[iReV]

psychology is very interesting...but it's pretty easy as a college major, and extremely popular. lol there are a lot of hot chicks who major in it which is a definite plus. ap psych is pretty easy...by far the easiest test to pass. i bought the book, read it in a week and got a 5 on that exam without ever even taking the class.

psych tends to lead a pretty low paying job as well. there is a big difference between being a psychiatrist (that requires a MD) and a psychologist (does not). unless you write a book or publish some groundbreaking academic work it's not very exciting/glamorous.

for books: i would suggest a textbook (any intro one is fine) to give you a decent grasp on the basics (basic brain function/anatomy/neurochemical processes). a good textbook should cover the basics in everything from abnormal/behavioral/evolutionary psych. it'll give you a history of Freud & Jung as well as cover theories on learning/punishment and childhood psych. to tell you the truth, Dr. Phil is a good source for psych. eff the haters...he speaks the truth and is awesome. Start with The Adapted Mind by Cosmides and Toby, and then just go from there (evolutionary psych). imo it isn't as important to read from primary sources in psych as in other disciplines, but it's just good to know the basics. wikipedia can serve as good foundation/good knowledge and reading existentialist philosophers (nietzsche, sartre, Schopenhauer, etc....) serve as a good basis for psych to know where those ideas came from. I just finished reading Black Skin, White Masks, a book by Franz Fanon that covers race relations from a psych perspective.

my outlook on psych is very different than it is for other subjects. psych is extremely as a tool to help gauge situations and read people quickly;therefore imo it is more important to notice its effects than it is to complicate yourself with theory. while a healthy understanding of theory certainly helps things go along, most of what you can learn in psych you can learn from observing yourself and how you interact with your peers and how your fellow peers interact than anything else. there is no substitute for real life experience, so new experiences with dealing with people/diff kinds of people is the best experience that you'll get. you learn more about specific kind of people, how well you deal with them, and about yourself in general. there isn't anything that i've learned in psych that i didn't inherently experience in my life before. generally the genius of psych isn't revealed in giving you some revelating experience that you had no idea about, but rather giving voice/words to things that you may have known, but could never articulate.

i suggest reading mystery/mystery method tapes as well. although it may seem cheesy (its about a pick up artist/how to get laid type deal), it truthfully deals with man/women relationships from a very honest (and i feel truthful) perspective. it deals with the rules of attraction and shows some inherent patterns in the factors of human attraction, and the why. very good read/watch.