Psychology bachelor looking for career advice

[Bob Seeker]

I have BA in psychology, 23 years old, no experience in psychology field, and need job. INTP personality.

I have a beginning Life Purpose idea that I can work on in my free time, but my confidence in it is not 100% at this point.

I thought about sales, but I might not have enough tolerance for that. 

I also thought of HR or recruiting. 

Any recommendations on what is good idea in my situation?

Ask me questions if you need more information.

Edited September 13, 2021 by Bob Seeker

[Matt23]

What do you want?

[Terell Kirby]

Sounds like you have no plans on expanding in this field through higher ed (masters, PhD, doctorate programs).

In this case, you have no option other than becoming a wage slave through working for corporate America.

It will suck, but you can build some valuable business skills until you figure out your life purpose and how to make money from it.

[Bob Seeker]

Update:

I looked at my strengths and they suggest I could be good at Data analytics, so I’m likely gonna shoot for that.

21 hours ago, Matt23 said:

What do you want?

Decent salary

uses my skills and intelligence 

Can get good at it (rewarding)

Decently enjoyable

can learn a lot 

@Terell Kirby

yes, I don’t think psych education is worth it for me at this point.

I still have growth runway available in corporate America, I agree.

What I can do is what I can do. 

 

 

 

 

[supremeyingyang]

@Bob Seeker

So you wanna be a data analyst? You need to have knowledge in many fields for that (scripting/coding, statistics, economics, ...) and the chuzpe to sell your services (see next paragraph for explanation) well to be able to add great value. You studied Psychology, therefore you should be educated good in statistics. That would be already something worthwhile-
If you want to add great value via data analysis, you'll find yourself in hard discussions where your psychology knowledge will be from great value. Everybody talks about data analysis as a savior (lets get that app to help us to be innovative), but from my perspective thats only one element. The mostly unnoticed problem is the people side - as well as the politics side of things. You do your Analysis for a reason, to make things better. However, people will resist. It's like being a mediator between division (if you talk about corporate analysis). So in that way you can leverage your education and provide value as a data analyst: you meet people where they are, find solutions for at best everyone and make things possible nobody else could.
The problem will be to get in, unless you are willing to wing it a while or do data entry..

if you have questions, just ask

Edited September 17, 2021 by supremeyingyang

[Philipp]

@Bob Seeker Haha I am 24 years, also have BA in Psychology, but I live in Austria^^. Honestly I was a bit disapointed with my study and even to a certain degree with the field of psychology at large, but that's my opinion. 

I was also thinking what to do with it, but to be honest I don't think I want to work in the social field or as therapeut (I am introverted, a perfectionist and I think I would get bored). I also don't want to work in HR (again not that great for introverts I think).  The thing that would probably interest me the most at this point would be to use those statistics skills maybe in market research (you can also learn a lot there and transition into product management, if you like do work in the buisness world). I am contemplating about trying to go into psychological research. I think qualitativ research, developmental psychology, differential psychology could be interesting, but it would mean continuing to study psychology which I did not enjoy that much. To be honest I am bit concerned about psychological research, because I feel that it is expensive research (especially longitudinal studies) and there is a strong quantitative paradigm, which basicly work with questionaires, which will rarely go into the depths and subconscious aspects of the mind.  There is also the whole replication crisis in psychology if you heard of that. In the end I think you would need to accept the currenty scientific system and maybe later you can really influence and direct this type of research.

Personally I am thinking about still going into an another field like computer science, architecture, design or art, but I am bit lost, so I am not a good example. 

[Paradox]

I'm just wondering why is it that you guys don't like the psychology field? I understand that the BA is not that great but I can hardly call that real psychology. Shouldn't the real deal start after? Especially that you are free to educate yourself after masters.

I'm asking this cause I didn't do much with my life in terms of being integrated in society but I was thinking of going to psychology field even though I'll be 26 when I'll start. This just seems like the only viable option, thinking about going back to corporations and these marketing and HR fields just make me sick. I'd feel like I'm contributing more to the downfall.

