Need Advice, Greatly Appreciated

[pacman8794]

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Hey everyone. i joined this site b/c i think you guys can help me out here. I'm a Bio major in my third year and i was originally planning on becoming a psychiatrist, but now i was thinking of perhaps going for the next best thing, psychology. I was told that I don't need an undergrad degree in Psychology to go for my Masters in Psychology so I'm now considering this as an option. If I decide to go that route and i go for my masters in psychology I have a few questions.

1) Would it look good, bad, or odd if applied at a school to go for my masters while having a Bio degree? I have a pretty good GPA.

2) Would I be able to see patients after having a masters, assuming i went to go for clinical psychology, behavioral psychology, and/or whatever else would allow me to sit w/ people and help them w/ their problems?

3) What kind of work can I expect to do while going for my masters?

If you guys can help me out that would be great b/c I'm just confused right now and need some answers.

 

[JockNerd]

I'm a Bio major in my third year and i was originally planning on becoming a psychiatrist, but now i was thinking of perhaps going for the next best thing, psychology.

😡

SOME of us actively chose to go into psych rather than med, you know. Med is the next best thing to psych for me.

It sounds like you'd really rather be a psychiatrist. If that's accurate, then be a psychiatrist. The professions are significantly different in dozens of ways, and the prep work necessary to get into each is quite different as well.

The actual degree you get doesn't really matter so long as you have the pre-reqs for the schools you want, typically courses are abnormal, personality, stats, theory, and maybe interventions or neuropsych or whatever, depending on where/to what you're applying. The most important thing, though, is applied research experience--typically in the form of working as an RA and writing a senior thesis.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

😡

SOME of us actively chose to go into psych rather than med, you know. Med is the next best thing to psych for me.

Ditto, my back-up plan was med school. On average, clinical programs are FAR more competitive to get into than med school, but as JN noted.....they are two VERY different areas. If you want to focus primarily on meds management, go the psychiatry route. If you want to do research, assessment, therapy, etc....go clinical. These are very general areas since there is some cross over, in general the fields are quite different.

-t

 

[Ollie123]

Heh, no kidding there. Med school was my backup plan since I knew even if I couldn't get into a psych program I could always take a few more science classes and then go to med school where I did my undergrad. I'd love to be a physician too but med school isn't nearly as research-focused as I wanted.

1)If you have the necessary pre-reqs and some decent research experience, it shouldn't matter at all.
2)Some programs train you as a counselor, others don't, so just make sure you check if its a license-eligible degree
3)Lots of statistics, classes in psych assessment, intervention, psychopathology, etc. I'm not up on the master's curriculum since I'm going for a doctorate, but the courses tend to be fairly similar.

 

[Pekoe]

Have you considered medical psychology? Maybe doing work in biofeedback?

 

[pacman8794]

Have you considered medical psychology? Maybe doing work in biofeedback?

no i actually haven't. i'm not really familiar w/ that, what does medical psychology and biofeedback entail exactly?

thanks to everyone for the responses. what i meant earlier about psychology being the next best thing was that for my situation it's the next best thing, that's all.

 

[socialcog]

no i actually haven't. i'm not really familiar w/ that, what does medical psychology and biofeedback entail exactly?

thanks to everyone for the responses. what i meant earlier about psychology being the next best thing was that for my situation it's the next best thing, that's all.

I also do not know what medical psychology is but I know a bit about biofeedback and it's efficacy as a treatment. It's primarily used for anxiety and the idea, as a technique, is to learn to have the conscious ability over your own alpha wave activity. Alpha waves, during sleep research, is associated with (I think) pleasurable feeling and relaxation. The biofeedback machine gives the patient some visual cue about their alpha wave activity and the patient from there, can attempt to manipulate it and repeat it at will.

From what I've heard, the research on effectiveness of biofeedback has been disappointing. It has been shown that patients can put themselves into an alpha state, but still be pretty anxious. Furthermore, the equipment is expensive. CBT is more effective and cheap. 🙂

 

[pacman8794]

Hey guys, i think another area of medical psychology would be clinical psychology. I looked up some of the cirriculum and there are biology type courses so do your guys think have a bachelor's in bio would look good when i applied for my masters in clinical psychology? I'm just trying to find something I like, but at the same time make sure my bachelor's wasn't a waste.

