Majoring in Psychology (eBook)

Achieving Your Educational and Career Goals

Jeffrey L. Helms, Daniel T. Rogers (Autoren)

eBook Download: EPUB

2015 | 2. Auflage
John Wiley & Sons (Verlag)
9781118741016 (ISBN)

Infos

Updated to reflect the latest data in the field, the second edition of Majoring in Psychology: Achieving Your Educational and Career Goals remains the most comprehensive and accessible text for psychology majors available today.

• The new edition incorporates the most up-to-date research, as well as recent changes to the GRE
• Reveals the benefits of pursuing a psychology degree and shows students how to prepare for a career or to continue with graduate study in the field
• Features a wide range of supplemental exercises and materials plus topical contributions written by national and international figures in their respective psychology subfields
• Online support materials for instructors include Powerpoint slides and test banks to support each chapter

Jeffrey L. Helms is Professor of Psychology at Kennesaw State University. Dr. Helms, a licensed psychologist and member of the American Psychological Association, currently maintains a small private consulting practice that focuses on executive coaching and organizational, academic, and forensic consultation.

Daniel T. Rogers is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Kennesaw State University. A licensed psychologist, Dr. Rogers is also a member of the American Psychological Association and the Society for Personality Assessment.

Inhalt

List of Boxes xviii

List of Tables xxi

Preface xxii

Acknowledgments xxiv

About the Website xxvi

Part I Majoring in Psychology 1

1 Why Major in Psychology? 3

2 Succeeding in College: Transitions, Strategies, and Resources 15

3 Succeeding in the Psychology Major: Adjustments, Common Difficulties, and Strategies 38

4 Assessing and Developing Career Goals 57

5 Using your Bachelor's Degree: Preparing for the Job Market 76

6 The Preprofessional Degree: Preparing for Graduate School 102

7 The Preprofessional Degree: Applying to Graduate School 122

Part II The Subfields of Psychology 169

8 Careers in Research: Experimental, Developmental, Social, Cognitive, and Biopsychology 171

9 Careers in Industrial and Organizational Psychology 194

10 Careers in Clinical Psychology and Counseling Psychology 217

11 Careers in Educational and School Psychology 248

12 Careers in Exercise and Sport Psychology 266

13 Careers in Health Psychology 283

14 Careers in Neuropsychology 298

15 Careers in Forensic Psychology 315

16 Careers in Academe 339

17 Assessing the Career Outlook for the Psychology Major 361

Index 371

Rezensionen

"Many of my students keep and use this book even after they graduate. I will continue to require this text in my course."--Loretta Neal McGregor, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology Arkansas State University

Praise for the first edition:
"A worthy addition to the growing literature on the keys to success for undergraduate psychology majors, the Helms and Rogers text is likely to be one of those books that conscientious psychology students refer to again and again."--William Addison, Eastern Illinois University

"The Helms and Rogers text truly focuses on helping students achieve their educational and career goals. The authors go beyond the typical career books by presenting a realistic, robust, and diverse picture of possible careers in psychology. Bringing a variety of careers to life, the professional spotlights and profiles of real psychologists represent the true diversity of careers in the field. I look forward to discussing it with my students."--Tracy Zinn, James Madison University
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Textauszug

Chapter One
Why Major in Psychology?

Introduction

Psychology is a fascinating and diverse field of study. It attracts students with varied backgrounds, interests, and abilities, all of whom are hoping that psychology will be a good fit for them. In addition to simply pursuing topics that they find compelling, these students stand to benefit from devoting themselves to the study of such a broad field. Psychology’s breadth is what makes it possible for students to acquire a wide range of knowledge and skills that are applicable to a variety of careers. In other words, psychology offers many different things to many different types of individuals. Although this is a strength of the field, it also can make it difficult to determine if psychology is the best fit for you. Consider for a moment three students, all undergraduates who have come to think that majoring in psychology is what is best for them.

Valerie

Valerie is 19 years old and always knew she would go to college. Since middle school she had planned to become a teacher, so she first chose education as her major. After taking several introductory courses and talking with faculty members in the education department, Valerie decided that teaching was not for her. She next considered majoring in nursing, but the admission standards for local nursing programs are highly competitive. Valerie feared that the grades she earned in several courses required by nursing programs would make her acceptance unlikely. One day last semester, Valerie’s roommate described an interesting demonstration her psychology professor had presented in class. This reminded Valerie of her interest in psychology in high school, and she decided to take a course to see what psychology was like at the college level. Valerie enjoyed the course and performed well. As a result, she decided to change her major to psychology. When she recently mentioned the change to her parents, they were not especially positive. They asked probing questions about what she could do with a psychology degree and how her career options would compare to those of education or nursing majors. Valerie was unsure how to answer their questions. She had not thought much about what she can or will do with her degree. But, she figures that if so many other people major in psychology, there must be employment options out there.

