which field is right for me?

[Grimnir]

So I've decided that clinical/counseling psych isn't for me. I don't really want to interact with people in that manner. And I/O seems very boring to me so I've ruled that out as well...

 

What other fields within psychology have the best job outlooks in your opinion? I really do not want to be in the situation [again] where I am graduating and not able to find work within a reasonable time period. I have student loans. They need paid and the stress of not having a job is killer.

 

My background is in psychology/neuroscience/bio. I worked in a neuropsych lab for a year doing lab work that wasn't the most rigorous training for research, but I did learn quite a bit. I'm currently working full time doing research that is more analytical. I plan to apply Fall of 2014 for doctoral programs (and maybe a paid masters or 2 as back up). While my goal would be to be a tenured professor, I have no illusions about the difficulty of this path. I want job security. I plan on loading up heavily on statistical and programming knowledge so that I am marketable as possible as I know these sorts of skills are in demand....

 

So far I have considered the following PhD areas ...As far as salary goes I haven't really seen much difference among these fields for PhD holders (correct me if I'm wrong)

 

-cognitive neuroscience/biopsych related programs

-quant psych*

-educational psych(assessment, evaluation, measurement etc.)

-human factors/engineering psych

-school psych(lukewarm about this one)

-also general experimental psych programs.

 

*heavily leaning toward this, but not sure if my background is right

 

Any insight is appreciated. I've been having a hard time locating solid advice on fields outside of clinical/counseling

psych.

 

Thanks!

Edited June 8, 2014 by Grimnir

[PsychGirl1]

What do you want to be doing day-to-day when you graduate? What are your interests, ignoring which specialty you want to approach it from (ex. assessment, depression, PTSD, etc.)? The fields you listed are monstrously different- I'd recommend starting with figuring out what you want to be doing and then figure out the best way to get there.

 

Honestly, if you're look for job and financial security above ALL else, I'm not sure I'd recommend a psychology PhD in the first place. I made more in my first job out of college when I was 21 (in a non-psych job) than I will for the foreseeable future (aka I might start to hit the same income around my late 30s). Grad school isn't fun, post-docs aren't fun, even academia as a whole isn't really that fun- unless you love what you're doing. If you aren't sure at this point what you want to be doing and you really want to apply to grad school NOW, it might make more sense to apply for a master's (ex. biostats or stats). It will take 1/3 as long, you will be earning money faster, you will have good job security, and you will have a range of places you can work (ex. academic medical centers, universities, industry).

 

Honestly, nobody ever likes this advice- but don't rush this. Where you decide to apply now will possibly determine the next 10+ years of your life. Better to do it right than to do it fast.

[Grimnir]

What do you want to be doing day-to-day when you graduate? What are your interests, ignoring which specialty you want to approach it from (ex. assessment, depression, PTSD, etc.)? The fields you listed are monstrously different- I'd recommend starting with figuring out what you want to be doing and then figure out the best way to get there.

 

Honestly, if you're look for job and financial security above ALL else, I'm not sure I'd recommend a psychology PhD in the first place. I made more in my first job out of college when I was 21 (in a non-psych job) than I will for the foreseeable future (aka I might start to hit the same income around my late 30s). Grad school isn't fun, post-docs aren't fun, even academia as a whole isn't really that fun- unless you love what you're doing. If you aren't sure at this point what you want to be doing and you really want to apply to grad school NOW, it might make more sense to apply for a master's (ex. biostats or stats). It will take 1/3 as long, you will be earning money faster, you will have good job security, and you will have a range of places you can work (ex. academic medical centers, universities, industry).

 

Honestly, nobody ever likes this advice- but don't rush this. Where you decide to apply now will possibly determine the next 10+ years of your life. Better to do it right than to do it fast.

Well, my interest is in biopsych that is clinically oriented. From what I have read, it is possible to study this in general experimental, quant and biopsych (obviously) programs.  Likewise a lot of human factors/engineering programs have neuroscience oriented research as well. The major diffeence is educational psychology which would be mainly focused on designing measures and assessments. I feel that I find these fields equally interesting and the major hang up for me is employability. I'm not as scatter brained as it would appear.

