• Intern/Practicum Student:
– Provide general assistance in the operations of the organization.
– Interact with clients/patients of the organization.
– Write reports summarizing organizational activities and/or gathered data.
– Observe the work of professionals employed by the organization.
• Teaching Assistant:
– Administer/monitor exams.
– Produce course materials (e.g., handouts, lectures, review sheets, quizzes, exams).
– Conduct study or review sessions.
– Grade course assignments and record grades.
– Assist the professor with class meetings.
• Research Assistant:
– Collect, score, code, enter, and analyze data.
– Conduct literature searches and obtain source materials relevant to research studies.
– Contribute to the development and design of new research studies.
– Prepare materials for and participate in the presentation/publication of research results.
– Maintain lab space and equipment.
– Complete administrative tasks (e.g., make calls, process mail, schedule appointments).
Utilizing Available Resources
Psychology majors sometimes struggle needlessly to overcome challenges in their academic work. There are several valuable resources readily available in almost every psychology department that can be of assistance. This section highlights four such resources in an effort to encourage you to take greater advantage of them.
Perhaps the greatest resources students have at their disposal are the professors of their courses. These faculty members are certainly knowledgeable about the course material and assignments, but they also possess expertise on broader issues relevant to student success such as study skills, institutional resources, and degree requirements.
These professors’ varied teaching styles and approaches to courses can also be used to your advantage. Although striving to take courses from professors that you enjoy and learn from is one component of this, you should also be taking courses from professors who can help you address weaknesses in your academic skills. For example, if writing, statistics, and/or public speaking are areas of weakness for you, talk to peers about which professors do an excellent job of teaching and guiding students in these areas. Resist the temptation to take courses from professors who do not emphasize these skills.
Besides the professors of your current courses, you should also view the other faculty members in your department as potential resources. Some of the faculty may have back-grounds in subfields that match your interests, or perhaps they attended graduate school at an institution that is of interest to you. In these cases, the faculty member can provide excellent information that you can use to guide your goal formation and decision making. Faculty members also may offer teaching and research assistantships that would allow you to gain the outside of class experience that employers and graduate schools value. Given the important role a faculty member in your department might play in your academic and career progression, it is vital that you keep your interactions with all faculty professional and focused.
Another important resource available to psychology majors is the various activities, programs, and organizations sponsored by psychology departments. Many academic departments regularly invite guest speakers to present on their research or other topics of interests. These events are typically open to anyone interested in attending.
Departments also sponsor student groups such as Psi Chi, the national honor society in psychology, or Active Minds, a mental health awareness and advocacy group. These organizations provide students with opportunities to work with their peers on various projects related to the discipline while also gaining valuable experience in leadership and group work. Departments often also host research symposiums or conferences that feature student research projects. These events provide great opportunities for students engaged in research to showcase their work and for students considering such activities to learn about the opportunities that exist.
Lastly, the psychology department office likely provides several important resources that are helpful to students. The administrative staff are usually knowledgeable about the major, degree requirements, institutional policies and regulations, and resources available to students. The staff may also be your access point if you need to arrange a meeting with a faculty member, advisor, or the department chair. The office typically has printed materials and forms relevant to the major. Information is also frequently
Succeeding in the Psychology Major 41
posted concerning graduate programs, internships, assistantships, and job opportunities.
Many departmental offices maintain a small library of books that are useful for majors, including common textbooks, study guides, and career and graduates school preparation guides. Keep in mind that most departments maintain websites that pro-vide some of this information in an online format, including faculty biographies and contact information, syllabi from courses, and announcements about events as well as opportunities for outside experiences.
Conclusion
The psychology major can be a challenging path to earning your bachelor’s degree.
Academic difficulties and obstacles will certainly arise at points along the way. Preparing to overcome these begins with developing an awareness of the issues involved. Under-stand the nature of the academic work in psychology and how this unique perspective and way of thinking will influence what you will be asked to learn as a student. Recognize that there are some common challenges that students encounter and that there are helpful strategies in minimizing the impact of these on your performance. Finally, learn that there are valuable resources at your disposal to help ensure your success in completing the major. Taking these steps will go a long way towards ensuring that psychology moves from simply being your major to being your degree.
