if you knew what you know now? Ie Would you guys still be Psychologists if you knew everything you know now (the whole process of becoming a Psychologist, and now having experience doing the job day to day)?
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Would you have made the same decision...
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Most likely.
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Maybe? I very much enjoy what I do, though I'd probably do an MD/PhD...which was my original plan, but I was warned off by multiple students.
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Probably not. Initially I was interested in a more relaxed work environment that many psychologists seem to have. Some people do work minimal hours, but the trade off is substantially lower pay. As I have progressed, I noticed that physicians in general have more ability to work lower hours due to the higher hourly income. There's also some location dependence in psychology, which other fields do not have.
All over again, I'd either go towards medicine, finance, or software.
All over again, I'd either go towards medicine, finance, or software.
why were you warned about it?
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Yes, but I probably would have gone about it in a more patient and strategic way (e.g. worked/researched longer and held out for better funding versus going to a specialist program with limited funding so I wouldn't have had to wait for another cycle to start working towards my PhD).
I sort of have that situation in-front of me now. I think I will be hold out, assuming my marks stay high.
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I was told by multiple students (across different programs) that it is a ton of work (duh), but there is also a lot of pressure to apply to certain specialties and residency programs. I would have made it work, as it was just one of many paths.
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MD/PhD would've been interesting, so like T4C, of all the alternatives, that might've been the one I'd have chosen. But I enjoy what I do, and don't generally think I would enjoy the day-to-day duties of many physicians.
The income and employment situations would've been great perks, though.
The income and employment situations would've been great perks, though.
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Unequivocally.
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No way. I don't think it's worth all the blood, sweat, tears, years, and money....
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I'm a postdoc. I think the path to get where I am has been really tough and was often unforgiving... lots of relocation and lots of stress, which have impacted me and my relationships. Overall, I love what I do and I really like my job, and looking at job postings on the listservs gets me excited about the prospects for the future. That being said... I wouldn't want to go through it all again. There are simply too many other paths that would have also led to career satisfaction without as much sacrifice.
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No. But I'm in my 5th year of graduate school and can honestly say I would not do it over. Granted, my answer could change after being a psychologist for a while, but I doubt it. Optimism FTW.
Is it because of much of what LETSGONYR said?
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Yes. I did not realize just how much I had to sacrifice or how important those things would be to me in the future (i.e., moving far from family at least once but likely several times over), giving up my weekends to write when my non-grad friends could do whatever they wanted, being treated badly by faculty... and specific to me, I had a bad experience in my particular program, but I'd rather not get into those details. If I had to do it all over again, I would've done something that took less time and less sacrifice. I gave up a good chunk of my 20s for this and I can't get that back.
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I feel the same way as LLETSGONYR. I am a pre-doctoral intern at a great internship site and truly love the work that I do. I actually look forward to coming into work. However, it's just been such a stressful experience for me. I'm looking for post-docs and my journey is still not over... I still have to find a post-doc, pass the EPPP, and get licensed. Way too much work, time, money, and stress for the career and salary.
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Man, I had it made in grad school, apparently. Some of the best years of my life, along with some awesome people who are still a big part of my life/social network. Also, I wonder about how much debt load plays into career satisfaction.
Yeah. I'm very curious how dependent it is on the program you end up with (from faculty, to your actual class)/including potential debt of said program.
A lot if it may be down to personality too. (type a/type b personality).
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Eh, to each their own. I have very little debt from grad school, although I do have some from undergrad (not six figures, thankfully). Grad school wasn't entirely a depress-fest for me... I similarly made some great friends, learned a lot, and enjoyed much of the work. But I still think that the constant applying for things (externship, internship, postdoc) or having to pass things (diss defense, eppp) were overly stressful and decreased my quality of life. I'm less close to some of my friends due to relocation and physical distance (though I know that's a normal part of adulthood, as well), and found myself in some cities where it was hard to find my niche.
I suppose how much a person struggles with that sort of thing varies greatly depending on how a person handles change and manages anxiety. Admittedly, I have some room for improvement in the latter.
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I'd do it again. Would consider MD/PhD.