 

Statistics/biostats isn't an option as I absolutely refuse to take out more loans to pay for my graduate education.

[clinicalpsychphd20]

What do you want to be doing day-to-day when you graduate? What are your interests, ignoring which specialty you want to approach it from (ex. assessment, depression, PTSD, etc.)? The fields you listed are monstrously different- I'd recommend starting with figuring out what you want to be doing and then figure out the best way to get there.

 

Honestly, if you're look for job and financial security above ALL else, I'm not sure I'd recommend a psychology PhD in the first place. I made more in my first job out of college when I was 21 (in a non-psych job) than I will for the foreseeable future (aka I might start to hit the same income around my late 30s). Grad school isn't fun, post-docs aren't fun, even academia as a whole isn't really that fun- unless you love what you're doing. If you aren't sure at this point what you want to be doing and you really want to apply to grad school NOW, it might make more sense to apply for a master's (ex. biostats or stats). It will take 1/3 as long, you will be earning money faster, you will have good job security, and you will have a range of places you can work (ex. academic medical centers, universities, industry).

 

Honestly, nobody ever likes this advice- but don't rush this. Where you decide to apply now will possibly determine the next 10+ years of your life. Better to do it right than to do it fast.

 

That. I also made a lot more out of college working outside of psych, and I will probably never hit that income again.. maybe in my late 30s if I am lucky. Honestly, I wouldn't do a psych PhD unless you can't imagine yourself doing anything else. There are lots of hoops to jump through, and the money/job security isn't that great compared to other fields.

[BeingThere]

And I/O seems very boring to me so I've ruled that out as well...

 

I don't see how this is even possible.   

[spunky]

While my goal would be to be a tenured professor, I have no illusions about the difficulty of this path. I want job security. I plan on loading up heavily on statistical and programming knowledge so that I am marketable as possible as I know these sorts of skills are in demand....

 

 

please *DO*! we are probably the most in-demand people in Psychology with the lowest number of graduates. if you ask me, that is alarming giving the increasing sophistication of our analyses and the lack of people able to carry them out properly and interpret the results correctly.

 

i know this chart is old (we still gotta way another more year for the updated one) but if the trends are the same:

 

http://www.apa.org/research/tools/quantitative/?item=6

 

you will notice that quantitative psychology/psychometrics is *the* only one where the number of job openings outnumber the number of graduates. if you hang around any AERA (American Education Research Association) Division D (Measurement and Research Methodology) or APA (American Psychological Association) Division 5 (Evaluation Measurement and Statistics) annual general meetings you're literally gonna get showered with offers for post-docs, internships, (paid) research partnerships, etc. there simply aren't enough people doing this stuff and the demand keeps on growing and growing... even more now that professors are retiring and there are not enough graduates to fill up the positions. 

 

quant psych pretty much gives you the option from jumping from area to area if you happen to be interested in other stuff aside from advanced methods. now, becoming good at this does take some effort (lots of math courses. A LOT of programming, mostly in R) but it pays off dearly in terms of job security once you get to your PhD and you realize you actually have to turn away jobs because you just can't make time for all of them + your research + helping out everyone else with their stats (only aggravated when the only other person in your program graduates just recently, moves away for work and you're left with all her workload. LOL) 

 

there are a lot of "hot areas" now that i always recommend people to jump into as soon as they can (big data analytics, causal modelling, Bayesian Statistics, etc.) but even just being able to master the basics will give you a HUGE advantage in the job market (plus we honestly need people to help share the workload with!!!)

 

if you like the idea of non-academic work, then go the educational measurement route. big publishing companies (Pearson, McGraw-Hill) or ETS will snap you even before you finish your PhD.

