In 2 weeks, I’ll have finished all the junk I need to have completed my bachelors degree. Bachelors degrees seem to be the terminal degree for most, but for me, I’ve never felt that was the end. So what have I learned in Psychology? Well, here are the classes I’ve taken, in order of when I took it:
- Quantitative Methods in Psychology
- Developmental Psychology
- Professional & Career Issues in Psychology
- Dynamics of Personality
- Experimental Psychology
- Organizational Theory
- Social Psychology
- Cognitive Processes
- History of Psychology
- Human Resource Management
- Abnormal Psychology
- Psych. Disorders of Children
- Clinical & Counseling Methods I
- Psychology of Women
- Introduction to Counseling Technique
So there you go. Add on some Independent Reading
& Research and a healthy portion of Senior Honors Project, and there’s what I’ve taken.
What did I learn? Psychology is NOT sitting in a chair while someone on a couch spills their life’s story to you. This is what many people THINK psych is, and those people need to fall off a cliff…
Wake up – Psychology is all around us. It is more pervasive in our lives than biology – after all, what good would life be if psychological interactions didn’t take place? Its more volatile (in some cases) then chemistry, more predictable (in some cases) than physics. Its a hell of a lot more interesting than History or Art. And to those of you in Economics, Sociology, and Cultural Humanities – Double Wake Up – You’re just studying portions of psychology (i.e. The Psychology of token economies, The psychology of groups, and the cross-cultural psych). Business major? Gonna be the next big MBA to hit Wall St. since last night? you’re studying I/O psychology, with an emphasis on profit.
Hope I’ve made it clear to you – psychology is not the same as therapy – so get it straight world: In 5 or so years when I have my PhD, I won’t have a ‘practice’, I won’t see patients, and I deffinetly won’t be able to tell you why your anorexic nazi eskimo sister stopped dating the bipolar pro wrestling promoter. I will, however, be able to tell you what I’ve proven statistically about how the mind works, and how behavior can be monitored, predicted, and analyzed. Don’t like that kind of psychology? Tough.