MA in psychology for community college or RA job

[Diogenes314]

I hope someone here can provide me with some info. on my question. Any help is appreciated.

I am currently trying to figure out what the best route is, I am considering pursuing a masters in psychology with the hopes to land a community college instructor gig. My question is, how saturated is the market with MA's trying to do the same thing and even PhD's vying for the same positions.

Also does it matter if the MA in is general psychology or social psychology in terms of landing one of these jobs?

Secondly how good of an idea is trying to get a 2year gig as a RA in psychology and then trying to reapply to a PhD? Is the risk of not getting in again worth it over going for the MA and getting into debt?

Again, any information is appreciated, particularly curious about the market for community college jobs and whether the type of MA matters.

Thank you.

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[berlin81]

I hope someone here can provide me with some info. on my question. Any help is appreciated.

I am currently trying to figure out what the best route is, I am considering pursuing a masters in psychology with the hopes to land a community college instructor gig. My question is, how saturated is the market with MA's trying to do the same thing and even PhD's vying for the same positions.

Also does it matter if the MA in is general psychology or social psychology in terms of landing one of these jobs?

Secondly how good of an idea is trying to get a 2year gig as a RA in psychology and then trying to reapply to a PhD? Is the risk of not getting in again worth it over going for the MA and getting into debt?

Again, any information is appreciated, particularly curious about the market for community college jobs and whether the type of MA matters.

Thank you.

As far as getting a teaching job at a community college, its slowly starting to not be as dependable as it was in the past. First, most CC's will only hire someone to teach a class or two, which means it won't be full-time and probably no benefits. Second, it depends on the area. If there are a ton of master's or doctoral psychologists working/practicing in the area, obtaining a job could be highly competitive as many teach a class or two on top of their clinical work. To my knowledge, CC's don't have too much concern on the type of psychology master's (clinical, general, experimental), as long as you can demonstrate an ability to present various psychological models and the standards/basics for conducting research.

 

[Diogenes314]

Thank for the reply.

I was just looking through HigherEDjobs.com and it seems like some do hire full-time, but most say they want you to have at least 1-2 years teaching experience, so I wonder if during the masters you have the opportunity to do that.