Majoring In Psychology: 5 tips every psychology major needs to know

I'm clinical psychologist dr. Ali Mattu and in this video I'm gonna share my five best tips for majoring in psychology a lot of you been asking for my tips on studying for psychology in college at uni most recently Emmett or coy asked this question and kinda got me thinking why haven't I made this video yet why haven't I made a video that shares my best tips I mean I majored in psychology went on to get my PhD in clinical psych I'm an assistant professor now I've taught a lot of psychology classes I served on the board of directors of the American Psychological Association I know a lot about psychology so here's what I did asked all my psychology friends all folks who majored in psychology what advice do they want to pass forward to you and I combined that with my best advice that I share with students who are studying psychology and that is this video tip number one understand what the psychology degree is designed for and what you want to get out of it the undergraduate psychology degree is both a liberal arts degree as well as a pre-professional major if you get a liberal arts degree you aren't limited to just one field after you graduate you can go into lots of different industries and lots of different jobs the liberal arts degree prepares you for the big skills that you need to do lots of different things a pre-professional degree is designed to help you get ready for further study according to the American Psychological Association as undergraduate psychology degree has five main goals the first goal is to have a knowledge base in psychology to know all the key historical events the big theories the important ideas the questions that are facing the field right now goal number two is to think like a psychological scientists to take the scientific method and apply it to thoughts feelings and behaviors goal number three is about ethics and social responsibility to make sure that you can think through if something is done ethically and if it's done in a way that is responsible give in larger societal concerns goal number four is all about being able to communicate what you know about psychology to other people goal number five is all about professional development to be able to work in teams to take the information you know and apply it to projects to see those projects to successful ends and to take your knowledge of psychology and apply it to the next step in your career after you graduate to put this all together the psychology degree is designed to help you see the world through the lens of psychology to be able to understand human thought and behavior as a scientist does and to communicate all of this to other people and apply it to the work you do every single day now that sounds awesome but the challenge of that is you can do that in lots of different ways there's no clear-cut path in psychology you can take this stuff and apply it to business you can apply it to marketing you can apply it to education you can apply it to health care you can take all of this stuff and then go to law school you can go to med school you can become a counselor you can become a psychologist there's a lot of different ways to apply this stuff so if you're studying psychology right now you really want to start thinking about how do I want to apply this what aspects of this appeal to me what are other things in my life that I enjoy what are other classes I've taken that have really liked and then start thinking about what kind of setting do I want to be in what kind of job might I want and work your way backwards what degree do I need to do that is my psychology degree good enough do I need to go and get more graduate training what do I want to do these are the questions you should really start figuring out when you're majoring in psychology Cori and men had some really great advice about this and he says psych is a much bigger field than you could ever learn about in four years find something you're interested in and pursue it you'd be shocked at where you end up I'm a psych major now that stimulates human brains to enhance memory didn't even know that was possible in undergrad tip number two is to combine psychology with another interest what's really cool about psychology is it's one of seven major hubs Sciences a hub science connects to a lot of other different fields and psychology is connected to nursing and neuroscience and biology and artificial intelligence and education and public health and anthropology nursing daredi say nursing I don't know it's connected to lots of different stuff and if you really want to have an edge as a psychology major take some classes in these other disciplines and you might discover a related feel that you didn't know yet an interest in and number two you might actually open yourself up to job opportunities in that field that you might not otherwise have access to if you're just taking psychology courses so that's also speaks to a trend in the scientific fields there's a greater trend towards interdisciplinary science where scientists from different fields are coming together and if you can take a class in one of these other fields that is connected to psychology you'll be able to speak the language know the terminology and sort of interface between psychology in these other fields Rob Chavez had some really great advice here where you said if you are allowed to complete a minor or if you double major pick something challenging and useful I did statistics but CS math and even biology would have been good it helps to round out your knowledge base whether or not you're headed for grad school I really wish I took more in computer science it would really help me right now as a clinical psychologist there's a lot of movement towards VR and weaving in other forms of technology making apps all this kind of stuff would have been so helpful for me so I wish I took more of that in grad school and then I also want to highlight what Brian Resnick said when he said I majored in psychology it's a nice broad education and science literacy and writing skills but it's very widely up to you to determine what to do with it getting hands-on in college like joining the school paper doing research etc is what points you towards a career what's so great about Brian's comment is it speaks to this whole other arm of psychology is how it can be a really great preparation for science literacy science communication science writing and to do that you want to take a lot of writing classes and get more experience doing that kind of stuff on campus tip number three is to work in a lab or a clinic a lot of concepts in psychology can be kind of heady no pun intended but they can be things that are very hard to practically understand and this is why I think every psychology major should get some hands-on experience either in the lab or in some type of clinic and what happens in those kind of experiences is you see real-life psychologists taking all the methods that you're learning about in your classes and applying them to real people or to real animals or real situations and through that you actually get to see how the science has done you see the the nuances of stuff that aren't really shown in your book you see the struggle the excitement the discovery there's still so much that I think about from my experiences working in a cognitive