Check out the following links for useful career information:
APA Psychology Careers Home Page
Bachelor's Degree Career Options
Careers in Psychology: What comes after my Bachelor's Degree?
Career Planning for Psychology Majors
Graduate School and Careers in Psychology
How to Apply to Graduate School in Clinical Psychology
Marky Lloyd's Careers In Psychology Page
Online Psychology Career Center
What
Can You do with a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology?
Many
of the students who graduate from Knox with a degree in psychology do
not go on to graduate school, at least not right away. Virtually all of
these students find a position very soon after graduation, and the
variety of things they end up doing makes it difficult to put them into
easy categories. Many find the same types of jobs in the business world
(i.e., sales, management, etc) as graduates in other majors, but most
psychology majors who go into business seem to gravitate toward
positions in human resource management, training, and advertizing and
marketing. Often, the first job in these areas is at a fairly low
level, but with just a little bit of experience most of our graduates
have been quickly promoted and find themselves in challenging jobs that
also pay well. Students often tell us that the skills that are most
important to them on the job are the same writing and data analysis
skills that they worked so hard on in their courses at Knox.
Probably the most common jobs for psychology students right out of Knox are in social services. A great many new graduates find positions with private and public social service agencies or community mental health centers. In these positions, they work with developmentally disabled people, people with substance abuse problems, families, troubled youth, school districts, prisons, group homes, and just about any needy population one might imagine. These entry level jobs are often low paying and stressful, but they offer valuable experiences that rapidly lead to promotions and new career opportunities. Many of the students in these fields return to school to obtain a graduate degree in social work or counseling; some eventually become teachers.
What Types of
Graduate Degrees do Psychology Majors tend to Pursue?
There
are always some psychology majors who go on for professional degrees in
fields like business, law, and medicine. However, most psych majors who
go on to graduate school tend to pursue degrees in one of three main
areas. Some seek degrees that lead to careers in the helping
professions (nursing, occupational therapy, social work, counseling and
clinical psychology), some
are interested in careers in human resources and
industrial/organizational psychology, others pursue degrees in some
area of experimental psychology which lead to careers in scientific
research and/or teaching at the college and university level. If you
plan on pursuing a Ph.D degree in some area of psychology, it is
important for you to get as much research experience as possible while
you are still an undergraduate. Also, if you are interested in a career
in the helping professions you may find a that a graduate degree in
social work is just as useful and even more flexible and employable
than a degree in clinical or counseling psychology. Students who are
interested in working in the business world will find that a degree in
industrial relations or human resources provides very good
opportunities for them. Programs at the University of Illinois
(Urbana-Champaign) and Loyola
University in Chicago have been
especially popular with Knox students who are interested in human
resources.
Knox has an enviable record in placing students in graduate programs. Our graduates are actively recruited by the social work program at Washington University in St. Louis and the Labor and Industrial Relations programs at the University of Illinois and the University of Minnesota. A partial list of doctoral programs in psychology which have accepted our students in the past 15 years includes Cornell, Indiana, Ohio State, Yale, MIT, Duke, UCLA, Michigan, Minnesota, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Penn State, Texas, Washington University, Auburn, UC-Irvine, Loyola of Chicago, University of Southern California, SUNY-Binghamton, CUNY, IUPUI, and the University of Chicago.
What do Knox Psychology
Majors do after they Leave Knox?
The
answer to this question is a little bit of everything! For an EXTENSIVE
listing of the career paths of graduates from the Knox Psychology
Department, click on the picture of the brain.