Best ROI may have been in business. But that sucks the life out of some people.
Qualifier: my program was funded and great, still talk to them. Would feel very different if one or both of those things weren't true.
Best ROI may have been in business. But that sucks the life out of some people.
Qualifier: my program was funded and great, still talk to them. Would feel very different if one or both of those things weren't true.
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I very much enjoyed my program as well. There were stressful aspects, but even with that, I enjoyed the training (even with its various hoops) much more than I did the full-time work I'd done before grad school. The moves were annoying, but I perhaps lucked out in that I made a handful of great friends at each place I stopped. I also got back "home" at least once every few months.
Speaking specifically about grad school, I'd do that again without hesitation.
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I would do it again and love what I do (definitely more on the research than clinical side).
But I think, as many have pointed out, it depends on how life has been. I went to a doctoral program (not absent of politics and drama) but was fully funded, great quality of living and wonderful friends. I was engaged and then got married. My husband was also very supportive. I then matched to an amazing research internship. Still loving my qualify of life and my cohort. Thankfully, my husband was able to join me and found a second post doc out here. And I'm actually "excited" to see where post doc takes me (not excited about applying but it's must less stressful than applying to internship).
And with distance, I've still maintained my close friendships and see my family. Sure I'd love to be closer but it will come in time.
I love what I do but I also have loved it because my of everything else in my life that has supported me. I think without certain supports ... This can be very hard and I can see why others wouldn't do it again.
But I think, as many have pointed out, it depends on how life has been. I went to a doctoral program (not absent of politics and drama) but was fully funded, great quality of living and wonderful friends. I was engaged and then got married. My husband was also very supportive. I then matched to an amazing research internship. Still loving my qualify of life and my cohort. Thankfully, my husband was able to join me and found a second post doc out here. And I'm actually "excited" to see where post doc takes me (not excited about applying but it's must less stressful than applying to internship).
And with distance, I've still maintained my close friendships and see my family. Sure I'd love to be closer but it will come in time.
I love what I do but I also have loved it because my of everything else in my life that has supported me. I think without certain supports ... This can be very hard and I can see why others wouldn't do it again.
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I would probably do it again for the following reasons:
-Lots of interesting experiences.
-There is a lot of value to what we do.
-Aside from my first year, grad school was mostly positive; my mentors and colleagues were mostly supportive.
-Flexibility; Currently I am doing clinical work, but I like that I can switch to something else if I ever get burned out (i.e., research, academia).
-The pay is decent if you get into the right places.
-I had funding, and stayed out of debt (for the most part).
-I learned and continued to learn really interesting things.
The big downside to me is the length of training, all of the hurdles and the salary relative to how much time we put in.
-Lots of interesting experiences.
-There is a lot of value to what we do.
-Aside from my first year, grad school was mostly positive; my mentors and colleagues were mostly supportive.
-Flexibility; Currently I am doing clinical work, but I like that I can switch to something else if I ever get burned out (i.e., research, academia).
-The pay is decent if you get into the right places.
-I had funding, and stayed out of debt (for the most part).
-I learned and continued to learn really interesting things.
The big downside to me is the length of training, all of the hurdles and the salary relative to how much time we put in.
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Yes, I would do it again. If I had a do-over I might tweak a few decisions along the way, but on balance I don't see myself being happier in any other career path.
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I would do it all again. Sometimes I think I might have picked psychiatry because I do enjoy the field of medicine and they do get paid more, but the truth is I love being a psychologist and I think that what we bring to the table in the field of mental health is essential and valuable. I worked for ten years in transportation and ten years in sales. The business world is not for me. I do think we have a few problems in the field: pressure to lower standards, midlevels competition, salary deflation, skyrocketing debts, and I am passionate about working towards solutions because I think our profession benefits society. We are a relatively young and growing field and I am excited about being part of that. I also love that my interventions are safer and more effective for my patients than most medications. My schedule is always full and people in my community are starting to realize that the poorly supervised, online degree LPC, MFT types are not as effective. I know a couple of them personally and one of them just signed a contract for supervision and the other is always "just wanting to pick my brain about stuff". They are good people, they just don't have the experience, education, and training that we have and the better ones know their limitations and seek guidance.
