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Which is the most difficult career path in I.T to learn?

Resources on careers in psychology or choosing a career in general?

  • I've had a lot of jobs, but no career path. Any ideas for resources that will help me a.: decide if therapy is a career path I want to pursue & b.: learn about other careers that might interest me? 10 years out of college. Passionate about many things. Still stumped when it comes to creating a real career. In college I followed my heart, majoring in fields that truly interested me, but led to few, if any, direct career paths. In the intervening years, I've developed a strong interest in psychology and therapy. I have read dozens of textbooks about psychoanalytic therapy and other aspects of psychology and neuroscience. For fun. This has become my area of (closeted) expertise, but I'm wary to commit to a career in this field. I am an introvert and the idea of working closely with so many people is not entirely appealing. However, I do want to have a career where I can influence other's lives in a positive way. Psychology is the most interesting field to me, but I'm not sure if it's a field in which I want to work. How do I find out before I commit to a grad degree?

  • Answer:

    Volunteer for a suicide hotline/crisis hotline of some sort. It's not the same thing as having a therapy practice at all, but you can learn important things about detachment from a person's situation, and just a lot more than you can learn from books.

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the APA has a whole section on careers in psychology: http://www.apa.org/careers/resources/guides/careers.aspx also, if you live near your college it is always good to take advantage of their career center. if that isn't an option then seeing a career counselor is a good idea. many years ago i saw one and the thing that stuck with me that she said about picking a career was: choose something you love and that you are good at.

wildflower

Psychology and neuroscience is not a "career field." There are dozens of jobs and even careers one could have and still say that one is working in psych or neurosci. One could be an academic or medical researcher in one of many, many subdisciplines. One could work in some sort of administrative role, such as a coordinator for a clinical study. One could work with data at some sort of clinical research organization. But it sounds like you're more interested in a position that includes direct contact with clients or patients. Again, there are lots of options there in addition to the traditional therapist or counselor roles. You could be an organizational psychologist, for instance. In any event, although an interest in the field and general familiarity with the concepts are definitely a good thing, most of these positions mostly need some kind of primary skill set. For example, the clinical coordinator positions will expect fairly intense office experience, analyst positions will require an in-depth knowledge of statistics and the relevant software, and so on. In other words, you can't get very far on amateur interest alone. Asking this questionis a good step toward figuring oht which actual skill set you might want to develop. As an anecdotal word of caution, most of the people I've known who were working on some kind of therapy credential could have probably benefited from a therapist's attention themselves. It's a poorly rewarded, difficult, wearysome job. Please spend some time thinking and looking into the question whether the reality of this kind of job aligns well with your hopes and expectations.

Nomyte

"What color I our parachute?" has some good exercises and a good description of how to do informational interviews. An informational interview with a physical therapist at age 17 clued me that wasn't really the path for me.

Michele in California

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