 

if you prefer academic work, then go the quantitative psychology route. but DO NOT make the mistake of not taking courses (or doing some research) on IRT (Item Response Theory). that usually gets offered by Education Depts and will teach you some pretty decent tools to have under your belt when the time comes to start sending out CVs

Edited June 8, 2014 by spunky

[Grimnir]

What do you want to be doing day-to-day when you graduate? What are your interests, ignoring which specialty you want to approach it from (ex. assessment, depression, PTSD, etc.)? The fields you listed are monstrously different- I'd recommend starting with figuring out what you want to be doing and then figure out the best way to get there.

 

Honestly, if you're look for job and financial security above ALL else, I'm not sure I'd recommend a psychology PhD in the first place. I made more in my first job out of college when I was 21 (in a non-psych job) than I will for the foreseeable future (aka I might start to hit the same income around my late 30s). Grad school isn't fun, post-docs aren't fun, even academia as a whole isn't really that fun- unless you love what you're doing. If you aren't sure at this point what you want to be doing and you really want to apply to grad school NOW, it might make more sense to apply for a master's (ex. biostats or stats). It will take 1/3 as long, you will be earning money faster, you will have good job security, and you will have a range of places you can work (ex. academic medical centers, universities, industry).

 

Honestly, nobody ever likes this advice- but don't rush this. Where you decide to apply now will possibly determine the next 10+ years of your life. Better to do it right than to do it fast.

 

 

 I enjoy research, and the idea of consulting is very interesting. I could see myself going industry or academia.

That. I also made a lot more out of college working outside of psych, and I will probably never hit that income again.. maybe in my late 30s if I am lucky. Honestly, I wouldn't do a psych PhD unless you can't imagine yourself doing anything else. There are lots of hoops to jump through, and the money/job security isn't that great compared to other fields.

 

I'm curious what you guys were making out of college with a psych degree that was higher than non post-doc PhD salary...? If you don't mind disclosing. And what sort of job was it? The average salary for a psych bachelor's is atrocious somewhere around $35,000 a year last I checked. The worst post-docs out there pay more than this according to the research I've done.

 

I'm not excessively concerned about money.  I'm  certainly not banking on a six figure salary.

 

As for quant it really does seem to be the best route. I love the flexibility and the emphasis on methodology and statistics

 

But I'm worried because...

 

1) I haven't done any research that is quant heavy

2) My math background is only up to Calculus II although I have taken stats and a course on assessment and measurement

3) The GRE quantitative scores needed may be way too high. What sorts of GRE quant scores do these programs accept on average?

 

And if I'm not misinterpreting it does seem that quant and ed psych appear to have the best employment prospects outside of counseling and clinical?

 

[spunky]

As for quant it really does seem to be the best route. I love the flexibility and the emphasis on methodology and statistics

 

But I'm worried because...

 

1) I haven't done any research that is quant heavy

2) My math background is only up to Calculus II although I have taken stats and a course on assessment and measurement

3) The GRE quantitative scores needed may be way too high. What sorts of GRE quant scores do these programs accept on average?

 

And if I'm not misinterpreting it does seem that quant and ed psych appear to have the best employment prospects outside of counseling and clinical?

 

(1) at what level are you planning to apply? if it's for an MA i don't think they would expect you to be too proficient in advanced methods. if it's at the PhD level it would be to your advantage to show some level of sophistication in terms of your data analysis skills. maybe a conference poster or graduate-level courses  where you can show you know there is a big world outside of ANOVA/Regression?

 

(2) this is very much program-dependent. if you look to work with the top people in the field, they usually look for applicants who have soild backgrounds in multivariate calculus, linear algebra, probability/statistics and a lot of programming. usually, education programs have  A LOT less emphasis on the math aspect of things and aim for the applied stuff.

 

(3) GREs in Quant Psych programs tend to be pretty high up on their GRE scores. the people i know who've made it into these programs are on the top say 85-90th percentile on their quant scores. i mean, keep in mind that you're technically getting a degree on "applied statistics" so they wanna know that you're capable of handling fairly sophisticated math.

 

if you feel that you're lacking on your math/technical background (and have no way to beef it up through taking undergraduate course), i would recommend applying for an education measurement program over a quantitative psychology program. now, with that being said, there are a lot more people who get into educational measurement programs because the technical background they require is lower than a quantitative psychology program.

