Prospective I/O Psychology Student, Need Some Advice!!

[root-3]

Hi everyone, 

 

I just discovered this forum and am looking for advice from current/graduated/other prospective I/O psych students!  Let me introduce myself briefly: I graduated two years ago with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Clinical Laboratory Science from SUNY Stony Brook. I've since been working in a hospital lab and was planning to get into healthcare managment.  After witnessing a series of events at work, I realized the changes I wished to bring to the healthcare setting would be difficult to obtain through healthcare managment. And then I learned about I/O psychology.  

 

Unfortunately, I have no releveant experience or coursework in psychology, save the one intro to psych and the psych stat course. I plan to eventually enroll into a doctoral program, but I want to get my Masters in I/O first, just so I can build a good foundation.  Should I enroll as a non-degree student and take some undergrad psych courses? Would any psychology professor consider me as an RA? What else is there that I could do to increase my chances to get into a Masters program?

 

I have yet to take the GRE, but my GPA is 3.6, and I would like to get into the I/O Masters program in SUNY Albany, but if you guys have other suggestions, that would be great also. 

 

Thanks in advance for the advice!

[BeingThere]

Hi everyone, 

 

I just discovered this forum and am looking for advice from current/graduated/other prospective I/O psych students!  Let me introduce myself briefly: I graduated two years ago with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Clinical Laboratory Science from SUNY Stony Brook. I've since been working in a hospital lab and was planning to get into healthcare managment.  After witnessing a series of events at work, I realized the changes I wished to bring to the healthcare setting would be difficult to obtain through healthcare managment. And then I learned about I/O psychology.  

 

Unfortunately, I have no releveant experience or coursework in psychology, save the one intro to psych and the psych stat course. I plan to eventually enroll into a doctoral program, but I want to get my Masters in I/O first, just so I can build a good foundation.  Should I enroll as a non-degree student and take some undergrad psych courses? Would any psychology professor consider me as an RA? What else is there that I could do to increase my chances to get into a Masters program?

 

I have yet to take the GRE, but my GPA is 3.6, and I would like to get into the I/O Masters program in SUNY Albany, but if you guys have other suggestions, that would be great also. 

 

Thanks in advance for the advice!

 

I am not sure how your degree and training would translate to I/O.  Some students have a business background but I would say most have a psych background.  I would definitely suggest you take some psychology courses.  If you feel you remember enough from your intro course, I would suggest some upper level courses in social, personality, cognitive, etc.  You will also want to take more stats if you've been out of school for a while.

 

The first thing I did to learn about the field of I/O (and I was already a psychology major) was to pick up a used text book.  I got Paul Spector's "Industrial Organizational Psychology: Research and Practice" for, I think, about $40 on Amazon.  My edition is about ten years old, but the basic theories and issues that I/O psychologists deal with are well described in his book.  It is a good overview of the field.

 

The second thing I did was to take a course in Industrial Psych and one in Org Psych.  Not all schools offer these unless they have I/O grad programs, but it's worth your while to take these classes if you can find them.

 

On many school websites they list the minimum requirements for entry into their program.  For instance, they will say how many credit hours of psych above intro courses that they want students to have.  You can look into SUNY and see if they have such requirements.

Edited November 10, 2013 by Bren2014

[I/O The Derry-O]

Hi Root-3,

 

I am a current student in SUNY Albany's M.A. I/O psychology program right now and would be happy to answer any questions you have. PM me and I can give you my email.

 

For what term would you be applying for? Fall 2014? If you have enough time to take some undergraduate psych courses, I would strongly encourage it as a working knowledge of psychology is expected for any masters in I/O program. As Bren2014 stated, taking I/O courses is helpful as well, but not essential. I did not take any I/O courses in undergrad (I did major in psychology though).

 

Additionally, I would take a statistics course if possible to refresh yourself with the concepts. I have learned quickly how important statistics is to the field (more so the "I" side of I/O then the "O" side). Your GPA is solid, no concerns warranted there. I would definitely aim to do fairly well on the GREs (at least above the 50th percentile). SIOP (Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology) provides information about the average GRE score for admitted students to Albany's program. Although the information on there is a bit outdated, the APA's publication of similar information confirms 50th percentile as a good target for SUNY Albany. 

 

Also, there are two other students in the program that come to mind that have similar interests as you in terms of reforming the workplace in a healthcare setting. Let me know if you have any more questions.