maryfrenchwynne

I was hoping for a little advice!! I am a senior psychology major and getting ready to apply for graduate school. I am tied between industrial organizational (I/O) psychology and counseling psychology. For a few years now my plan was counseling. I have a big passion for mental health. Recently, industrial organizational psychology sparked my interest. The idea of helping companies with employee productivity, job satisfaction and overall health seemed interesting. It seemed like it would be similar to counseling but in a workforce setting. So I started looking more into programs for I/O than counseling. However I also am finding that a lot of the jobs for I/O psychology involve more management/business skills than psychology. I'm seeing that the tasks of I/O psychologists involve a lot of programming and research. Also, I do not have business experience and I'm afraid that may hurt me in applying for I/O graduate school. I have had experience as a crisis counselor and mental health board member so I feel my skills and experience may be better for applying for counseling graduate school. What really grabbed my attention for I/O psychology was the expected job growth and bigger average salaries. After researching more, counseling psychology's job growth is about the same. And the salaries aren't much less. So I feel like my obvious answer would be to go back towards counseling but I'm still unsure about my decision and wanted to ask for any feedback or advice that anyone may have. Thanks! --