Deciding On A Career
Psychology is a great field to study because of the wide range of opportunities that come along with it. There are endless possibilities when deciding on a career in psychology, ranging from human services to education. Having many options is great, but it can also be very overwhelming. Today, I will be discussing ways to make a career-based decision less overwhelming and how to ultimately decide what career you would like to pursue.
First and foremost, it is important to understand yourself. Before you choose a career, assess your values, interests, skills, and personality type. If you do not like to work with children, it is probably a bad idea to become a school counselor. Make sure to figure out what you like and dislike so that when you are researching different careers you can automatically cross out those that are incompatible with you. Working with a career counselor is a great way to pinpoint exactly what personal issues you may have with a certain career. A&M offers in-person career counseling, career assessment workshops, and a handy-dandy self-assessment and career-planning program online to help you with career-based decisions! For more information on career counseling please visit their website: https://scs.tamu.edu/?q=career.
Once you’ve assessed yourself, start researching different fields of psychology and how each of those relate to your interests. Based on your interests, create a list of these careers and how compatible they seem to be with you. Repeat this process until you have a short list left to choose from. Believe me, this shorter list will be a lot less overwhelming to look at compared to the thousands of search results you found on Google!
Now that you have your short list of careers in front of you, it’s time to reach out to people who are working in the occupations that you are interested in. It is important to start networking in your field of interest so that you can receive firsthand knowledge of the job and possibly obtain an internship at their company. Internships are great for getting experience and building the skills that you would need when you are hired for the position. Another great thing about internships is that sometimes you will realize the career you thought you would be interested in is not actually something you like. This is a great way of keeping you from making a decision that you regret later on.
Finally, choose the career that fits you the best. It is important to choose something that you are passionate about in addition to focusing on the financial benefits you may gain from it. Regardless of how much money you make, you should love the career you choose so you are happy with your decision.