Suggested Exercises
1. Familiarize yourself with the psychology faculty at your institution. Begin by studying their biographies, which are often available on the departmental website. If faculty have their own websites or resources for learning more about their professional work, read this information as well. Begin to identify which faculty members share your interests in terms of careers, research, and professional activities. Strive to get to know these faculty over time by taking courses with them, seeking them out as advisors, and initiating conversations about their work.
2. Practice conducting a literature search and writing APA style citations by taking the following steps:
a. Select a topic of interest to you (e.g., language development, sleep disorders, treatment of autism, memory problems) and choose two relevant terms to use in conducting a search using PsycINFO.
For example, if your topic was language development, you might conduct a search
using the terms “language development”
and “infants.” Save the first 10 results.
b. Conduct a second search by altering the search terms. Using the above example, you might change “language development”
to “language acquisition,” or you might change “infants” to “infancy.” Examine the first 10 results and compare them to the results you saved from the first step. Pay attention to the types of sources you find with each search and determine which are more relevant to your topic.
c. Refine your search terms further in order to generate results that are in line with your topic. Then choose five sources from the results. Select a mixture of articles, books, and book chapters. Write an APA-style reference entry for each of these sources using the APA Publication Manual. Ask an experienced peer, writing consultant, or professor to look at your references and give you feedback.
Resources
APA Education Directorate – Pre-College and Undergraduate Resources http://www.apa.org /ed/precollege/index.aspx
Psi Chi
http://www.psichi.org Active Minds
http://www.activemindsoncampus.org
Succeeding in the Psychology Major 43
Suggested Readings
Landrum, R. E. (2002). Maximizing undergraduate opportunities: The value of research and other experiences. Eye on Psi Chi, 6(2), 15 –18.
Landrum, R. E., & Davis, S. F. (2007). The psycho-logy major: Career options and strategies for success (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Silvia, P. J., Delaney, P. F., & Marcovitch, S. (2009).
What psychology majors could (and should) be doing: An informal guide to research experience and professional skills. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
References
American Psychological Association. (2002). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct.
American Psychologist, 57, 1060 –1073.
American Psychological Association. (2007). APA guidelines for the undergraduate psychology major.
Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/ed/resources.html
American Psychological Association. (2010).
Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
Fisher, C. B. (2003). Decoding the ethics code: A practical guide for psychologists. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Gaither, G. A., & Butler, D. L. (2005). Skill development in the psychology major: What do undergraduate students expect? College Student Journal, 39, 540 –552.
McGovern, T. V., & Hawks, B. K. (1986). The varieties of undergraduate experience. Teaching of Psychology, 13, 174 –181.
McGovern, T. V., & Hogshead, D. L. (1990).
Learning about writing, thinking about teaching.
Teaching of Psychology, 17, 5 –10.
National Commission on Writing. (2006). Writing:
The view from campus. National Commission on Writing for America’s Families, Schools and Colleges.
Snyder, T. D., Dillow, S. A., and Hoffman, C. M.
(2008). Digest of education statistics: 2007 (NCES 2008-022). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid
=2008022
Introduction
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” You likely remember being asked and providing an answer to this question as a child. Perhaps as an adult you have even found yourself posing the question to children. We find children’s answers amusing given that they are more likely to offer plans for being a superhero or princess than a regional manager. But our amusement reveals as much about our own thinking about careers as it does the child’s. Children’s career aspirations often clash with our sensibilities about how the world works, particularly in terms of the pressures that create a need to work and constrain our choice of careers.
As adults, our society emphasizes careers as a defining element of who we are. Getting to know another person routinely involves sharing information about each others’
occupations. Knowing the answer helps us feel as though we have a clearer sense of who the person is. But adults often do not answer questions about their careers as freely as they did as children. The question posed to children recognizes an inherent flexibility and open-ended quality to the child’s career development. Children respond by thinking about what it is that they would like to do, considering “jobs” they are familiar with, and then selecting one that seems like a good idea. In contrast, the question we pose to adults about their career seeks information about their present status. It is no surprise then that adults respond by describing their current occupation, the organization they work for, and the nature of their work. Our assumption in these exchanges is that adults’ careers are already determined and to some degree stable.
How does the transition occur from a child with wide open career possibilities to an adult with an established career? Most adults began with educational goals in mind (e.g., “I have to finish high school,” or “I want to get a college degree”). While completing their education, or sometimes shortly thereafter, they consider their career goals. Once they take on a particular career, many later consider their life goals, often in response to feeling that their career is not helping them achieve these goals (e.g.,