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Future employment for psychology majors"few fields of study offer more career opportunities than does psychology....[career opportunities in psychology] are diverse. They are challenging. They are fun. And, for the most part, they pay well. They are also flexible: People can switch, often fairly easily and with a minimum of adjustment, from one career within psychology to another" (Sternberg, 1997, p. 1). This page is designed to get you started thinking about what to do after graduation. You can begin learning about some career decision making resources, learn a little about graduate school, and pick up some of the vocabulary you need to find out more on the web.
Employment options with your psych degree
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You might have heard that "psychology's a bad major because you can't get a job without a graduate degree." It's not true. Psychology majors get all kinds of jobs out of college. If you are interested in business, you may be hired on the management trainee track at a big consulting firm. You can work in human resources in a large organization, helping to interview, train, and retain employees. You can work effectively in sales or retail management. You might help a market research firm analyze data or run a focus group.
In the human services field, you might find a job working for a nonprofit organization, working in fundraising, grant writing, or conducting outcome evaluations. Or, at such an organization you could work directly with populations of people in need (such as the mentally handicapped).
If you are interested in helping those with mental disorders, you can be employed as a psych tech working at a psychiatric hospital, helping to run group sessions and work with patients. In an outpatient or school-based program, you can be trained to work one-on-one with kids with autism spectrum disorders. These are just a few of the jobs that a BA in psychology can prepare you for.
There are three sets of skills that make a psychology major employable. First, your general liberal arts skills such as critical thinking, reading, writing, and analyzing are useful in a wide range of professions. Second, psychology majors have learned how to do research on people. These research skills are unique to psychology majors and are one reason that employers may want to hire psychology majors. Third, psychology majors learn a core set of knowledge about how and why people think, feel, and behave: this knowledge (based in research) is useful in many people-centered jobs.
Here's a link to a tipsheet that lists the job titles of entry level jobs with a psychology degree.
Psychology majors can do an internship in two ways. The first way is to sign up for PSYC365, Field Placement. In this course, you spend the first two weeks reading about internship possibilities in the Delaware region, writing a resume, applying for internships, and interviewing at the sites. When you get a placement, you spend the rest of the semester spending 10.5 hours per week at your internship site (some past options have included the Juvenile Detention Center, Child Inc., and Newark High School). You write weekly journals and two papers. This course is open to juniors and seniors who have completed at least 4 courses in psychology, and is usually taught by Dr. Hoefling. Contact him for more information.
Click here to read about the Field Placement course.
The second way to get an internship is to look for internships through the career center's "erecruiting" website. You need to contact the career center for an account number and password. If you want to do an internship for UDcredit, you can do the internship as the course UNIV364. Please contact the career center for information on the UNIV364 option. If you don't choose to take credit for it, you can also do an internship for pay or as a volunteer. Even if you don't get college credit for your internship, you will still gain valuable on-the-job experience, networking connections, and knowledge about what you enjoy.
In our small advisement library, you can find the following books on careers in psychology:
The Psychology Major's Handbook (Kuther)
Opportunities in Psychology Careers (Super)
Career Paths in Psychology: Where Your Career can Take You (Sternberg)
To see these books, come by Wolf 202 during advisement office hours.
The APA's Online Career Center: This site is produced by the American Psychological Association. It can help you decide if you should major in psychology, and can has many resources for working in psychology. The books advertised on this website are owned by our department; you can see them in Wolf 202.
America's Career Infonet: This website gives you salary ranges, descriptions, and growth predictions for thousands of jobs, organized state by state. You can call up a list of the fastest growing jobs or the highest paid jobs. You can also plug in a particular job title and find out the salary range and projected hiring outlook. It's worth exploring!
O*NET: This website allows you to look at job descriptions for thousands of careers, and lists skills needed on each job. If you are wondering what kinds of jobs you would like, you can try the "skills search," where you plug in the skills you have, and the computer will show you a list of jobs that use those skills.
Marky Lloyd's Careers in Psychology Website: A comprehensive website that covers lots of options for psych majors.
UD's own MBNA Career Center has a page dedicated to psychology majors.
Students' guide to careers in the helping professions. You can read here about 15 helping professions related to psychology, such as School Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Counseling, Health Education, Speech Pathology, and more.
Learn a little more about the PsyD. degree here.
Other sites (mostly professional associations' websites):
Forensic Psychology
by the way, What is Forensic Psychology really?
If you are considering a particular career, try to set up an informational interview (called "A Day on the Job") through the UD career services center. They may be able to put you in touch with alumni who do the kind of work you think you want to do. You can visit them at their place of business, and ask questions about their training, their typical day, their challenges, and what they like about their work. It's a great way to learn about different careers, and to get started networking.
We have a small network of UD Psychology Alumni who are willing to answer your email questions about their careers. .
Maria Papachrysanthou (UD '05) is working on a Psy.D. in clincial psychology at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. She can answer questions about Psy.D. programs.
Nicole Ragone (UD '07) is headed for a masters in Industrial/Organizational psychology at Hofstra University. She can answer questions about the field if I/O psychology.
Cindy Smith (UD '04) is working on a master's in school psychology at Towson University, and can answer your questions about School Psych.
Chrissy Virion (UD '06) is working on a masters in Speech Language Pathology, and can help you with your undergraduate preparation for this program.
If you would like to ask questions of these alumnae, please send an email to the peer advisors (see their email under "advisors"). The peer advisors will send you the alum's email address!
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