Pros and Cons of a Masters in Psychology | Is it Worth it?

should you get a master's in psychology or should you not get a master's in psychology in today's video we're going to talk about that as well as the differences between a master of arts in psychology and a masters of science in psychology all of that in today's video and more stay tuned let's get started [Music] what's up fam if you're new to this channel welcome my name is phil sarpon this is phil's guide to psyd this channel is dedicated to all things clinical psychology if you are interested in psychology if you care about self-care or if you want a little bit of a sneak preview into what grad school might look like for you then this is the channel for you so as i mentioned before today we'll be talking about the pros and the cons of getting a master's in psychology now this is a question that i've been getting from a number of you guys and honestly this is a tough question there's a lot to think about in this question but let's do our best to kind of go through it we're going to start out with the pros of getting a masters in psychology the number one pro to getting a masters in psychology in my opinion is that overall it will probably improve your gpa if you are have already gone through undergrad and you already have your bachelor's degree and your gpa wasn't as strong as you would have hoped there are a number of people that like to go into getting a master's in psychology to improve their gpa and also to basically help them to be more competitive as they apply to phd or study programs so that is definitely a huge pro in terms of boosting up your gpa and looking overall more competitive as you apply to clinical psychology school the other huge pro to getting a master's in psychology is that it will give you a number of different research opportunities and clinical opportunities as well and so for someone that did not have their degree in psychology sometimes getting a master's in psychology is really helpful because it basically introduces you to the field you sort of get into the research opportunities you get into the clinical experience especially if you didn't have any research or clinical opportunities in undergrad getting a master's in clinical psychology might again help you to boost your resume and your competitiveness for when you apply to clinical psychology phd inside e programs so that is something to think about because if you can get that research experience especially for those phd programs or even that clinical experience from that for those psy programs you might put yourself in a really good position as you look forward to applying the phd inside e programs the third pro to getting a master's in psychology i've already kind of hinted at this but overall it will make you more competitive the other thing is that if you do get accepted into these phd or study programs a number of times students can audit some of the classes that they took in their master's program and so in some cases a phd or a cie program will be a little bit shorter because you won't have to take as many of those classes because you already took those classes in your master's program now be aware this is not the case for every student every basically every student is different when it comes to this and also all schools have their own protocols when they go about this but that is something that i've seen for a number of different students that have gotten their master's in psychology they've gone into phd inside e programs and they've been able to audit and not take some of the classes and basically shorten up their program a little bit a little bit shorter than normal so that is great because you do end up hopefully shorting up your program a little bit you hopefully get to finish a little bit faster and you don't have to repeat some of those courses that you already took in your master's program so those are the three pros now let's get into the cons so the first con of getting a master's in psychology guys is that it is time consuming a lot of these programs are at least two years at most three years and so getting a master's in psychology is going to take a little bit of time and honestly if you're looking into applying to phd or sitee programs those programs can be anywhere from five to six to seven years so seven years and then another two years after getting your bachelor's degree can be anywhere from eight to ten years that you're looking at in terms of being in school so it is important to note if you can go straight from your bachelor's degree to getting into a clinical psychology phd or a signing program that is probably the best thing because not only will you save money you'll save time and you'll be able to go into exactly what you want to go into i already kind of hinted at the second con but these programs are not cheap and they are expensive and most students will have to take out some student loans which means that you may have some student loan debt to pay off in the future the other thing is that if you go into a clinical psychology phd or a psy program you may accrue even more additional student loan debt so that is something to think about in terms of if you are trying to limit the student loans that you have to take and pay off that debt as soon as possible going into a master's program isn't not only going to be more time consuming but you will have more to pay off in the end the third thing to really be mindful of is that if you are only getting a master's in psychology just to get into a phd or society program you don't want to necessarily put all your eggs into that basket because there is a chance that you still may not get into clinical psychology school so if you are just going into a master's just to get the phd or the society in the future just be aware of that because there are some students that will get their master's in psychology but then they won't go into a phd or they won't go into a society program so now they're kind of restricted to going into the work field with basically essentially what they have which isn't the worst thing in the world there's definitely still a number of job opportunities even with just a master's in psychology things that you can do with research things that you can do as a clinical assistant to psychologists or psychiatrists but just be aware of that is that if you are going to put all your eggs in one basket it is not necessarily a guarantee that you'll be able to get into those phd programs or those side a programs so those are the overall basic pros and cons to getting a master's in psychology now before we end this video i do want to mention something about masters in psychology there's something called a masters of arts in psychology and there's also something called a masters of science in psychology so if you guys are looking into getting a masters in psychology this is something that you should be mindful of if you're trying to determine between the master of arts and the master of science essentially the master of science master's programs are built for research they're built for it basically just being a research assistant doing a lot of research with faculty members this would look great for phd programs if you're looking to apply to phd programs after your master's program the other thing is that there's the masters of arts which is a little bit more of the clinical experience which again might be great as on the resume if you are looking to apply this id program so depending on what type of school what type of clinical psychology school you want to apply to whether that's the phd or this id you might want to look into the differences between the master of arts clinical psychology programs and the master of science clinical psychology programs now what i just mentioned may not be the case for every single master's of psychology program out there but it is important to be aware of and to contact the schools in terms of their protocol in terms of the way that their program is set up whether it's set up for more research heavy classes or set up for more clinical experience because based on what you want to do in your future career that might determine where you go in terms of getting your master's in psychology so hopefully that all makes sense guys we talked about the pros we talked about the cons and we talked about some of the differences between different types of masters in psychology if you guys have any questions definitely put it down in the comment section below make sure to subscribe to this channel if you already have it like this video i will see you guys in the next video take care

Channel: Phil's Guide to Psy.D.

Views: 10,443

Keywords: psychology, graduate school, grad school, psyd, clinical psychology, self-care, mental health, positivity, emotional health

Id: Jzyb9vJAZ2o

Length: 8min 31sec (511 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 07 2021