Ajay

Ajay is 37 years old and has attended college at several points in the past at two different institutions. Most recently he stopped attending after his first child was born. Between working full-time and raising children, he was unsure if he would ever return to school to complete his degree. Now that Ajay’s children are older and his financial status is more secure, he has decided to return to college part-time in order to get back into the academic routine. Ever since he was young, Ajay has had a desire to become a clinical psychologist. He was involved in family therapy as a child and individual therapy as an adolescent. He has fond memories of the psychologists he interacted with and the benefits of these treatments. His interests have prompted him to read psychological theory and some of the latest research in the field. Now that he is returning to school again, Ajay has committed himself to taking his education seriously and staying focused on his career goal. He knows meeting this goal will require completing a doctoral degree. Although Ajay is excited to begin moving forward along this path, he is also concerned that the road ahead seems long.

Katrina

Katrina is 25 years old. She began college 2 years ago after working for several years in her family’s business. Katrina’s first major was computer science, an area of interest for her since high school. Her teachers, family, and friends encouraged her to pursue this major given her talents and technological skills. She enjoyed the courses at first but later realized that she did not feel passionate about the topics or the prospects of future careers in the field. Due to her growing apathy, and her working 30–40 hours a week, Katrina’s grades suffered. Then she took a psychology course and started a dialogue about her interests with the professor. As a result, Katrina decided to switch majors to psychology. Since that time she has invested herself in her coursework and excelled academically. After serving as a research assistant in one of her professor’s labs over the past year, Katrina is now planning to pursue a research career in cognitive psychology. She intends to merge her computer science skills with her developing interest in human memory. Although changing majors extended her graduation date for another year, Katrina now knows exactly what it is she wants to do in her career and has worked diligently to learn about the field, improve her academic skills, and gain valuable experience.

Valerie, Ajay, and Katrina represent typical undergraduate psychology majors. Many of you will identify with one or more aspects of their histories and experiences. Some of you may not see parts of yourself in these particular students, but there are still several things you all have in common. Each of you has decided to major in psychology, or is seriously considering it, as a result of intertwining experiences and life circumstances. Each of you has found something intrinsically interesting within the field. And each of you is hoping that this major will be the one that satisfies your interests and allows you to accomplish your goals. In essence, each of you hopes that you have found a home in psychology.

As professors of psychology, we have taught, advised, supervised, and mentored thousands of undergraduate students in all areas of their academic and career pursuits. Among them have been students like Valerie, Ajay, and Katrina. Although every student’s context is somewhat unique, chances are we have also worked with students who have a lot in common with you. Our focus is on helping these students succeed in the ways that best match their goals, and we find this work to be incredibly rewarding. Perhaps the least satisfying aspect of this work is encountering students who could have benefited significantly from having key questions answered and guidance provided when they were first navigating the psychology major. Instead, these students find themselves playing catch-up, and they often feel confused and frustrated about their education and potential careers. Our focus on student success, coupled with our awareness of students’ needs for information and guidance, prompted us to write this book. It is our hope that you find elements of it informative and instructive in pursuing your academic and career goals.

In this opening chapter, we first offer some brief suggestions on how to use the book effectively. The remainder of the chapter considers a question that may be looming large in many of your minds – why psychology? Regardless of whether you have already firmly committed to the major or are still trying to make a decision, this section will help all students formulate and explore their specific interests in the field.

How to Use this Book

This book seeks to cover a range of issues relevant to psychology majors in a comprehensive manner. As a result, some chapters will likely appeal to you immediately because they address your current situation or pressing concerns (e.g., deciding if psychology is the right major, preparing a résumé, obtaining research experience). However, we want to encourage you not to neglect chapters that seem less relevant at this particular moment in your education. The information contained in such chapters will be helpful to you in the near future, and it may challenge your current thinking about how you are approaching your education or weighing the career options available to you. For example, those of you who are first- or second-year students may feel like the chapters on preparing for employment and graduate school address concerns that you will tackle in the distant future. You are partly correct in that the point at which you submit résumés and applications may be a few years away. But most of the steps and strategies that will allow you to succeed in these endeavors must be put into place right now. Many students applying to jobs and graduate schools wish they had prepared better, including taking important steps in their first and second years of college. Also, those of you who feel certain of your career interests should keep in mind that careers are selected for many reasons. But choosing not to pursue a certain area in the field simply because you know little about it might ultimately cheat you out of a rewarding career. By the same token, writing off graduate school because of a misconception you have about it, or abandoning psychology as a major because you believe you cannot work in your area of interest with a bachelor’s degree, would be mistakes that are preventable only if you are well informed.

Why Major in Psychology?

Majoring in Psychology for What Psychology Is

One of the primary goals of this book is to have students who are majoring in psychology do so with a clearer sense of their specific interests in the discipline and how these interests will translate into career goals and plans. This would involve students majoring in psychology for reasons that have to do with the discipline itself and how a program of study in this field will support their future endeavors. To...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 16.3.2015
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Beruf / Finanzen / Recht / Wirtschaft ► Bewerbung / Karriere
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Familie / Erziehung
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie ► Pädagogische Psychologie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik ► Bildungstheorie
• Schlagworte: Bildungswesen • Education • Lehrpläne / Psychologie • Psychologie • Psychologiestudium • Psychology • Psychology, psychologists, cognition, behavior, psychology major, psychology degree, abnormal psychology, applied psychology, psychotherapy, mental health, GRE, psychology career • Studium
• ISBN-13: 9781118741016 / 9781118741016