Minor for a Forensic Psyhology Major

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JennXeno

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Any opinions on what a good minor for a forensic psychologist would be? I am thinking Spanish, but I would love to gain some insight.

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Business, the only minor you may ever use.
 
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Spanish may actually be a decent one, but you'd probably have to go well beyond the minor minimum to be able to use it competently to do evaluations in a forensic context. Essentially if you were on cross and were challenged by opposing counsel, you better be able to convince the triers of fact that you are fluent if you did any of the eval in Spanish. Otherwise, I second the business suggestion.
 
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Spanish may actually be a decent one, but you'd probably have to go well beyond the minor minimum to be able to use it competently to do evaluations in a forensic context. Essentially if you were on cross and were challenged by opposing counsel, you better be able to convince the triers of fact that you are fluent if you did any of the eval in Spanish. Otherwise, I second the business suggestion.

Thank you, you're right. I think business would be helpful.
 
Spanish may actually be a decent one, but you'd probably have to go well beyond the minor minimum to be able to use it competently to do evaluations in a forensic context. Essentially if you were on cross and were challenged by opposing counsel, you better be able to convince the triers of fact that you are fluent if you did any of the eval in Spanish. Otherwise, I second the business suggestion.

There are different language proficiency exams that you can take to establish competence. They are tiered and internationally recognized. Might be helpful if you're on cross.
 
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We have 1 spanish speaking forensic psychologist in my city. To say she has a niche would be an understatement. Shes also a close friend of mine and teaching me so hopefully I can tap into that market ;)
 
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We have 1 spanish speaking forensic psychologist in my city. To say she has a niche would be an understatement. Shes also a close friend of mine and teaching me so hopefully I can tap into that market ;)

If you are fluent, you will have good patient flow. We have one multilingual neuropsych who does evals in Spanish here. So, she gets all of the patients referred to me who only speak Spanish, or primarily speak it. I think her wait list is easily 6 months just with these cases. She also gets all of the IME cases that fit these criteria as well. Now, if only I had a Hmong and Russian speaking neuropsych in the area to refer to...
 
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We have 1 spanish speaking forensic psychologist in my city. To say she has a niche would be an understatement. Shes also a close friend of mine and teaching me so hopefully I can tap into that market ;)

My thoughts exactly.
 
Speaking of a minor in business...are there any good business courses relevant to psychologists that are available online these days?
 
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Education. Easy as hell. Nice fall back. Shows some understanding of kids and systems. It might be cool to say something on the stand about being a former teacher.
 
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Education. Easy as hell. Nice fall back. Shows some understanding of kids and systems. It might be cool to say something on the stand about being a former teacher.

Ohh, that is actually something to think about.
 
Speaking of a minor in business...are there any good business courses relevant to psychologists that are available online these days?

If you are already working, you're better off using your time understanding possible tax structures of a private practice, as well as learning the estimates of overhead figures. No need to take online coursework, you need a more limited frame of information at this point, you can just auto-didact it.
 
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Speaking of a minor in business...are there any good business courses relevant to psychologists that are available online these days?

I don't know of any off-hand, but in addition to what WisNeuro mentioned, local community colleges often offer short-ish, one-off courses in things like small business management or entrepreneurship that might be helpful (and cheap).
 
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I actually kind of wish I minored in this.
IMO, having had a pretty unvaried postsecondary education (majored in psychology, minored in bio, AP'ed out of most gen eds), there's a lot to be said for minoring in something that's not what you're going to be doing for the rest of your life. FWIW, the two more interesting classes I took as an undergrad were business law and graduate-level endocrinology.
 
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