Probably would still go down this path. If I didn't, it would be for computer science, biomedical engineering or something else peripherally related at best. As with some others above, MD/PhD was considered but I ultimately decided against it since the MD just meant more time/pressure/incentive to do things I didn't want to do. Better compensation and location flexibility would be nice, but I don't think is particularly problematic in my situation. For the most part, my program was great - something I don't think I really appreciated until recently. I was happy. I worked hard, but loved what I did. I have zero debt (minus a car we bought last year).
I do get somewhat jealous of my non-clinical colleagues who have far more time to devote to research, but I think the stability a clinical degree offers still makes it worth it (this will likely be even more once I'm done accruing licensure hours and can reduce my clinical effort to more like 10-20%). I do think the degree offers me tremendous flexibility to shape my career - in part because of how I have positioned myself throughout that time. So I don't really feel like others doors are necessarily closed if I decide I want to move in a different direction. I always mention it, but I really do believe that a clinical psychology PhD is broad enough to prepare you for an incredible number of jobs and is arguably one of the most flexible doctoral-level degrees in existence. Doesn't mean its easy to shift, but I'm confident that opportunities will always be out there.
There are certainly plenty of micro-level things I would do differently (i.e. slight different in research foci, more emphasis on x and less on y, etc.) but those are mostly minor tweaks.
I do get somewhat jealous of my non-clinical colleagues who have far more time to devote to research, but I think the stability a clinical degree offers still makes it worth it (this will likely be even more once I'm done accruing licensure hours and can reduce my clinical effort to more like 10-20%). I do think the degree offers me tremendous flexibility to shape my career - in part because of how I have positioned myself throughout that time. So I don't really feel like others doors are necessarily closed if I decide I want to move in a different direction. I always mention it, but I really do believe that a clinical psychology PhD is broad enough to prepare you for an incredible number of jobs and is arguably one of the most flexible doctoral-level degrees in existence. Doesn't mean its easy to shift, but I'm confident that opportunities will always be out there.
There are certainly plenty of micro-level things I would do differently (i.e. slight different in research foci, more emphasis on x and less on y, etc.) but those are mostly minor tweaks.
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Yes, I would do it again, but only if the do-over worked out as well as the first time through! I had no student loans from undergrad, went to a fully funded APA-accredited program (again, no loans), and did not have to geographically relocate for internship or postdoc (or for my first job, for that matter). Not having those very real burdens allowed me to enjoy my education and focus on my patients, research and career path. It also meant that I could become a homeowner before age thirty and start maxing out retirement contributions (which have been supplmented by some sweet employer matching programs). Sorry if my fiscal focus may seem too cold to some, but it has been my experience that a lot of people dive into psychology as a career without thinking through all of the implications and consequences.
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Very well said.
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I would say medicine, for the options, but that's not really the best reason it go into medicine, and I can imagine being pretty miserable during training, because other than psychiatry, I have little interest in clinical medicine.
Probably "healthcare something something" (management, administration, MPH), or history. With that later, I'd still be griping about salary though.
Probably "healthcare something something" (management, administration, MPH), or history. With that later, I'd still be griping about salary though.
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Now that it's Monday morning and I have to go to work, can I change my answer?
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My answer is probably. FWIW, I'm 1.5 years out of grad school, fully licensed, and in a relatively good job. I think in my last years of grad school, my answers would sound ALOT like sunshine008 though. A few years ago, totally not worth it. Now that I'm done, yeah, I dig it.
But... when I compare where I'm at versus my friends who didnt go after PhD's, and instead got a job, and that job paid for a masters, etc... sometimes I wonder. There's part of me that wonders if I was a computer programmer, data analyst, etc, what my job satisfaction, savings, debt, and outlook on life would be like. Hard to really know, tbh.
All I can really say is that for the most part, I really enjoy a) being a psychologist, and b) being done with grad school.
