# Off-Topic Discussion > The Lounge > Ask/Tell Me About >  >  Tell me why Psychology is a bad career choice.

## De-lousedInTheComatorium

Title

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## no-Name

> thread fail.



stop it gb, youre becoming a troll.

personally, i dont think it's a bad career choice at all, its a very well, if not overly paid job. not everyone does that well in it, it takes lots of studying, but a well rounded psychologist is a fine career, i dont see why you would find anything wrong with it.

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## De-lousedInTheComatorium

> stop it gb, youre becoming a troll.
> 
> personally, i dont think it's a bad career choice at all, its a very well, if not overly paid job. not everyone does that well in it, it takes lots of studying, but a well rounded psychologist is a fine career, i dont see why you would find anything wrong with it.



Oh, I don't. I was just wondering if anyone else did and why. Yeah, it was either this or psychiatry, but too many negative stories about medical school scared me away from that. I hear that psychologists can reach the 6 digit salaries sometimes. I appreciate the answer though. I'm planning on psychology, but I'm open to any negative aspects of it people may know about.

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## guitarboy

> stop it gb, youre becoming a troll.



As I have observed, there are many psychologists(or people training to be) on the forum. It's like the "Doubting My Faith" Thread. The thread is contradictory to the majority of the forum.

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## De-lousedInTheComatorium

> As I have observed, there are many psychologists(or people training to be) on the forum. It's like the "Doubting My Faith" Thread. The thread is contradictory to the majority of the forum.



I'm not saying that psychology is a bad career choice. I'm asking if anyone else can actually tell me the negative aspects of it. Of course I asked here because there are many people interested in psychology. That doesn't mean they're not open minded enough to not see any possible bad sides of it.

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## DuB

Well there are various fields within psychology, and they can really be quite different in terms of what they do and how much they make. To put it broadly, applied psychologists (clinicians, I/O psychologists) make good money and tend to work medical/clinical or corporate settings while research psychologists (social psychologists, developmental psychologists, cognitive psychologists, etc.) get mediocre pay and tend to work at universities.

I'm graduating college in May and am waiting on admission decisions from several social/cognitive Ph.D. programs as we speak, so I'm not really in a position to be saying that psychology is a bad career choice, but I will say that it's not for everybody. For one thing, Ph.D.s are the entry-level degree in the field, and its not uncommon for people to even pursue a few years of post-doctoral training before settling into their careers. Many people find it hard to reconcile the extensive training requirements with the mediocre pay associated with the research-oriented fields (although the prospect of tenure helps  ::wink:: ).

I'm still in the early stages of establishing my career in psychology, but already probably the most annoying problem that I've run into is the stereotyped image of psychologists.
"_Oh, you're in psychology? Are you, like, analyzing me right now? I had this weird dream, can you tell me what it means? Hey, my friend does this weird thing, what do you think is up with her?_" I do a mental facepalm when I get asked something like this (which is all too often  ::shakehead2:: ).

As for the specifics of what you'd be doing in a particular field of psychology, you really should take a course or two at the college level to get a feel for it and see if it seems right for you. I wasn't immediately hooked in but it did end up growing on me (I think that social psych course my sophomore year is what finally sealed the deal  :smiley: ).

If you have any more questions about psychology as a career I'll answer to the best of my knowledge.

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## guitarboy

> I'm not saying that psychology is a bad career choice. I'm asking if anyone else can actually tell me the negative aspects of it. Of course I asked here because there are many people interested in psychology. That doesn't mean they're not open minded enough to not see any possible bad sides of it.



I did not know that at the time.

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## Sandform

I wouldn't say that it is a bad career choice, I mean that is overly general statement.


If you enjoy helping people, then it might be a good one.  


I remember reading at one time that a statistic had shown an increased number of suicidal rates (in terms of profession/career choice) among the psychiatric field.  (Or is it simply tendencies?  I don't recall at the moment, I'm searching for the information to cover this statement.)  Edit:  It seems the rate is applied generally to  physicians.





> In a study of 18,730 physician deaths from 1967 to 1972 (men and women), psychiatrists accounted for 7 percent of the total but 12 percent of the 593 suicides (source: Rich et al., cited above).



