Master's in Non-Psychology program?

[dearprudence101]

Hello all. Just a little background info...I have applied for several neuroscience, psychology, and general biology master's programs to begin this fall. My long-term goal is to aquire a PhD in clinical psych. and specialize in neuropsychology.

I have a bachelor's in Biology (Minor in Psych.) with research experience in neuropeptide hormones and behavioral studies. Would it be detrimental to my goal if I started a biology master's program, rather then a psychology-focused one? Will this hurt my chances for PhD clinical admissions? I've talked to several professors, some say I need more of a psychology background, while others say the biological side will make my application a little stronger. I'm not sure what to do considering I've received acceptances from all three sub-types of programs.

Thanks

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[sacredrage]

Hello all. Just a little background info...I have applied for several neuroscience, psychology, and general biology master's programs to begin this fall. My long-term goal is to aquire a PhD in clinical psych. and specialize in neuropsychology.

I have a bachelor's in Biology (Minor in Psych.) with research experience in neuropeptide hormones and behavioral studies. Would it be detrimental to my goal if I started a biology master's program, rather then a psychology-focused one? Will this hurt my chances for PhD clinical admissions? I've talked to several professors, some say I need more of a psychology background, while others say the biological side will make my application a little stronger. I'm not sure what to do considering I've received acceptances from all three sub-types of programs.

Thanks

If it were me I would do one masters in clinical/experimental psychology and one in neuroscience. That would be a very strong application for neuropsych programs. I would do the neuroscience masters first and try to work in a lab that interfaces with neuropsychology, i.e. the hard science of whatever you're doing has some behavioral testing component for autism, ADHD, alzheimers, etc. - perhaps testing for biomarkers or long/short term potentiation or synaptic firing rates etc. etc as they correlate to certain scores on a given battery. I would then take that technical background and use it to get into a top masters of psychology program that needed someone familiar with fMRI, etc and take on the other side of the research. From there, you bridge out to the neuropsych PhD.

However, if you're not a student loan debt junky like I am and were only going to choose one I would take the psychology masters since you already have the science background. You have GOT to have psychology oriented research IN THE FIELD YOU WANT TO WORK IN (i.e. autism, alzheimers, etc) if you want to place into a good PhD program. If you can't do the psychology masters then it's still okay to do neuroscience so long as you get into top ranked neuroscience program that will provide demonstrated research in psychology. This is even better if you're not married to the idea of doing CLINICAL Neuropsych.