But... when I compare where I'm at versus my friends who didnt go after PhD's, and instead got a job, and that job paid for a masters, etc... sometimes I wonder. There's part of me that wonders if I was a computer programmer, data analyst, etc, what my job satisfaction, savings, debt, and outlook on life would be like. Hard to really know, tbh.
All I can really say is that for the most part, I really enjoy a) being a psychologist, and b) being done with grad school.
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As a behavior analyst (clinically) and radical behaviorist (philosophically), I guess I have to be conceptually consistent and honestly say that my being a psychologist was not actually a result of my "knowing" and "choosing," but rather of the combination of learning history and interactions with the environments that I found myself in. I won't be super-deterministic and posit that the collection of matter known as me was set to be what/where I am at the time of the big bang, but it's something like that. Plus, I have no other marketable skills.
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This gives me hope
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In this spirit, since I am primarily a psychodynamic clinician then obviously it is my mom's fault that I ended up being a psychologist! I imagine the CBT folks are just following their irrational core beliefs - "if I become a psychologist, then I will be loveable, worthwhile, matter, good enough (fill in whichever core belief most suits). The humanistic psychologists are the really nice people who believe that all humans are essentially nice like them. The existentialists don't really know what they are doing or why they are doing it and then ask whether it really matters or not. The neuropsychologists are really just mad scientist types that want to study the human brain cause it's cool, they have no deeper underlying psychological motivations.
See, I told you I didn't want to work this morning.
D
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I have mixed feelings. During the process, I would have said no. I didn't anticipate how all the moves, living alone and apart from family and friends, the lack of control over where you end up internship-wise, the fear of not matching, the pressure of dissertation, eppp etc. would impact me. However, the flexibility with work, the fact that I don't have to do anything that involves touching people, the interesting nature of the job and the multiple hats that I wear have been huge pluses. That being said, if I did not have full student loan repayment, I would say a definite no. It is not worth a large amount of debt. You need quality of life to offset the difficulty of the process, and student loan burdens take that away.
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Someone mentioned earlier about debt....I think that is a *huge* moderating factor. I have debt from undergrad and grad, and it definitely changed how I would go about post-grad school life. I have to wait longer to buy a house and post-doc ($41k/$42k) was a little tighter bc of loan repayments. There are house loans for high debt/high earners and there are repayment programs for loans, but all of that is a hassle and subject to change. When ppl (myself included) really push fully funded programs....this is why. High debt + job <$100k would be incredibly stressful.
In my prior career I'd be working on a vacation home (or boat) and my retirement age would be a lot closer, but I truly enjoy what I do. Life is too short to not enjoy what you do, so I traded ultimate financial flexibility (with very mixed interest in the work) for a longer path to retirement with the hopes I'll reallyvenjoy my work and not want to retire.
In my prior career I'd be working on a vacation home (or boat) and my retirement age would be a lot closer, but I truly enjoy what I do. Life is too short to not enjoy what you do, so I traded ultimate financial flexibility (with very mixed interest in the work) for a longer path to retirement with the hopes I'll reallyvenjoy my work and not want to retire.
Forget about not being able to buy a home...I have no idea how people can mentally handle going through the stress of the actual program + knowing that the will be in deep debt. (and the small chance that they will quit, have the debt, but not the career)
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fwiw I would identify myself primarily as CBT, and I find myself very unlovable. Being a psychologist has not changed that at all.
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In this spirit, since I am primarily a psychodynamic clinician then obviously it is my mom's fault that I ended up being a psychologist! I imagine the CBT folks are just following their irrational core beliefs - "if I become a psychologist, then I will be loveable, worthwhile, matter, good enough (fill in whichever core belief most suits). The humanistic psychologists are the really nice people who believe that all humans are essentially nice like them. The existentialists don't really know what they are doing or why they are doing it and then ask whether it really matters or not. The neuropsychologists are really just mad scientist types that want to study the human brain cause it's cool, they have no deeper underlying psychological motivations.
See, I told you I didn't want to work this morning.
So we all agree, it all comes down to a combination of our learning histories and interactions with our current environments (including the portion of which lies within our skulls).
