Psych Majors Aren't Happy With Options

From the Wall Street Journal | Oct 11, 2010 By JOE
LIGHT

Psychology majors might want to put
themselves on the couch.

Only 26% of psychology majors are "satisfied" or "very satisfied"
with their career paths, the lowest in a sampling of popular majors
included in a Wall Street Journal study.

The psychology majors the survey captured had a satisfaction rate 14
percentage points lower than the next lowest majors, economics and
environmental engineering.

The survey, which was conducted by PayScale.com between April and
June of this year, only included respondents with jobs, but could
include people who went on to earn a graduate degree. It included 10,800
workers who got their bachelor's degrees between 1999 and 2010.

Part of the reason for the psych majors' low scores might be that few
professions recruit for psychology undergraduate degrees specifically,
said R. Eric Landrum, a psychology professor at Boise State University
and author of "Finding Jobs with a Psychology Bachelor's Degree." Some
young psych majors might be discovering there's not a lot of appetite
for their major without a graduate degree, he said.

Undergraduate psychology majors who don't go to graduate school tend
to move to an unrelated field within a year, said St. Louis-based career
counselor, Sue Ekberg, a former director of career services for Webster
University.

 

In contrast, about 54% of chemical engineering
and management information systems majors were satisfied or very
satisfied, according to the survey, making them the happiest with their
careers. "Engineers tend to proactively choose their career path and can
easily find a marketplace for their skills," said New York-based career
coach Bettina Seidman.

The PayScale survey was done as part of the Wall Street Journal's
Paths to Professions project, which looked at jobs that are satisfying,
well-paid and have growth potential. The PayScale survey examined people
in a set of jobs that included industries such as health care, finance,
and government.

Ms. Seidman said that the least satisfied career changers she works
with tend to be those who fell into general majors, such as philosophy
or African-American studies, and ended up in unrelated fields. When
those people apply to jobs outside their majors, she recommends that
they don't even put the major on their résumés. "It's not something you
want to advertise," she said.