A career in psychology is one of the most important ways to give back to your community and make a big difference in people’s lives. The path to becoming a psychologist can be a difficult one to navigate, but with the right knowledge and perseverance, it is attainable for anyone.
Here are five things you should know about a career in psychology when embarking on a journey to begin one.
It is not just talking with individuals.
Being a psychologist can entail more than only having appointments with individuals to work through personal issues.
The dream of becoming a psychologist may include just sitting in a fancy chair with your patient across from you on your office couch, but there can be way more to it than that. Commonly, large businesses can bring in psychologists to help foster a more cohesive work environment, especially if there are underlying issues with the interpersonal work culture. Moreover, psychologists can also work in educational settings, such as on university campuses, to teach aspiring people the workings of psychology and how to work in the field.
A psychologist has an important job that is not uniform.
You do not need your work published necessarily.
The highest academic psychologists often have their work published into a book that they can sell later. Many young psychologists always aspire to this goal to advance their careers.
However, it is not always necessary to publish a book for your career to progress. You do not need a long list of works to get hired for a clinical psychology job. Clinical psychologists and academic psychologists work in different fields, so you need to decide which one is necessary for you.
Undergraduate psychology degrees are hard.
When you begin your graduate degree in psychology that you will need for your career, your education will likely become much easier because you will receive the personalized attention you need. Before that, however, you need an undergraduate degree in psychology, which has none of that.
Most college psychology students learn in lecture halls with no opportunity to get personalized help. This is why the undergraduate phase of the educational process to become a psychologist is the most difficult.
Be patient.
After you finish your final degree, you should try not to take the first low-paying job that comes your way. You would have spent almost a decade in higher education, likely financing it with student loans, so earning a better salary is what you deserve.
Psychologists in private practice have much better financial opportunities, so you should choose your employment accordingly.
Remember different licensing requirements.
Learning and following different psychology licensure requirements by state can be difficult. In turn, if you decide to practice in different states, you may need to acquire more credentials to get a new license.
It can be very difficult to go through the daunting paperwork to gain a new state license, so you should consider that before you decide to move states. Time-consuming bureaucracy can be a waste of time and could take a lot of valuable time away from your practice.
When you know these important things about being a psychologist, your career path will be easier to complete. For more information, you can always check out places like Best Psychology Degrees.
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