As a more serious reply to the OP- I like what I do (a lot). There are other things that I think I would also like a lot (physics, public health, healthcare administration, drumming in a punk band, profession minor-league hockey goon). As with all careers (or so I assume) there are pros and cons. Doctoral level psychology can be expensive to get into (both financially and time/work-wise), but if you have the right specialties in the right geographical locations it can work out pretty well. The less debt you incur, the more options you may have.
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Diagnosis: The vast majority of your practice ends up being very typical cases for your type of practice (e.g., Alzheimer's). If you are competent, you learn everything you can about those diagnoses, treatments, legal ramifications (even if you are not forensic), prognosis, etc. Every once in a while, there is an rare thing that comes across your plate which is incredibly interesting. After a few thousand cases, you end up being able to pretty much call a diagnosis based upon the interview and neuro exam. Still have to give the tests to confirm, which can be boring. Example: I had a pt in the hospital a few years ago who reported the symptoms of posterior cortical atrophy. So, I knew what was going to happen on tests, and what the diagnosis was going to be. Still gave them, gave the feedback, family explained that a local neurologist had performed a huge series of tests to come up with that diagnosis in the past and that pt had just forgotten it.
Testing: To keep yourself interested you can vary the tests you give and keep up with the literature about the various psychometric properties of said tests. Every now and again, there are reports about a very specific subtest that has XYZ properties which can be interesting. Or learn the history of some old tests.
Long story short: It can get boring. You can find some ways to mitigate boredom.
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+1
If you're a glutton for punishment, you can also work in a position where you field referrals from every service in the clinic. Although even then, you're likely to see the same types of referrals from the various sources (e.g., primary care = dementia vs. depression; behavioral health = ADHD or dementia vs. depression/Axis II; neurology = less-common neurodegenerative conditions or f/u to monitor course; PM&R = TBI).
I still very much enjoy what I do, although there are days where I feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water in terms of staying up to date on everything folks expect me to know.
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Most assessment heavy people work in specific areas (at least in part to be very comfortable w. the related literature and considerations), though some take a more generalist approach to it. My in-pt consultation gives me plenty of variety, so in my out-pt practice I make an effort to stick mostly with acquired brain injury. Maybe I'll switch it up in a few years, but there is enough variability in head injury that it isn't boring.
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If you got bored after just a year or two I'd say you weren't learning enough about independent practice, which requires some level of adjustment.
I'm about 3.5 years past my postdoc. My situation is different because my time is structured such that I have multiple positions involving teaching, research, and clinical neuropsychology practice on a part time basis. Part of why I practice part time only is because I didn't want to get burnt out, but that has nothing to do with the specialty itself - I just know I don't have the energy to be a 100% clinician, regardless of what type of clinical work I would do. I prefer wearing that hat just 1-2 days a week and focusing on research and teaching the rest of the time.
Even with a part time practice, it is possible for things to get repetitive. I view it as my responsibility to remain up to date about the conditions my patients come in for, so in that sense, there is never a dull moment because there is a lot of research happening. I also find that conference attendance and staying engaged in my own original research help me to stay motivated, learn about new approaches to try, have interesting discussions, and close the research/practice gap in my own work. These are rewarding things for me, and keep me engaged.
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I couldn't do 100% clinical work for 40-50hr/wk. Having control over my schedule has been paramount. For instance, I work off hours (to avoid rush hour), take long lunches a couple times a week (to workout), and I tend to do my rounds in the afternoons and evenings because I'm more likely to see family members at those times. Keeping a part-time out-pt practice has been good, though it'll be interesting to see if anything changes as I start to expand my practice to a larger % of my week.
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I would do it again in a heartbeat. I loved graduate school and I love my career (assistant professor in a psychology department). I have a lot of flexibility with my time, I really enjoy research and teaching, the latter of which includes clinical supervision and mentoring (OK, research includes mentoring too). Academia is kind of like grad school part 2, but with far more power (I no longer have to wait for my graduate advisor to return my emails before I can submit a paper, which inherently makes me more productive) and more ownership of my time. Even the tenure track hasn't been bad thusfar, though I thrive on being busy.
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