Put Your Psychology Major to Work

To forge a career as a practicing psychologist you'll need an advanced degree—at least a master's, and more likely a Phd or PsyD. This requirement also applies to the gamut of psychology's subfields, from cognitive to clinical psychology.

In reality, however, not everyone who has an interest in studying psychology wants to become a practicing psychologist. Some psychology majors simply want to use their undergraduate degree to move full-speed ahead into a related field in the workforce.

If you're a psychology undergrad, you'll often hear about the competitive job market and about that "mandatory" higher degree; but you may not want the pressure that goes with earning a master's degree and studying for the GRE. You may also wonder what career choices you'd have as a psychology major with an undergraduate degree.

Good News for Psychology Majors

Here's the good news! Psychology majors can do several things to enhance their marketability and find employment with a bachelor's degree, starting with taking some non-psychology courses while earning that bachelor's in psychology. Psi Chi, the National Honor Society in Psychology, advises psychology majors to expand their academic horizons and take two or more courses in at least one of the following areas:

• Economics
• Business administration
• Personnel, human resources, recruiting
• Marketing
• Consumer education
• Journalism or writing
• Speech
• Communications
• English composition
• Biological and ecological sciences
• Math/statistics
• Computer science
• Sociology
• Social work

Adding one of these areas of emphasis to your psychology major can potentially open doors to jobs other than those limited to practicing psychology, but which will utilize your knowledge as a psychology major. Psi Chi also suggests that any opportunities for taking music, art and recreational courses pertinent to therapeutic psychology can also prove valuable.

Additionally, says Psi Chi, students should take courses which prepare them to use psychological tests, interview techniques or research design. Students may find that this information will broaden their career options because it adds insight into human behavior.

Payscale.com, in a 2008 Salary Report, surveyed the most popular jobs—and the median salary—among psychology majors with a bachelor's degree. Note the results for the top ten jobs for psychology majors in the table below:

As you can see, psychology majors are not limited to employment as practicing psychologists. By adding an educational emphasis in another field, psychology majors have many employment choices!