Psychology degrees are often written off as one of those degrees that people do for the sake of it and people often say that they don’t really offer any good career options afterwards. While it’s true that there are a lot of degree programs that don’t give you many good career prospects, psychology isn’t one of them. In fact, there are all sorts of different jobs you can get with a psychology degree so if you’re studying for one right now or you’ve already got one, here’s what you could do with it.
Correctional Officer
Correctional officers in prison are often misunderstood. People think that their role is that of a guard who keeps the inmates from misbehaving or trying to get out. That is obviously a part of their job but there’s so much more to it than that. Correctional officers are responsible for running counselling sessions and trying to rehabilitate prisoners so they’re equipped to reintegrate into society properly once they’re released. Due to the increasing prison population, there is a huge demand for people that have a bs psychology degree to work in prisons. You can earn around $40,000 a year as a correctional officer in your first year and there are a lot of good opportunities for progression in the field as well.
Social Work
Being a social worker is one of the most rewarding jobs you can have. In order to be a fully qualified social worker, you’ll need to get a masters degree in social work. Before that, you’ll need some kind of degree in behavioral sciences, like psychology. With a psychology degree, you can land a job as a social work assistant and get on the job training to become a fully qualified social worker in the future. It’s an incredibly rewarding line of work that involves helping some of the most vulnerable people in society to improve their lives. On the other side of that job satisfaction is a lot of long hours and emotionally stressful situations. It takes a certain type of person to be a social worker and if you don’t think that you could deal with the traumatic situations that you’ll find yourself in, it might be worth looking into something else.
Computer Programming
You might be thinking that this is a mistake and an entry from an article on computer science degrees has accidentally made its way here, but it’s no mistake; there are a lot of computer programming opportunities out there for people with psychology degrees. There is a strong focus on user interfaces at the minute and software developers are always looking for ways to make their products easier and more enjoyable to use. The best way to do that is to understand how people’s thought processes work when they’re using the software, which is where psychologists come in. They can help computer programmers to understand exactly how users are likely to interact with a website, how to draw the eye to certain areas etc. It’s a booming industry so there is plenty of work available in the area and you’ll be well paid for it as well.
If anybody tells you that your psychology degree won’t help you in your career, they haven’t got a clue what they’re talking about.
