Stop me if y'all take already heard this i. Psychology is i of the virtually popular undergraduate majors in the U.Due south.; in the last year the data are available (2014-2015), 117,557 available's degrees in psychology were awarded. Said another way, in the by ix years, 1 million individuals received psychology baccalaureates (National Center for Didactics Statistics, 2017).

Asking the question "what can you do with a bachelor's degree in psychology?" is a very relevant question to a lot of people. Let me to assure y'all from the showtime that if someone tells yous the answer to that question is "cypher," that answer is plainly false. About 25 percent of psychology baccalaureates become to graduate school in psychology, about 18 percent keep for more than education but non in psychology, and 57 per centum are workforce graduates (Lin, Christidis & Stamm, 2017).

If no one was getting a job with a bachelor's degree in psychology, that tidbit of information would have fabricated the news by now and I suspect the popularity of the major (every bit evidenced past annual number of graduates) would decrease substantially. But a quick, short answer, such as "nothing," is a blurb and a audio bite — easy to understand even so meaningless. The bodily answer is much more than complicated and nuanced, and it goes like this — the psychology bachelor'south caste qualifies a person for a big number of jobs, but the degree does not uniquely qualify a person for any item chore.

Huh?

Start, permit'due south starting time with the large number of jobs role. Below you lot can run into the Holy Grail list of potential jobs with a bachelor's degree in psychology. I don't know where this list started, possibly with Marky Lloyd and/or Drew Appleby, curated over time by Paul Hettich and/or Jane Halonen, but it seems at present that I am the curator of "the list."

Activities Managing director Labor Relations Director
Admissions Evaluator Loan Officeholder
Advertising Sales Representative Management Analyst
Alumni Director Market Research Analyst
Animal Trainer Occupational Annotator
Benefits Director Patient Resources Reimbursement Agent
Career/Employment Advisor Personnel Recruiter
Career Information Specialist Police Officer
Caseworker Polygraph Examiner
Kid Development Specialist Preschool Teacher
Child Welfare/Placement Caseworker Probation/Parole Officeholder
Claims Supervisor Project Evaluator
Coach Psychiatric Aide/Attendant
Community Organization Worker Psychiatric Technician
Community Worker Psychological Stress Evaluator
Computer Programmer Psychosocial Rehabilitation Specialist (PSR)
Conservation Officer Public Relations Representative
Correctional Handling Specialist Purchasing Agent
Corrections Officeholder Real Estate Agent
Criminal Investigator (FBI and other) Recreation Leader
Client Service Representative Supervisor Recreation Supervisor
Data Base Ambassador Research Assistant
Data Base Design Analyst Retail Salesperson
Department Director Sales Clerk
Disability Policy Worker Social Services Aide
Disability Case Managing director Substance Corruption Counselor
Employee Wellness Maintenance Program Specialist Systems Analyst
Employee Relations Specialist Technical Writer
Employment Advisor Veterans Contact Representative
Employment Interviewer Veterans Counselor
Financial Aid Counselor Victims' Abet
Fund Raiser Vocational Training Teacher
Health Care Facility Ambassador Volunteer Coordinator
Human Resource Advisor Author
Information Specialist
Task Annotator


To say that a bachelor's degree in psychology prepares yous for no job is simply ludicrous. Simply let'southward think about the more nuanced part — a bachelor's caste in psychology does non exclusively entitle a person to any of the jobs in this list. Using O*NET from the U.Due south. Department of Labor (2017) for the following bulleted data, allow me to explain what I hateful by psychology'southward lack of exclusivity.

  • For a chore like brute trainer, the vast majority of individuals with this task take a loftier school diploma (or less) as their highest educational attainment. So a available'south degree (in whatever field) is not necessarily a prerequisite requirement.
  • In social club to be a claims supervisor (claims examiner) for an insurance company, nearly seventy percent of those individuals have a bachelor's degree. This blazon of position can be filled by individuals from many different majors.
  • To serve as a corrections officer, 89 per centum of individuals in this career have a high school diploma or equivalent. Psychology majors tin can do well in this area, merely equally you can probably sympathise, so do criminal justice majors, sociology majors, and others.
  • Thirty pct of labor relations specialists concur bachelor's degrees, and 25 percent agree primary's degrees — a psychology major could certainly attain this chore, but will sometimes exist competing with others with higher educational attainment.
  • Technical writers typically require some college (35 percent associate's degree and 33 pct available's caste), but as you can imagine, a psychology major competing for this position would as well be competing with individuals who were English majors in higher.

It is my hope that these examples illustrate the nuance and complexity of discussing career options for psychology workforce graduates. There are many, many job possibilities, merely there is as well much competition awaiting in the workplace due to the lack of exclusivity. Psychology majors, no matter what the career trajectory, need to be thinking about, cultivating and honing their skill sets; in that regard, I highly encourage you to review the works of Miller and Carducci (2015) and Strohmetz et al. (2015). Do not be passive about your future, hoping that information technology "all comes out in the wash" — be forcefully empowered to be your own all-time marry and advocate for a satisfying and successful futurity.

References

Lin, L., Christidis, P., & Stamm, K. (2017, October). The path to becoming a psychologist. Monitor on Psychology, 48 (9), 17.

Miller, One thousand.J., & Carducci, B.J. (2015). Student perceptions of knowledge, skills, ad abilities desired past potential employers of psychology majors. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 1, 38-47.  doi:10.1037/stl0000015.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2017). Degrees in psychology conferred by postsecondary institutions, by level of caste and sex activity of student: Selected years, 1945-l through 2014-15 [Tabular array 325.fourscore]. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_325.fourscore.asp?electric current=yes.

Strohmetz, D.B., Dolinsky, B, Jhangiani, R.S., Posey, D.C., Hardin, E.E., Shyu, V., & Klein, E. (2015). The skillsful major: Psychology curricula in the 21st century. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 1, 200-207.  doi:10.1037/stl0000037.

U.S. Department of Labor. (2017). O*NET Online. Retrieved from https://www.onetonline.org/.

About the author

R. Eric Landrum R. Eric Landrum is a professor of psychology at Boise State University, receiving his PhD in cognitive psychology from Southern Illinois Academy-Carbondale. His research interests eye on the educational weather condition that best facilitate student success also as the use of scholarship of didactics and learning strategies to advance the efforts of scientist-educators. He has over 400 professional presentations at conferences and published over 25 books/book capacity, and has published over 75 professional articles in scholarly, peer-reviewed journals. He has worked with over 300 undergraduate research assistants and taught over 13,000 students in 25 years at Boise State. During Summer 2008, he led an American Psychological Association working group at the National Conference for Undergraduate Education in Psychology studying the desired results of an undergraduate psychology education. During the October 2014 Educational Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C., Eric was presented with a Presidential Citation from then APA President Nadine Kaslow for his outstanding contributions to the teaching of psychology. He is a member of APA, a fellow in APA'due south Div. 2 (Social club for the Teaching of Psychology or STP), served as STP secretary (2009-2011). During 2014, Eric served every bit president of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology; for 2016-2017, he served equally president of the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association; and Eric is currently president of Psi Chi, the International Honor Club in Psychology.