Careers in Psychology

Undergraduate Teachers January 13, 2020

One course, two courses, three courses, more? Providing career support throughout the undergraduate curriculum

Scenario One

When Shannon asked for a letter of recommendation from the department chair to support her applications for graduate school, the chair asked why she was applying to clinical programs. Shannon said she did not know what else she could do with her bachelor’s degree.

Scenario Two

Rafael took a required psychology careers course in the fall of his sophomore year. He knew he wanted to be a sport psychologist, so he did not consider other careers at that time. With each new psychology course, Rafael’s interests evolved. By the time he entered his senior year, Rafael knew he wanted to pursue a career that aligned with his new interests but did not know what the options were.

Graduate and Postgraduate Students, Graduate and Postgraduate Teachers, Undergraduate Students, Undergraduate Teachers November 11, 2019

5 Challenges to Collecting Data on the Psychology Workforce

Seven years ago, when I first began working at the Center for Workforce Studies (CWS), my colleagues and I were given the task of collecting, mining, analyzing, and disseminating data that would be relevant to the psychology workforce and education pipeline. I naively asked myself, “how hard could this be?”  After all, other disciplines seemed to be doing it just fine.  At the time, I had no idea just how immensely difficult this task would prove to be.

Undergraduate Students May 20, 2019

Stressed about Work? Occupational Health Psychology Can Help

Think about someone you know who really loves their job. Now think about someone you know who is frequently stressed about their job and dreads going to work. Have you noticed that some jobs appear to be more stressful than others? Perhaps it’s due to working too many hours, a supervisor that’s hard to work for, or a lack of balance between work and life outside of work.

Chess. White board with chess figures on it. Plan of battle.

Undergraduate Students, Undergraduate Teachers March 25, 2019

Defending the major: Exploiting the workforce advantage of the psychology degree

Although the vast majority of students who declare majors in psychology claim that they aspire to continue their education in graduate school, the reality is that most psychology graduates will instead enter the workforce. The Center for Workforce Studies of the American Psychological Association estimates that approximately 73 percent of psychology majors will end up using the knowledge and skills they acquired in some kind of workforce job after graduation (Lin & Stamm, 2018).

Undergraduate Teachers February 18, 2019

Faculty’s role in preparing undergraduate psychology majors for the world of work

For many students graduation is a few months away. Unfortunately, chances are many of them haven’t taken the necessary steps to prepare for life after college. Of course, some of them will be on their way to graduate school. But what about the roughly 72 percent of students (National Association of Colleges and Employers, 2018) who will be directly entering the workforce?

Graduate and Postgraduate Students October 22, 2018

Using Your Psychology Degree For A Career Outside Academia

Recently, I was looking at numbers and trends in employment for psychology degree holders gathered in the 2015 National Survey of College Graduates (I know – I’m a data geek, and I embrace it). As you would expect, the most common occupation reported through the survey was either a faculty or a psychologist providing psychological services (and in some instances both).  Having been a graduate student and the director of a graduate training program, that wasn’t so surprising to me.

Undergraduate Teachers July 23, 2018

What can you do with a bachelor’s degree in psychology? A Resource for Educators.

As faculty members, most of us “feel” the popularity of the psychology major, whether in an increase in our class sizes, the number of advisees we are assigned or an increase in the number of adjunct faculty hires. We know psychology is one of the most popular undergraduate majors in the U.S.; in the last year the data are available (2014-2015), 117,557 bachelor’s degrees in psychology were awarded (National Center for Education Statistics, 2017).