i.e have an excuse to drink loads without much responsibility for 3 years which adds to its poor rep.
I took psychology a-level because I wasn't sure what else to take and , like I said above, it sounded moderately interesting. I don't regret taking it at alevel but there's no way I'd take a degree in it.
In my experience, psychology students tend to be insufferable know-it-alls that think because they got a first in their abnormal psychology module they can go around diagnosing everyone they meet with random rare psychological disorders.
They also act like their degree is exceptionally difficult, when they actually are on the lower end of contact hours, and their course is of only comparatively moderate difficulty.
It's also somewhat like the "media studies" of private school students, i.e. the subject the upper middle class WASPs take if they were too lazy/stupid to get decent grades in e.g. sciences, languages, maths, etc.
Of course this is very biased and entirely anecdotal :P
They also act like their degree is exceptionally difficult, when they actually are on the lower end of contact hours, and their course is of only comparatively moderate difficulty.
It's also somewhat like the "media studies" of private school students, i.e. the subject the upper middle class WASPs take if they were too lazy/stupid to get decent grades in e.g. sciences, languages, maths, etc.
Of course this is very biased and entirely anecdotal :P
Original post by Butternuts96
The whole point of University is in order to get a good job. Sure, it's great to pick a subject you love and is interesting but honestly, if it doesn't end up getting you a decent paying job, then you're in debt for £27k+ for no reason. Psychology seems to be one of those degrees that it's VERY hard to get a job offer for but it's obviously not impossible. I'm sure Mother Psychology would find it sweet and flattering that you would submit a million job applications to stay in the Psychology field but what are you going to do for money in the mean time? It doesn't appear out of thin air and you also have to entertain the possibility of never finding a job in Psychology so you had definitely wasted a lot of time and money and effort at Uni.
. Every word you have said is totally understandable
Psychology is just one of those things you cannot solely rely on for a direct job. I just wanted to hear different opinions on the matter because...well its my future we are talking about so it's good to see the positives and negatives. Thank youOriginal post by the artful lounger
In my experience, psychology students tend to be insufferable know-it-alls that think because they got a first in their abnormal psychology module they can go around diagnosing everyone they meet with random rare psychological disorders.
They also act like their degree is exceptionally difficult, when they actually are on the lower end of contact hours, and their course is of only comparatively moderate difficulty.
It's also somewhat like the "media studies" of private school students, i.e. the subject the upper middle class WASPs take if they were too lazy/stupid to get decent grades in e.g. sciences, languages, maths, etc.
Of course this is very biased and entirely anecdotal :P
They also act like their degree is exceptionally difficult, when they actually are on the lower end of contact hours, and their course is of only comparatively moderate difficulty.
It's also somewhat like the "media studies" of private school students, i.e. the subject the upper middle class WASPs take if they were too lazy/stupid to get decent grades in e.g. sciences, languages, maths, etc.
Of course this is very biased and entirely anecdotal :P
Haha! Understandable. I've seen a couple television shows that have portrayed these stuck up degree level "Psychologists" that use their knowledge negatively! Thanks for your opinion
Original post by lachachacha
You basically answered your own question. It's slandered because of the lack of jobs it directly leads to. It isn't vocational like law or medicine and its not considered 'hard' or impressive like economics and history, therefore it's not a good degree to get UNLESS you do it at an excellent university and are genuinely highly passionate about the subject, which you sound as though you are.
I think a lot of people do psychology when they aren't sure what else to take as it sounds moderately interesting and not too difffcult, therefore it's associated with people who go to university just for the sake of it or because they want to lead the 'uni lifestyle' i.e have an excuse to drink loads without much responsibility for 3 years which adds to its poor rep.
I took psychology a-level because I wasn't sure what else to take and , like I said above, it sounded moderately interesting. I don't regret taking it at alevel but there's no way I'd take a degree in it.
I think a lot of people do psychology when they aren't sure what else to take as it sounds moderately interesting and not too difffcult, therefore it's associated with people who go to university just for the sake of it or because they want to lead the 'uni lifestyle' i.e have an excuse to drink loads without much responsibility for 3 years which adds to its poor rep.
I took psychology a-level because I wasn't sure what else to take and , like I said above, it sounded moderately interesting. I don't regret taking it at alevel but there's no way I'd take a degree in it.
The poor rep is something that's been a huge problem I've heard. People are just not taking it seriously which adds to the high drop out rate. Thanks for your opinion
Alongside the lack of jobs, a lot of it seems like a load of ********.
