Psychology is one of the most popular undergraduate degrees. In fact, it’s the third most popular major, behind business and nursing.
There’s a good reason for this – it’s a major that gives you the opportunity to get a diverse education that can help you in many walks of life. Likewise, a degree in psychology offers many benefits to you as you graduate and look for a job, as well as in your future career.
In this guide, we’ll explore seven of the best benefits you stand to derive from a degree in psychology.
You’ll Learn Valuable Skills
Since psychology is the study of human behavior, you’ll learn a variety of skills that help you better understand why people do what they do.
For example, you’ll further develop skills you likely already possess, like the capacity for empathy and the ability to actively listen to others.
Additionally, psychology programs include a lot of reading and research, so you’ll graduate with your degree as a much more capable consumer of information. You’ll learn how to examine problems, propose solutions, test hypotheses, and draw conclusions based on hard data. These are all valuable skills in psychology careers and many other careers as well.
Your Skills Will Be Transferable
Just because you get a degree in psychology doesn’t mean you have to work in the field of psychology.
For instance, many psychology graduates work in the field of corrections. You might be a probation officer, a bailiff, or a work placement specialist. Each of these positions requires training above and beyond a bachelor’s degree but majoring in psychology is a great start.
Other fields you might consider working in with your psychology degree include:
- Computer science
- Marketing and advertising
- Education
- Healthcare
- Research and development
- Social services
Likewise, with a psychology degree, you might work in sales, become a psychiatric technician, or serve as a research assistant in a psychology research laboratory. The possibilities for using your psychology skills are endless!
Psychology Programs Can Be Completed Quickly
A typical undergraduate program in psychology takes four years to complete if you study full-time. But, you can accelerate that timeline and graduate in 3-3.5 semesters by taking an extra class here and there.
In fact, you could shorten the timeline even further if you take summer courses and intersession courses (classes between fall and spring semesters, spring and summer semesters, and summer and fall semesters). These classes are intense but only meet for a couple of weeks, yet you can earn 1-3 credits!
You Can Learn a Lot About Yourself
College isn’t just an exercise in learning more about the world around you. It’s also a chance to learn more about yourself and reflect on who and what you are. Majoring in psychology can help you take on that task.
The courses you take in psychology will reveal things that you never knew about human behavior, and those realizations might help you discover things you didn’t know or realize about yourself.
When studying personality development, for example, you might be intrigued by Freud’s psychodynamic theory of personality development. As you study his theory and understand that childhood experiences are pivotal in the development of personality, you might be able to identify seminal childhood experiences that influenced your personality.
In other words, studying psychology is an opportunity to gain knowledge that is useful in the world of work but also helps you understand yourself that much better.
You Can Learn Online
Online psychology degree programs are abundant. You can find them offered by schools big and small all across the country. With the proliferation of online psychology degrees, you can easily complete your degree online without ever stepping foot on campus. Not only can this be a more convenient way to learn than going to a brick-and-mortar school, but it can also be less expensive.
It’s a Great Way to Prepare for Graduate School
If you want to pursue a higher degree after you graduate with your bachelor’s, you’ll be in a great position to do so with a degree in psychology. In fact, you don’t necessarily have to get a graduate degree in psychology. Instead, your bachelor’s degree is a great start for graduate studies in a wide range of fields, including, but not limited to:
- Education
- Criminal Justice
- Counselling
- Business Administration
- Marketing
In some cases, you might need to take some prerequisite courses before enrolling in a graduate program. But, by and large, you are likely to find that your undergraduate degree in psychology prepares you well for graduate school.
You Can Specialize as You Continue Your Education or Start a Career
Psychology is a very broad field of study. As you get your undergraduate degree, you’ll find that you can take courses in many different niches, from psychological research to therapeutic techniques to psychology and the law.
This means that you can focus your studies on the specific areas of psychology that interest you. Then, after you graduate, you can find a master’s program that will help you further your studies in that niche, or you might enter the workforce in that field.
Either way, this degree can help you zero in on a specific area that interests you!