[Nahm]

Would’ve been sweet to have Bob Seeker as a high school guidance counselor. 

[Bob Seeker]

@supremeyingyang thanks for the info. Have you worked in a similar field?

[Bob Seeker]

@Philipp yeah, psychology education didn’t really scratch my curiosity itch, especially since getting into this stuff here.

You are right that the psych research field is not in the greatest place right now. I was never so interested in therapy.

for me, the biggest deterrent with HR is that you don’t seem to develop gratifying skills (correct me if I’m wrong)

I’ve never felt optimistic about the work place. I was on track to be a biochemist before this and could have gotten hooked up with a nice job doing research in a lab but something just seemed so dead about it.

I think I’m one of those people who really needs life purpose, it’s just a hell of a journey to get there. Even to find it isn’t easy.

Prob the only thing I’d get a masters for that I know of is guidance or career counseling, like Nahm says?, so I’ll keep that option in my back pocket.

 

Edited September 23, 2021 by Bob Seeker

[Bob Seeker]

@Nahm You may be onto something. I’ve considered This and career counseling as the only things I know of that I would get my masters for.

Edited September 23, 2021 by Bob Seeker

[supremeyingyang]

3 hours ago, Bob Seeker said:

@supremeyingyang thanks for the info. Have you worked in a similar field?

Actually I'm the one who gives the Analyst the Data and his Dashboards. Still interested?

[Bob Seeker]

2 minutes ago, supremeyingyang said:

Actually I'm the one who gives the Analyst the Data and his Dashboards. Still interested?

I’ve begun taking an online course to get a certificate for Data Analytics. I’m also considering learning python when I am done, since the course teaches some R, not Python. Current course will take about 1.5-2 months to complete 

[Philipp]

@Bob Seeker I don't know if  you can relate, but I also started studying psychology out of this curiosity and interest for the mind, that came from self help & watching Leo. But the study itself did not really respond to that curiosity. Maybe the problem was, that it was just about learning things by hearth to succed at the Multiple Choice Test, which really does not stimulate a human mind who wants to synthesize, reflect and apply. But I also had the feeling that most information I was learning were kind of superficial. Yes they were "proven", which has value, but they seldom spoke about self deception, about values and moral, about how survival shapes the mind. I did not learn about the subconscious, about Jung etc. In some sense psychology as a scientific concept promises so much, the understanding of human behaviour and experience, but in reality it does not deliver, otherwise it would probably be the most in demand degree on the market. 

Keep me up to date how you go forward!

[flowboy]

With a BA in Psychology you could get a job in Marketing

[Bob Seeker]

@Philipp I agree. I actually tried telling my 2 favorite professors about spiral dynamics and they both brushed it off as pseudoscience and didn’t even give it a chance. One was a developmental psychologist, and this theory is one of the best dev. Theories out there. Another dev. Psychologist was just like oh, that’s nice.

[Bob Seeker]

28 minutes ago, flowboy said:

With a BA in Psychology you could get a job in Marketing

Right. The idea of a marketing job nauseates me, but I will keep an open mind. It can be good practice.

[flowboy]

3 minutes ago, Bob Seeker said:

Right. The idea of a marketing job nauseates me, but I will keep an open mind. It can be good practice.

oh okay, maybe not then

I think we know a bit more about what you want, then.

On 14/09/2021 at 9:02 PM, Bob Seeker said:

Decent salary

uses my skills and intelligence 

Can get good at it (rewarding)

Decently enjoyable

can learn a lot 

+ Not Nauseating ( not marketing )

What would give you the opposite feeling?

[hamedsf]

this is the problem of most university/college guys. having a paper but not practical.

try to find a passion inside passion. what I mean by that?

psychology is your passion, so find a sub-field in it that that would make you more passionate so much so that your home would burn down to the ground by your fire! 

[itachi uchiha]

Doing therapy with people who are very fucked up is not fun.its terrible.all your enthusiasm will be thrown out of window.leo stopped doing consultation