Where are you going?

It is important to consider your end goal before you get started! Many of the readers of this blog are psychology students. What can you do with your doctorate in this area? First, it is important to understand in most states you cannot be licensed as a psychologist with a degree in an academic area (e.g., General or Experimental Psychology, Industrial/ Organizational Psychology and some Health Psychology programs). To be licensed, you would need to be in counseling or clinical psychology. So what can you do with an academic degree?

Many psychology students go into academia and work as instructors or professors, conducting research and teaching. What would your professional life be like as a professor? It depends a great deal, as to whether you have a full time or a part time position. Many beginning faculty members have one or more part time positions, particularly if they are working online. They may be teaching at multiple colleges or universities and teaching several courses at once. This means you would be online responding to discussions, grading papers, and interacting with students for many hours each day.

If you have a full time university position, whether online or in person, you would be expected to teach 2-3 classes a term, conduct research (or teach additional classes), and do committee work for the college/ university. If you do research, you will be expected to include students as research assistants, which means mentoring them in how to conduct research projects.

For a full time community/ junior college teaching position, you would probably teach 4-5 classes a term and participate in committee work for the college. You typically, would not be expected to do research.

What can you do now to prepare for such positions? Get some teaching experience. With a master’s degree you are qualified to teach at a junior or community college (no license is required). Another alternative is look at professional schools; as a grad student I taught an intro to psychology class at a paralegal school. The important thing is to get experience in front of a class. Save any teaching evaluations you get, this is proof of your ability as a teacher.

If you are interested in teaching at the university level, consider getting experience with research. If there are no research assistant positions available, consider applying for volunteer ones at local colleges or universities. You will get valuable experience, and may get the opportunity to be an author on posters or publications. Also, consider applying for a post-doctoral fellowship. These are (low-paying) paid positions after you have completed your Ph.D. and give you more advanced training in research. You will also have the opportunity to be listed on publications and presentations. The negative is it will take an additional year or two before you are in a stable faculty position. Plan ahead for what you want to be doing in your future.

Next time, we consider being one of many. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu