Looking At Pursuing A Career In Psychology?

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Think of major subject of study that is only 125 years young and is taking the world by storm! This is how one can probably describe psychology. Psychology is a subject of study that shouldn't be taken lightly. Psychology is a science that deals with human behavior as well as non humans - animals. Its study finds its roots in biology and touches on many areas in sociology, trying to seek a relationship between the brain functions and the behavior or the relationship between the environment and the behavior generators. There are many areas in which one can specialize since the subject is so vast and nowadays, more and more areas of life need the application of psychology.

The importance of the psychology and why one is secure by building a career in the subject can be seen from the fact that since 1960, there has been a big increase in the students who pursue psychology and have become a part of the competition on jobs that are psychology related. To be precise, the number of students opting for a masters in psychology has gone up 6 folds, a trend that was not observed earlier. It has also been observed that more than two thirds of the students graduating with masters in psychology get jobs in fields which are outside psychology and only about a third are employed in jobs which are directly related to psychology. A large number of those employed after graduating with masters in psychology work on data collection and analysis in various firms and institutions, both in the government circles and the private sector.

When we look at the trend of job projections and growth the area of psychology, there has been a great percentage increase in demand for people with psychology degrees. According to a survey conducted in 2001 by APA Center for Psychology Workforce Analysis and Research (CPWAR), 73% of the people who graduated with degrees in psychology were able to be employed in the areas they first chose to work in, and 75% were able to get jobs within 3 months of graduation. The trend has gone up since then and there are many more areas where psychology gradates are much needed. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for psychology-based jobs will keep on increasing at a high rate in the next decade.

One can build a career in the subfields of psychology. For example, one can take on Evolutionary psychology where you can study how human thought, feeling, and behavior are affected by evolutionary aspects like mutation, selective fitness and adaptation. You can also study Clinical Psychology where to will get knowledge to be able to deal with emotional and behavioral disorders. You can also go for Cognitive and perceptual psychology, Developmental psychology, Educational psychology and many other subfields.