So out of the 18,730 physicians who died, 7&#37; of them were psychiatrists, but out of those who committed suicide, psychiatrists accounted for 12%.

Of course statistics can be misleading, and these figures are from quite a few years ago.

I do not know much of this cecil adams(the writer of the article I linked), nor do many people it seems, but he seems to be a well known writer for the Chicago reader.  Perhaps he writes to be sensational, but who knows really.

I would assume if I had to pick the initial reason why a person may choose not to even pursue this field from the very beginning is that you will most likely be dealing with extremely disturbed individuals.  If you pursue a type of career where you are having sessions with people, I mean.  Often people develop attachments to the people they are sharing their problems with, and sometimes these attachments lead to violence towards the professional.  But really, a patient attacking you isn't the worst case scenario, in my opinion.

I'm not sure how many types of jobs are available in psychology, but if you intend on being what people might refer to as a shrink, then you may want to ask yourself this question.  When dealing with disturbed individuals, are you going to be able to handle it when you find out that one of your patients has committed suicide?

I personally would not be able to handle something like that.  I mean, it wouldn't make me hurt myself, but if that ever happened to me I would probably have to quit that profession, or move to a different subset of the field.

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## Jeff777

I briefly contemplated becoming a psychologist.  However, I changed my mind because being confined to listening to people's problems day in and day out (part of the profession) sounded less and less enticing.  You don't actually need a job to make money in the world.  Just start investing money in companies and re-invest a percentage of your profits.  Take all the google stock you own and sell it, instead invest it heavily into companies like Worldcom and Enron.  You can't go wrong with those.

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## lagunagirl

there are negatives to everything, but if you're really interested in it then I don't see how it could have enough negative aspects for you to not want to go into that field. It sounds like an interesting, rewarding, and well paying career

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## Universal Mind

> Title



I majored in psychology, and I think it was a great choice.  I would not trade my understanding of psychology for anything.  It is priceless to me.  When you understand how the human mind works, you understand how the world works.  However, a bachelor's degree in psychology is not a big money maker, unless you use it to get into a graduate program of some type.  Seriously, don't plan on making more than $20,000 a year with just a bachelor's degree in psychology (at least not in Mississippi).  But plan on having the best type of education you can have for understanding what all is at the root of the ways of society.

And if you get a job where you deal with people's problems all day, it can really start messing with your head.  It sucks extra when you realize that very little of the advice you give is ever taken.  But some people are very cut out for that kind of work.  Personally, I had to quit before I became a patient myself.  





> Worldcom



 ::goodjob2::  ::goodjob2::  ::goodjob2::  ::goodjob2::  ::goodjob2:: 

Aren't you at least a little bit proud that Worldcom was headquartered in our metro area?  I was like, "Hey, we're being talked about on the world news!"

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## Jeff777

> I majored in psychology, and I think it was a great choice.  I would not trade my understanding of psychology for anything.  It is priceless to me.  When you understand how the human mind works, you understand how the world works.  However, a bachelor's degree in psychology is not a big money maker, unless you use it to get into a graduate program of some type.  Seriously, don't plan on making more than $20,000 a year with just a bachelor's degree in psychology (at least not in Mississippi).  But plan on having the best type of education you can have for understanding what all is at the root of the ways of society.
> 
> And if you get a job where you deal with people's problems all day, it can really start messing with your head.  It sucks extra when you realize that very little of the advice you give is ever taken.  But some people are very cut out for that kind of work.  Personally, I had to quit before I became a patient myself.  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Aren't you at least a little bit proud that Worldcom was headquartered in our metro area?  I was like, "Hey, we're being talked about on the world news!"



Sort of...it really would have put Mississippi on the map in terms of raising America's image of us as a state.  The scandal made the company flop and now we're back to square one.  Believe it or not...we're still being seen as "That old hick town without electricity and running water" by some northerners.   ::shakehead2::

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## Unelias

Even though I liked psychology while I still studied and my teacher said that I will have no problems going to university and have top grades in it, I don't really wanna study for 7 more years before I can do it as a job. 

It's about 7 years of studying in university so you are qualificated to work as psychologist in Finland.

I would love to be in dream study though.. but I don't think I ever feel  going university.

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