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.
How the APA Guidelines Can Help
Professional development is one of five goals outlined in the APA Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major (Guidelines 2.0 [PDF, 448KB]; APA, 2013) yet only 80% of baccalaureate programs report that they provide career assistance (Hailstorks et al., 2019) and only 32% of undergraduate psychology programs offer a careers course (Pfund et al., in press). Despite the fact that only 14% of psychology baccalaureates earn a graduate degree in psychology and only 4% earn doctoral degrees in psychology (APA, 2018), two of the most common types of career assistance include how to apply to graduate school and how to find information about career possibilities in psychology subfields (Hailstorks et al., 2019). Collectively, these results indicate that, like Shannon, most psychology majors are not getting the comprehensive career assistance they need.
A careers course like the one Rafael completed can provide information about skills valued by employers (PDF, 56KB), career options, ways to gain experiences and self-marketing (i.e., the four milestones outlined in Preparing to Use Your Degree in Psychology; APA, 2018). However, one challenge in offering a careers course is deciding when to offer it. Although 40% of departments that require a careers course position the course in the sophomore year, there is no consensus as to when the course is offered (Pfund et al., in press). Positioning the careers course in the sophomore year assumes all students are ready to explore careers and to establish professional development goals early in the curriculum and requires students to seek job and graduate school application support through other mechanisms in the senior year. A senior-level careers course provides support during the job and graduate school application processes but is a little late for career exploration and professional development.
One solution to the “when” problem is to offer a series of careers courses, offered across the curriculum, that align with student development. Thorough career exploration requires repeated assessment of self (values, interests and strengths), gaining experiences associated with occupations of interest, and evaluation of fit between self and occupational paths. Comprehensive professional development requires repeated assessment of knowledge, skills and experiences in reference to occupational interests along with planning for, engaging in, and reflecting on experiences (courses, service learning, internships) that contribute to knowledge and skill development. A multiple-course career mentoring model provides a structure through which the iterative processes of career exploration and professional development can be supported.
The required three-course psychology career seminar series at MCPHS University is an example of an iterative professional development model that spans the curriculum. In each one-credit course, students reflect on career exploration and professional development progress at the start of the semester, meet alumni who work in diverse careers, assess progress in meeting the five APA goals (APA, 2013) and developing skills within the five skill domains valued by employers (The Skillful Psychology Student; Naufel et al., 2018), add artifacts to a portfolio, and establish plans for exploration and development at the end of the semester. Although the three courses together include iterative processes of description, reflection and planning, each course provides unique activities that are appropriate for where students are in the curriculum and within the exploration and development processes.
Course #1: Spring semester, sophomore year
- Students explore the breadth and applications of psychology by reviewing and discussing the divisions of APA and selecting and sharing articles from the APA Monitor and APS Observer.
- Students begin to consider occupational “fit” by completing online self-assessments (interests, work values and skills) via the Virginia Education Wizard and reflecting on the outcomes (Holland interest codes, work value categories and suggested occupations).
- Students compare three occupations of interest in terms of tasks, work values, histories and professional organizations (within or outside of psychology) through assignments that culminate in posters or infographics.
Course #2: Spring semester, junior year
- Students build individual and shared career resource libraries by locating and reviewing different types of career resources (e.g., occupation descriptions, tips for applying for jobs, advice for succeeding in graduate school).
- Students continue to explore applications of psychology through a team service learning project that culminates in a recorded presentation about the ways in which the knowledge and skills gained through the psychology major might be used to support the operations of the organization in providing service to the community.
- Students move from abstract ideas about careers and occupations to concrete examples of responsibilities and qualifications for real and interesting jobs by locating postings for jobs at all three levels of education (bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral). This information is also used to plan future coursework and experiential opportunities.
Course #3: Fall semester, senior year
- Students identify and reflect on changes in interests, work values, skills and suggested occupations by repeating the Virginia Education Wizard assessments they completed in the first course.
- Students develop a personal statement, resumé, cover letter and interviewing skills to market themselves.
- Students communicate the culmination of their career exploration and professional development in an oral presentation of a five-year plan.
The MCPHS University model does not change the fact that students vary in readiness for career exploration and professional development; however, it does provide support for all students at three important points in the curriculum. In contrast to Shannon and Rafael, consider Blair’s experience.
Blair completed three required careers courses as part of the psychology major. At the end of the first course, the student discovered a number of interests but didn’t have a clear occupational goal. After completing self-evaluations and looking through pages and pages of bachelor’s-level job postings for the second careers course, Blair decided to apply the knowledge and skills gained through the psychology major to a career in game story editing. With thoughtful planning and regular reflection, Blair completed coursework and gained experiences that resulted in several offers for game story editing positions.
Developing a series of careers courses might sound like a daunting task, especially for departments with hundreds of majors; however, if we are to provide career assistance to every student, a course series is more efficient than one-on-one meetings between mentors and students. Alternatively, a department could incorporate explicit career exploration and professional development activities and assignments into required content courses (e.g., research methods, statistics, human development, social psychology, abnormal psychology) across the curriculum. Regardless of delivery format, faculty might worry that they do not have the career knowledge to teach a careers course. In fact, all faculty should have the problem-solving and critical thinking skills to help students through the exploration and development processes. The students will provide the career content.
Reposted with permission from the American Psychological Association’s Psychology Teacher Network
References
American Psychological Association. (2013). APA guidelines for the undergraduate psychology major: Version 2.0. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/undergrad/index.aspx
American Psychological Association. (2018). Degree pathways in psychology. [Interactive data tool]. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/careers/resources/guides/bachelors
American Psychological Association (2018). Preparing to use your bachelor’s degree in psychology. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/careers/resources/guides/bachelors
Hailstorks, R., Stamm K.E., Pfund, R.A., Christidis, P., Conroy, J.C., Dillon, K.A., & Norcross, J.C. (2019, August). Undergraduate psychology programs provide lots of career assistance in some areas & little in others. Poster presented at the annual conference of the American Psychological Association, Chicago.
Naufel, K.Z., Appleby, D.C., Young, J., Van Kirk, J.F., Spencer, S.M., Rudmann, J., …Richmond, A.S. (2018). The skillful psychology student: Prepared for success in the 21st century workplace. Retrieved from: https://www.apa.org/careers/resources/guides/transferable-skills.pdf (PDF, 56KB)
Pfund, R.A., Hailstorks, R., Stamm, K.E., Christidis, P., Conroy, J.C., & Norcross, J.C. (in press). Careers in psychology course: Prevalence, structure, and timing. Teaching of Psychology.