Loads of people see psychology as a really easy degree where you just listen to people talk about their problems then prescribe anti depressants or something.
That is obviously not what psychology is all about, but so many people who actually don't want go do a degree, but simply want to go to university because it is expected or is seen as the done thing choose psychology as an 'easy option', Exact same thing with Sports Science.
I aware though of course psychology isn't like this, nor is sports science, and there are obviously people out there who genuinely want to study psychology, but the large numbers of people who take it just for the sake of a degree means it gets a lot of bad press, imo
That is obviously not what psychology is all about, but so many people who actually don't want go do a degree, but simply want to go to university because it is expected or is seen as the done thing choose psychology as an 'easy option', Exact same thing with Sports Science.
I aware though of course psychology isn't like this, nor is sports science, and there are obviously people out there who genuinely want to study psychology, but the large numbers of people who take it just for the sake of a degree means it gets a lot of bad press, imo
[QUOTE="lounger;58914641" the="the" artful="artful"]In my experience, psychology students tend to be insufferable know-it-alls that think because they got a first in their abnormal psychology module they can go around diagnosing everyone they meet with random rare psychological disorders.
They also act like their degree is exceptionally difficult, when they actually are on the lower end of contact hours, and their course is of only comparatively moderate difficulty.
It's also somewhat like the "media studies" of private school students, i.e. the subject the upper middle class WASPs take if they were too lazy/stupid to get decent grades in e.g. sciences, languages, maths, etc.
Of course this is very biased and entirely anecdotal :P[/QUOTE
Soooooo accurate! The 'media studies of private school students'
They also act like their degree is exceptionally difficult, when they actually are on the lower end of contact hours, and their course is of only comparatively moderate difficulty.
It's also somewhat like the "media studies" of private school students, i.e. the subject the upper middle class WASPs take if they were too lazy/stupid to get decent grades in e.g. sciences, languages, maths, etc.
Of course this is very biased and entirely anecdotal :P[/QUOTE
Soooooo accurate! The 'media studies of private school students'
Original post by Butternuts96
The whole point of University is in order to get a good job. Sure, it's great to pick a subject you love and is interesting but honestly, if it doesn't end up getting you a decent paying job, then you're in debt for £27k+ for no reason. Psychology seems to be one of those degrees that it's VERY hard to get a job offer for but it's obviously not impossible. I'm sure Mother Psychology would find it sweet and flattering that you would submit a million job applications to stay in the Psychology field but what are you going to do for money in the mean time? It doesn't appear out of thin air and you also have to entertain the possibility of never finding a job in Psychology so you had definitely wasted a lot of time and money and effort at Uni.
Spot on reply, covered all points I was about to mention.
I was about to do psychology at uni myself, but then was honest to myself and realized that it has very little worth economically, so job prospects would be poor.
I could not see myself studying for 3/4 years and then be unemployed all over again, or be stuck in some sort of zero hour contract manual labour job while not getting enough shifts to pay the bills (lool my situation now)
So I am looking forward to studying engineering, provide value to society and be rewarded in return with good employability and decent pay.
It's basically supply and demand, there are too many graduates with not enough skills/experience, so employers can be picky. The answer for me was to get skills, hence why I picked engineering. I can still read up on my psychology books in my spare time and discuss psychology topics with a like minded community, there is no need to spend 3/4 years of my energy, time and money into doing psychology just because it was a sort of hobby for me
And trust me, you do NOT want to be 40 years old, stuck in a zero hour contract manual labor job as your best/only option (some of my colleagues are in this situation
)So please think about your life before going to some of these greedy universities who are out to get your £9k tuition loans :P
Original post by Butternuts96
The whole point of University is in order to get a good job.
That's your opinion, not fact. There's nothing wrong with education for enjoyment. You could argue that people who choose to study humanities and other degrees that don't lend themselves to a direct career path, while maybe hoping it will get them a good job, are not studying with the sole aim of a great job at the end of it. If that was the case nobody would ever study humanities etc.
OP - psychology is easy to get into at uni so lots of people study it, but the postgrad stage after that is more competitive and takes a long time. I deal with clinical psychologists etc in my current job and when looking at their CVs you see very frequently that it takes them 7-8 years from graduating their BSc, to actually gaining chartered status. Also I think as there is still a great deal of stigma around mental illness and the like, people are more sceptical of psychology as opposed to psychiatry in treating the brain which is why psychology in itself doesn't attract much positivity.