 

the rule of thumb in general is that the more technical stuff you can do (data analysis, programming, development of new methods, etc.) the more 'in-demand' you will be and the more competitive you are than people who may have some technical expertise but focus more on day-to-day data analysis. this is particularly true if you plan to include non-academic positions in your job-search. a lot of the non-academic consulting that my lab does for gov't or private industry projects relies on our ability to do stuff like big data analytics or database management as opposed to, say, theory testing through the development of research design. there is a lot of interest in analyzing secondary datasources (e.g. census data) and finding trends there. that's usually where the good contracts are and if you can give it a social-science bent (not just throwing tables of numbers but using actual psychological/sociological research to make sense of them) your potential clients (be other graduate students, professors, people from other industries, etc.) are REALLY gonna love you. that's an advantage that quantitatively-bent social scientists have over traditional applied statistics programs. 

Edited June 9, 2014 by spunky

[Grimnir]

(1) at what level are you planning to apply? if it's for an MA i don't think they would expect you to be too proficient in advanced methods. if it's at the PhD level it would be to your advantage to show some level of sophistication in terms of your data analysis skills. maybe a conference poster or graduate-level courses  where you can show you know there is a big world outside of ANOVA/Regression?

 

(2) this is very much program-dependent. if you look to work with the top people in the field, they usually look for applicants who have soild backgrounds in multivariate calculus, linear algebra, probability/statistics and a lot of programming. usually, education programs have  A LOT less emphasis on the math aspect of things and aim for the applied stuff.

 

(3) GREs in Quant Psych programs tend to be pretty high up on their GRE scores. the people i know who've made it into these programs are on the top say 85-90th percentile on their quant scores. i mean, keep in mind that you're technically getting a degree on "applied statistics" so they wanna know that you're capable of handling fairly sophisticated math.

 

if you feel that you're lacking on your math/technical background (and have no way to beef it up through taking undergraduate course), i would recommend applying for an education measurement program over a quantitative psychology program. now, with that being said, there are a lot more people who get into educational measurement programs because the technical background they require is lower than a quantitative psychology program.

 

the rule of thumb in general is that the more technical stuff you can do (data analysis, programming, development of new methods, etc.) the more 'in-demand' you will be and the more competitive you are than people who may have some technical expertise but focus more on day-to-day data analysis. this is particularly true if you plan to include non-academic positions in your job-search. a lot of the non-academic consulting that my lab does for gov't or private industry projects relies on our ability to do stuff like big data analytics or database management as opposed to, say, theory testing through the development of research design. there is a lot of interest in analyzing secondary datasources (e.g. census data) and finding trends there. that's usually where the good contracts are and if you can give it a social-science bent (not just throwing tables of numbers but using actual psychological/sociological research to make sense of them) your potential clients (be other graduate students, professors, people from other industries, etc.) are REALLY gonna love you. that's an advantage that quantitatively-bent social scientists have over traditional applied statistics programs. 

I wanted to apply at the PhD level, but I may apply to one or two paid MA/MS programs as backup (although I only know of one funded quant MS in the US). Depending on how my current job goes I may have some moderately rigorous quantitative experience under my belt before apps are due. I have some basic programming experience (but not in R),but I haven't applied it to data analysis, yet. I think 85th percentile is doable for me so I guess that's not too much of a problem. Not really any way for me to make up for my lack of quantitative coursework though...

[spunky]

I wanted to apply at the PhD level, but I may apply to one or two paid MA/MS programs as backup (although I only know of one funded quant MS in the US). Depending on how my current job goes I may have some moderately rigorous quantitative experience under my belt before apps are due. I have some basic programming experience (but not in R),but I haven't applied it to data analysis, yet. I think 85th percentile is doable for me so I guess that's not too much of a problem. Not really any way for me to make up for my lack of quantitative coursework though...

 

that's ok. let's just work with what you have then. the MA/MS  idea sounds like a better approach to me but, heck, if you manage to get into  a PhD then kudos to you.

