Photo credit: Nikolayhg/Pixaby
So picture this: A sunny, late-summer day in beautiful Storrs, CT—with cow pastures always off in the distance. There I was, about to start my freshman year—bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Mullet and all! And ready to become trained to be a therapist.
Because to my teenage mind: The terms psychologist and therapist were synonyms.
I signed up for Introductory Psychology in the fall of my freshman year—1988. I was at the University of Connecticut. UCONN is a pretty large university, and as such, there were hundreds of people in this class. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a morning class—9:30 a.m.
No problem. I was there with my notebook and pen, feeling bright and cheery. This was going to be it—the class that would inspire me and shape my next 60 or so years.
The professor emerged at the front of the room. She was about 40 and seemed quite professorial. She had glasses and was dressed very properly. And she spoke exactly as I figured a professor would speak. She sounded like a genius!
After some basic introductions about herself and the class, she turned on the overhead projector to show some transparency slides on the screen. This was the cutting-edge technology in 1988. I decided that I was going to take notes like a demon, writing down every single thing that she put up on screen. Here we go!
Slide 1 came up with the title, "The Chemical Properties of Neural Transmission." Wait a minute! I thought. Was I in the right class? Look at all those chemical symbols up there. I did not like chemistry in high school! Why is this psychology professor teaching us about chemistry!? Ack!!!
Slide 2 was called “The Electrophysiology of Neural Transmission.” Oh no—it gets worse! Voltages? Negative and positive symbols? Potassium? What in the world was this lady talking about?! What does this have to do with psychology?
I left after that first lecture totally shaken. I don’t want to study this stuff! After all, isn’t psychology all about therapy and counseling?
Two days later, I went back to that class determined not to be discouraged. It would have to get better—things could only improve, right? I sat down and opened up my notebook. I waited in anticipation as the professor turned on that transparency projector. Believe it or not, it did get worse. Today’s lesson was on statistics. Now she’s really done it! I thought. Greek symbols? Equations? Square root? What in the world?
Well guess what? The esteemed Professor Gustafson was, in fact, teaching psychology, and masterfully at that. The problem was that I didn’t realize then that the field of psychology is not by any means synonymous with counseling or psychotherapy.
Psychology is much bigger than that. At the time, UCONN actually had split Introduction to Psychology into Parts 1 and 2. And we didn’t get to issues related to therapy until well into the second semester! By the time we got to that subject, I actually had my mind set on behavioral-science research—something that I didn’t even know existed when I first walked onto the campus when I started my freshman year.
I tell this story partly to let you know early what I didn’t know upfront: Psychology has many subfields. Most of these subfields are strictly scientific and research-based. Further, the non-research-based parts of psychology include much more than just the area of psychotherapy. When I was 18 years old, I had no idea about any of this! (Geher, 2019, pp. 3-4).
Here are some questions that require a bird's-eye view of the psychology educational experience:
Why do psychology students need to take courses in statistics anyway?
What are the basic career paths for psychology students?
What is the point of "psychological research?"
What are the basic perspectives that drive the work of psychologists?
10 Pointers for Psychology Majors
Here is a list of 10 pointers that are included in my book, designed to help give students this bird's-eye view of the field of psychology:
1. Don't assume that psychology is synonymous with psychotherapy. It's not.
2. Psychologists don't all study humans—the study of animal behavior also falls under the umbrella of psychology.
3. There are at least a dozen different kinds of graduate programs that follow directly from a psychology undergraduate degree.
4. In many psychology-related graduate programs, a high proportion of students receive financial awards, and sometimes even full-tuition remission (i.e., it is often free).
5. Psychological research follows the scientific method. The stuff we study might seem like fluff, but it's not.
6. Visiting your professors during office hours could pay vast dividends, potentially leading to research collaborations and/or other kinds of opportunities that will set students apart from the pack.
7. Most colleges and universities have a system so that students can obtain credit toward their degree by collaborating with professors on research.
8. Many colleges and universities provide some funding to help students present research at regional, national, and even international conferences.
9. Most undergraduate programs provide mechanisms for students to obtain credit for completing internship experiences.
10. There actually are several careers related to therapy that follow from a psychology background, including mental health counseling, clinical psychology, counseling psychology, school counseling, social work, and psychiatry—and more.
Bottom Line
When I was a brand-new psychology student at 18-years old, I had a lot to learn. I not only had to learn about the content that was taught in my classes; I also had to learn what the whole point of the curriculum was in the first place. Check out my book, published by the APA, Own Your Psychology Major!, to get a bird's-eye view of the psychology major and to give yourself a leg up on the road to success as a student in this exciting field of study.
College student and made it to the end of this article? I am impressed—you got this!
Note: This article is an unabridged variant of my Psychology Today piece titled Own Your Psychology Major! I own the copyright to the content.