Original post by infairverona
That's your opinion, not fact. There's nothing wrong with education for enjoyment. You could argue that people who choose to study humanities and other degrees that don't lend themselves to a direct career path, while maybe hoping it will get them a good job, are not studying with the sole aim of a great job at the end of it. If that was the case nobody would ever study humanities etc.
OP - psychology is easy to get into at uni so lots of people study it, but the postgrad stage after that is more competitive and takes a long time. I deal with clinical psychologists etc in my current job and when looking at their CVs you see very frequently that it takes them 7-8 years from graduating their BSc, to actually gaining chartered status. Also I think as there is still a great deal of stigma around mental illness and the like, people are more sceptical of psychology as opposed to psychiatry in treating the brain which is why psychology in itself doesn't attract much positivity.
OP - psychology is easy to get into at uni so lots of people study it, but the postgrad stage after that is more competitive and takes a long time. I deal with clinical psychologists etc in my current job and when looking at their CVs you see very frequently that it takes them 7-8 years from graduating their BSc, to actually gaining chartered status. Also I think as there is still a great deal of stigma around mental illness and the like, people are more sceptical of psychology as opposed to psychiatry in treating the brain which is why psychology in itself doesn't attract much positivity.
Oh you're completely correct . . . Genuinely. Because not ALL people go University in order to get a good job. About 99% of us go Uni to get a good job but the remaining 1% go University SOLELY for the purpose of enjoying education because University lectures are a whole lot of fun and Mummy and Daddy can easily pay their £9000 hobby every year!
Original post by Butternuts96
Oh you're completely correct . . . Genuinely. Because not ALL people go University in order to get a good job. About 99% of us go Uni to get a good job but the remaining 1% go University SOLELY for the purpose of enjoying education because University lectures are a whole lot of fun and Mummy and Daddy can easily pay their £9000 hobby every year!
I can't work out if you're being sarcastic or not but I personally agree with your statement, or at least I think people should go to uni to further their career. But I also see the benefit of studying something you enjoy just because you enjoy it, if you can afford to do that. I know a lot of people who did english lit, history etc degrees I personally would not consider useful at all and their parents are not paying for it. It's just the culture we have now where everyone goes to uni. I can't stand it when people who have done pretty useless degrees then moan that they can't get a great job, though.
Original post by Gwenuin
Loads of people see psychology as a really easy degree where you just listen to people talk about their problems then prescribe anti depressants or something.
That is obviously not what psychology is all about, but so many people who actually don't want go do a degree, but simply want to go to university because it is expected or is seen as the done thing choose psychology as an 'easy option', Exact same thing with Sports Science.
I aware though of course psychology isn't like this, nor is sports science, and there are obviously people out there who genuinely want to study psychology, but the large numbers of people who take it just for the sake of a degree means it gets a lot of bad press, imo
That is obviously not what psychology is all about, but so many people who actually don't want go do a degree, but simply want to go to university because it is expected or is seen as the done thing choose psychology as an 'easy option', Exact same thing with Sports Science.
I aware though of course psychology isn't like this, nor is sports science, and there are obviously people out there who genuinely want to study psychology, but the large numbers of people who take it just for the sake of a degree means it gets a lot of bad press, imo
I honestly think university should be self funded
That way:
-Universities would need to provide value for money, because people don't want to waste their money on terrible degrees at terrible universities
-Less people force themselves to go to university because it's seen as the done thing, so now there would be more emphasis on apprenticeships rather than just going straight to uni
-Fees would become cheaper, because universities would want to make the course as affordable as possible so that they can admit more students
-Taxpayers (taxation is theft anyway :P) would not be forced to pay for students going to university to get a degree for the sake of getting one, that would not make a difference to their employ ability while spending thousands of pounds of tax money for little to no return.
-And most importantly, there wouldn't be such a huge over saturation of graduates in the job market, so degrees would not be devalued and start meaning something to employers again.
All in all, government should not subsidize university tuition, what we have happening with graduate unemployment is exactly the result of that
Original post by The Wavefunction
Alongside the lack of jobs, a lot of it seems like a load of bulls*it.
This is the problem, OP: most people (including a lot of students who actually plan on studying Psychology as an undergraduate) don't actually know what a Psychology course covers. Other subjects suffer the same fate (people assuming that most of what Physicists study is Astrophysics, for example) but in the case of Psychology, the assumption is that most of the modules are centred around clinical, abnormal or developmental psychology. Whilst these topics are covered on Psychology courses, many would be surprised to find out that such courses also cover topics such as neurobiology of perception or imaging methods or statistics, and so on.
