• Graduate School
• Medical School
• Law School
• Getting a job

Graduate School

Many of our majors choose to go to Graduate School. This involves from one to seven years of school after the undergraduate Bachelor's degree, and may involve getting an M.A. (Master of Arts), M.S.W. (Master of Social Work), M.B.A. (Master of Business Administration), Ed.S. (Educational Specialist), Ed.D. (Doctor of Education), Psy.D. (Doctor of Psychology), or Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology). Most who go to graduate school with a Psychology major get an MA in Family and Child Counseling, an M.S.W., a Psy.D., or a Ph.D. in Clinical or some other specialty in Psychology. Because most jobs in Psychology and related fields require graduate training, our main goal as a department is to prepare students for graduate school.

A graduate education in psychology prepares individuals for a remarkable range of employment opportunities. According to Wise (1987), psychologists are employed in the five following major roles, but it is important to realize that many psychologists perform in more than one of these roles (e.g., the college teacher who counsels students, performs research, consults with other teachers to improve their testing procedures, and acts as the chair of the department). The career paths that psychologists take are dependent upon their levels of education and their areas of interest.

• Teaching: Psychologists teach in two- and four-year colleges, and universities.
• Research: Psychologists are employed by universities, government agencies, the military, and businesses to conduct basic and applied studies of human behavior.
• Providing services: Psychologists work with people of all ages and backgrounds who are coping with every imaginable kind of problem, by assessing their needs and providing appropriate treatment.
• Administration: Psychologists work as managers in hospitals, mental health clinics, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, schools, universities, and businesses.
• Consulting: Psychologists with expertise in a variety of areas are hired by organizations to provide consultative services on subject or problem in the consultant is an expert. These services can include designing a marketing survey and organizing outpatient mental health services.

With a few exceptions, preparation for these careers requires education beyond the undergraduate level, or a significant amount of relevant experience. It is also important to realize that it is illegal in California (and many other states) for people to use the term "psychologist" to describe themselves if they have not been licensed by the State. This licensure process requires a doctoral degree, a period of supervised practice, and successfully passing a test.

Medical School

Psychology and (more frequently) Psychobiology are popular majors for students preparing for medical school. Students considering Psychiatry (requiring an M.D. degree) often choose to major in Psychology or Psychobiology, and many pre-med students who want a better understanding of how people work choose the Psychobiology or Psychology majors.

A popular choice for premed students is the Psychobiology major; because this major has a number of Biology and Chemistry classes as part of the major, there is a significant overlap between the Psychobiology major and pre-medicine requirements for most medical schools.

One of our faculty, Leslie Martin, is a health psychologist who does research examining the doctor-patient relationship.

Law School

Students bound for Law School often choose Psychology as a major that provides a broad exposure to human motivation. For those interested in business law, the Industrial/Personnel emphasis is a good match; for those interested in criminal law, the Personality/Clinical emphasis introduces students to interviewing skills and abnormal psychology (many criminals have mental disorders). Both the Criminal Justice and Industrial/Organizational minors would be very applicable to this field.

Getting a Job

While some occupations in psychology require graduate training, there are many interesting and rewarding career opportunities available to individuals with a bachelors degree in psychology. A simple response to the question, "What job can I get with a major in psychology?" might be, "just about anything that involves working with people." But that really doesn't help very much, because almost all jobs work with people to a certain extent.

A better question might be, "What jobs to Psychology majors get after graduation? A report from the National Science Foundation (1986) on employed bachelors-level graduates in psychology revealed were they were employed in five major areas one year after graduation (see percentages at right). The work that these graduates performed in these various areas included a broad range of areas, skills, and responsibilities. The graph at left shows the kind of work bachelors-level graduates in psychology do (one year after graduation).

These data clearly demonstrate that students who graduate with a psychology major are versatile individuals capable of gaining and maintaining meaningful employment in many different career areas.

Portions of this and linked pages were adapted with permission of Herbert Friedman, College of William and Mary.

Find out more about careers options starting with an undergraduate degree | Find out how to get a job with an undergraduate degree

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