 

[Gescheit]

I am an undergrad in psychology major. I had originally thought i wanted to go into psychiatry, but as I researched the two fields, I found that psychiatrists seemed to rely heavily on pharmaceuticals. If you are interested in counseling, research, and the like, then psychology is right for you. However, if you love science, and love biology, then I would suggest psychiatry. Psychology has roots in both of those (science and biology), but I think it is a more diverse and open-minded discipline. I love psychology, and I do recommend it to anyone who is interested! the only thing you might want to seriously consider is the competitiveness of admission into Psychology grad school (especially Clinical Psychology). From my research and from individuals' comments on this forum, Clinical psychology PhD programs are much much more competitive than med school

 

[pacman8794]

I am an undergrad in psychology major. I had originally thought i wanted to go into psychiatry, but as I researched the two fields, I found that psychiatrists seemed to rely heavily on pharmaceuticals. If you are interested in counseling, research, and the like, then psychology is right for you. However, if you love science, and love biology, then I would suggest psychiatry. Psychology has roots in both of those (science and biology), but I think it is a more diverse and open-minded discipline. I love psychology, and I do recommend it to anyone who is interested! the only thing you might want to seriously consider is the competitiveness of admission into Psychology grad school (especially Clinical Psychology). From my research and from individuals' comments on this forum, Clinical psychology PhD programs are much much more competitive than med school

thanks, i think psychology is the right thing. I have to see what's out there in terms of medical psychology. I understand it is competetive, but i don't have a problem w/ competition. I might just go for the masters, i'm not even sure anymore. if anyone knows the answer to my question i'd appreciate it: do your guys think have a bachelor's in bio would look good when i applied for my masters in clinical psychology or PhD?

 

[JockNerd]

if anyone knows the answer to my question i'd appreciate it: do your guys think have a bachelor's in bio would look good when i applied for my masters in clinical psychology or PhD?

I mentioned in my first post in the thread that most schools care more that you have a specific set of prereq courses more than a psych degree. The courses are usually stats/research methods, abnormal psych, personality, and maybe one or two others that depend on the program you're going into. I started as a bio major (I was going to be a geneticist) so my first two years were all bio and chem. It actually looks pretty good to have a background in the natural sciences.

And, again, the thing that's much much much more important than whether you have a BA psych or a BSc bio is applied research experience.

 

[pacman8794]

I mentioned in my first post in the thread that most schools care more that you have a specific set of prereq courses more than a psych degree. The courses are usually stats/research methods, abnormal psych, personality, and maybe one or two others that depend on the program you're going into. I started as a bio major (I was going to be a geneticist) so my first two years were all bio and chem. It actually looks pretty good to have a background in the natural sciences.

And, again, the thing that's much much much more important than whether you have a BA psych or a BSc bio is applied research experience.

thanks a lot, i appreciate it. i need to find out what kind of things i'm going to need to apply next year. hopefully my advisor will know something.

 

[amy203]

I swear, you'd think I had money invested in this book. Get The Insider's Guide to Graduate Programs in Clinical and Counseling Psychology. It will answer so many of your questions.

Also, just to make sure you know, if you get a masters degree, it is highly likely that most of your work will not transfer if you decide to get a PhD afterwards. In other words, you would basically be starting over. I know it's a lot of pressure, but you should decide now whether you ultimately want a Masters or a PhD.

 

[pacman8794]

I swear, you'd think I had money invested in this book. Get The Insider's Guide to Graduate Programs in Clinical and Counseling Psychology. It will answer so many of your questions.

Also, just to make sure you know, if you get a masters degree, it is highly likely that most of your work will not transfer if you decide to get a PhD afterwards. In other words, you would basically be starting over. I know it's a lot of pressure, but you should decide now whether you ultimately want a Masters or a PhD.

thanks, i appreciate it a lot. i'll look into the book. if anyone else ever has anything else to help me out let me know.