In short, people assume that the degree is about something that it isn't, and they make assumptions based on their own ideas of what a Psychology course covers. And these people often include Psychology students themselves, who are shocked to discover they might have to do some maths in their three years studying a science, for example.
Original post by infairverona
That's your opinion, not fact. There's nothing wrong with education for enjoyment. You could argue that people who choose to study humanities and other degrees that don't lend themselves to a direct career path, while maybe hoping it will get them a good job, are not studying with the sole aim of a great job at the end of it. If that was the case nobody would ever study humanities etc..
There is nothing wrong with studying something you enjoy, but why at someone else's expense? (Remember we are forced to pay tax, it's not voluntary)
Can the country really afford thousands of more graduates spending thousands of taxpayer money adding to increasing future debt (which will wreck the future economy).
Besides you can always study stuff like psychology, art, history etc. in your own spare time, why is it so necessary to get a degree in it and add to the already huge graduate over saturation? Is it really worth the future low employ ability?
Isn't the graduate unemployment and over saturation already high enough?
I don't blame the students though, any sensible person would rather take their chances and get a degree while it's still government funded, rather than just be unemployed or looking hard for jobs after leaving school. Since it's government funded people face little consequence (save potential unemployment) from making poor choices and decisions.
I understand that people may pick a degree for their enjoyment, but I can't find the purpose of it especially in this society whhere sadly, we are brought up to think work should be our whole future. Its sad to think that people change their minds from courses that maybe won't lead easily to jobs but its definitely understandable.
Believe me, if there was any self funding way that would guarantee me a higher education and a job in Psych I would try and take it...but I also see why many would strive for university with its government funding
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Believe me, if there was any self funding way that would guarantee me a higher education and a job in Psych I would try and take it...but I also see why many would strive for university with its government funding
Posted from TSR Mobile
Psychology is a victim of its own success really. It's a very interesting and cool sounding subject so lots of people want to study it. To cash in a lot of low quality universities offer it to students with very low entry requirements, flooding the market with loads of psych grads of extremely variable quality.
This is a real shame for students who genuinely want to study the subject, want to work hard and want to pursue a career in the field (or at least come out with a good classification).
As economics tells us, the more of something there is the less it is worth. So all the students just barely scrapping into uni and leaving with 3rd in psych bring down the reputation of all those who worked hard for their 1st or 2:1.
The truth is that we also don't need that many psychologists so people are of course going to be disappointed in terms of post graduate prospects. Most people who take history and English etc accept there is no direct career path, people in psych should also take the same approach. Currently 90% of people who show up on day 1 want, and expect, to be clinical psychologists; the majority end up disappointed due to their unrealistic pre-uni expectations.
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This is a real shame for students who genuinely want to study the subject, want to work hard and want to pursue a career in the field (or at least come out with a good classification).
As economics tells us, the more of something there is the less it is worth. So all the students just barely scrapping into uni and leaving with 3rd in psych bring down the reputation of all those who worked hard for their 1st or 2:1.
The truth is that we also don't need that many psychologists so people are of course going to be disappointed in terms of post graduate prospects. Most people who take history and English etc accept there is no direct career path, people in psych should also take the same approach. Currently 90% of people who show up on day 1 want, and expect, to be clinical psychologists; the majority end up disappointed due to their unrealistic pre-uni expectations.
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Original post by LenniesRabbit
I understand that people may pick a degree for their enjoyment, but I can't find the purpose of it especially in this society whhere sadly, we are brought up to think work should be our whole future. Its sad to think that people change their minds from courses that maybe won't lead easily to jobs but its definitely understandable.
Believe me, if there was any self funding way that would guarantee me a higher education and a job in Psych I would try and take it...but I also see why many would strive for university with its government funding
Posted from TSR Mobile
Believe me, if there was any self funding way that would guarantee me a higher education and a job in Psych I would try and take it...but I also see why many would strive for university with its government funding
Posted from TSR Mobile
There is no real way to escape work unless you want to farm, even that's work.
You have to work to live, it's just reality, but at least now the average western person is wealthier than the king of France in the middle ages.
Don't get me wrong, pursue what you want, but just be aware of the consequences, because you only get one student loan entitlement and there is already a huge over saturation of uni grads out there.
(edited 8 years ago)
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