 

i'd say that instead of waiting to see  whether you end up getting some exposure to advanced quantitative methods or not, you could try to start learning them yourself. i believe there are a couple of posts on this forum about Coursera courses you could take from home and resources to learn R. i've never been a fan of paying for anything that you can do for free (if you're diligent) but that is an option to consider. the good thing is that you know some programming so you don't need to start from 0, you just need to build on what you know. 

 

overall, the more prep work you start doing the better. i teach intro courses during the summer to R for new grad students (my program has fully transitioned from SPSS to R) and i think it makes a BIG difference when you see people who made it to the courses and then they can handle the courseload once their classes start in Sept versus those who didn't come to the courses, didn't learn any R and now are under time pressure to both learn a computer language and handle the beginning of graduate school. 

 

from what i read, i think you have pretty decent chance at switching career emphasis and landing a position that can pay the bills more comfortably.  

Edited June 9, 2014 by spunky

[Grimnir]

that's ok. let's just work with what you have then. the MA/MS  idea sounds like a better approach to me but, heck, if you manage to get into  a PhD then kudos to you.

 

i'd say that instead of waiting to see  whether you end up getting some exposure to advanced quantitative methods or not, you could try to start learning them yourself. i believe there are a couple of posts on this forum about Coursera courses you could take from home and resources to learn R. i've never been a fan of paying for anything that you can do for free (if you're diligent) but that is an option to consider. the good thing is that you know some programming so you don't need to start from 0, you just need to build on what you know. 

 

overall, the more prep work you start doing the better. i teach intro courses during the summer to R for new grad students (my program has fully transitioned from SPSS to R) and i think it makes a BIG difference when you see people who made it to the courses and then they can handle the courseload once their classes start in Sept versus those who didn't come to the courses, didn't learn any R and now are under time pressure to both learn a computer language and handle the beginning of graduate school. 

 

from what i read, i think you have pretty decent chance at switching career emphasis and landing a position that can pay the bills more comfortably.  

Well, my hesitance to do a masters is that 1) it will extend the length of my overall education 2) I will need to reapply 3) stipends are nonexistent or measly (400 bucks to 800 bucks a month). 4) I have loans which will accrue interest so time and money is a factor

 

As for R I am majorly strapped for time, but I am going to try to make it happen. I know JHU does their data science course series so maybe I will give that a go. I think the best path may be to find programs which have a heavy emphasis on statistics and methodology, but may not be quant programs persay.

Edited June 9, 2014 by Grimnir

[spunky]

uhm... good point. if you're strapped for time/money your best bet is, as you say, to apply to the programs that you want and, fingers-crossed, you will get accepted in the one that works for you while investing the minimum in the application process.

 

neuro/biopsych people can receive some pretty heavy quant training as well (i know there's a whole filed on the analysis of fMRI and brain scan data) so there's probably quite  a bit of wiggle room there. i guess i was championing more a quant program since it's something that right from the get-go (even in the name) lets people know you're able to handle tough data challenges.

 

ultimately you're the only one who knows your situation and what's the best for you. but the good thing is that just by having a good disposition towards data analysis you're already opening the door to a lot of opportunities many of fellow, non-quant colleagues tend to discover when it's too late. 

[Grimnir]

uhm... good point. if you're strapped for time/money your best bet is, as you say, to apply to the programs that you want and, fingers-crossed, you will get accepted in the one that works for you while investing the minimum in the application process.

 

neuro/biopsych people can receive some pretty heavy quant training as well (i know there's a whole filed on the analysis of fMRI and brain scan data) so there's probably quite  a bit of wiggle room there. i guess i was championing more a quant program since it's something that right from the get-go (even in the name) lets people know you're able to handle tough data challenges.

 

ultimately you're the only one who knows your situation and what's the best for you. but the good thing is that just by having a good disposition towards data analysis you're already opening the door to a lot of opportunities many of fellow, non-quant colleagues tend to discover when it's too late. 

Thanks. I appreciate all the advice. My greatest regret in undergrad was not majoring in statistics so hopefully I can get what I want this time around.