science lab and then a marriage and family development study and then working in an OCD clinic really kind of guided my whole career path to this very day it's all those early experiences I had where I got to see what do actual psychologists do and how is psychology actually applied whether or not you want to take any more psychology after you graduate these kind of experiences will help you to understand how you apply the rigors of science to the wackiness of human behavior and I really like what Livia Guate Ginola said in her tweet any research experience regardless of how much it directly relates to your interests is extremely valuable and translatable I constantly find myself applying skills I while an undergrad RA and child psych lab even though I'm an adult health person tip number four is your professors don't know much about life outside of academia but they might know someone who does most of your professors are like me well you know not quite exactly they don't have a youtube channel probably but most of them spent a lot of time getting through undergrad so they can get to grad school spent a lot of time in grad school so they can graduate get a postdoc got a postdoc so they could get some type of other academic job and they've been in that job ever since or they've been a variety of academic jobs ever since I have never held a job a salary job that has been outside of psychology never happened when students come to me and they might they might want my advice on whether what are other career options outside of psychology I really don't have a lot of good advice to give them now fortunately most psychology majors do well the unemployment rates for psychology majors is very low and comparable to a lot of other fields including a lot of other sciences people tend to do okay and what tends to help most is if you can ask your professors if they might know someone else who might be able to help you apply psychology in a business setting or they might know someone who applies psychology at I don't know Facebook or Google things like that they might be able to point you in that direction I had a student come to me from my intro psych class and through talking in office hours also a big tip go to your professors office hours we're required to have them and we just sit there and most of the time no one comes so go to your office hours get to know your professor it's like so exciting for me when someone actually comes and I have someone to talk to so go go talk to them but this student of mine came to my office hours wanted my advice on how to get a how to get into a clinical psychology program and I was talking to her and it was pretty clear that her interests were actually in the intersection of psychology and law sort of forensic psychology so I was thinking about I was like okay well I don't know if I'd necessarily recommend a doctorate for you it's really hard to get into in most situations it's not worth getting a doctorate you're much better getting a master's degree and we were talking about that a few days later I found out about this JA or this internship the summer internship at the FBI you know they were looking for people who had a background in psychology who were psych majors forwarded to her she thought it was a good fit applied for it I wrote her a letter of recommendation and she got in and now she is still working at the FBI so stuff like that can happen is your psychology professors might be able to connect you to other people but if you're relying on them to give you advice on things outside of psychology they're not gonna be that great for that on the flip side if you want to ask them for advice in grad school they're gonna be really good at giving you advice for that Eliab Endermen summarize this up really nicely psych faculties tend to do a terrible job of preparing grads for the job market it's like if you don't go into clinical or academia there are no options which is incredibly discouraging fields like HCI UX testing are essentially built on psychology and grads should know this absolutely there are so many fields out there's so many ways to apply psychology but if you just ask us the people who have spent their lives in academia we might not be the best sources of information tip number five is to apply everything you're learning to your life the thing about psychology is half the time it's sort of like oh yeah that makes complete common sense and the other half of the time it's like wait what that doesn't make any sense at all why would we do that you're gonna have such an easier time with all of your classes and then after you graduate applying this information to the you do if you apply psychology to your life what I would do as I was studying for my test is I would make examples of these terms of these theories that are related to my life that are related to my friends that were related to my dorm that were related to my family related to stories that I heard related to movies and TV shows that I watched the more you can apply it to the stuff you already know the more you can bridge this new knowledge with the knowledge you already have the easier it's gonna become to learn it to know it and to apply it that's always been my secret to studying psychology I just apply it to myself don't think of these things as abstract concepts think of them as everyday occurrences trace Dominguez had a really good example of this where he says memorization is important but understanding concepts is vastly more so don't just study the vocabulary but really explore the theories if you understand theory you'll be able to figure your way out of a behavioral puzzle I always tell that to all the students I work with I also like what Richard Clarke did over here in this tweet where he says psychology is like the oxygen mask that dropped during an airplane emergency apply to self before attempting to apply to others if you want more tips about majoring in psychology check out the link to the original tweet I sent out in the description below and while you're down there leave a comment with your favorite tip for majoring in psychology thank you to Emma for inspiring me to make this video shout out to Alex n if we're becoming my newest patron if you want to see some behind the scenes footage and support this channel consider becoming a patron of the psych show and if you want more fun and easy to understand psychology and mental health videos consider subscribing to this channel give this video like if you like it and share it with someone who is studying psychology who might get something out of it and if you want to know more about going into the or counseling fields in psychology check out this video that I made it goes into a lot more detail about that

Channel: Doctor Ali Mattu

Views: 223,935

Keywords: ali mattu, psychologist, psychology, the psych show, majoring in psychology, majoring in psychology for medical school, Majoring In Psychology: 5 tips every psych major needs to know, is majoring in psychology hard, careers in psychology, jobs in psychology, psychology 101, psychology degree, psychology major, advice for psychology majors, 5 tips every psych major needs to know, college advice, psych major, psychology student, studying psychology, psychology (field of study)

Id: A9ZF78o5ORE

Length: 15min 43sec (943 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 13 2019