Psychology

[BL4CKOUT]

Originally Posted by Ace is Sexy

im thinking bout majoring in that in highschool... or something like that.... i dont really want to help the mentally ill people... i want to help the people who have issues with daily life.... which i dont really no if thats the same thing.

You basically just said you want to be a school counselor.

[BL4CKOUT]

Originally Posted by 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.

Is this a reply or an Essay???

[iReV]

read it. didn't take me long to type so if you read above a ninth grade level you should be able to sift through it pretty quickly.

the 2nd post i copied and pasted from a different messageboard that i visit fairly often.

[shake]

eh, tbh i'm taking ap psych now and i find the class to be verrrrrry boring. hell, i'm not even reading the textbook and i'm passing, but maybe the textbook would make it more interesting lol. but if you're going to be taking AP classes, i'm sure your school will offer AP Psych since it's a common course. like iReV said, it isn't very hard, both as a course and the tests. if not, taking a regular psych class isn't going to hurt at all, and at least you will have somewhat more knowledge into the subject.

[.aMp.]

haha dave got a C in AP Psych first quarter, and everyone here says its easy...

i have just Psy 1 right now. Its a pretty cool class, ive learned a lot, mainly due to the fact that our school has a good Psych teacher

[QUINN]

Originally Posted by iReV

read it. didn't take me long to type so if you read above a ninth grade level you should be able to sift through it pretty quickly.

haha, some people are not smart enough to comprehend scholorly text

[iReV]

yep. imo the only hard ap test that i studied for was Physics C. everything else was either easy enough or the class was difficult enough that I didn't need to really prepare for the exam.

from friends, i've heard the foreign language ones are hard (if you're not already well versed that is), and the Chemistry one as well.

i would highly suggest taking Chem though, because it is HUGELY beneficial for people (since it's taken by such a variety of majors). i thought it was difficult in college, and getting it out of the way early is ideal imo.

i took my fair share in hs (took 3 junior year, and i think 7?(or 8) my senior year.

[Matt PwNs]

chem ap is ez

bro read chem for dummies and made a five

but he is a genius, so w/e

(soph first year in college, tested out of english)

[ll PiNKFLoYD ll]

I'm in Psych 11, just got top test mark heh, nerd power ; gonna take 12 Nxt Yr.
(8)-)

[Yuk]

I have a PhD in psychology, I might be able to answer your questions.
PM me if you have some specific questions.

A couple of general things:

an undergraduate degree (BA/BS) in psych is not going to lead you into the field of applied psychology, for that you generally need an advanced degree (MA/MS/PhD).

when majoring in psych make sure you get a solid background in statistics (a good psych program will have good stat courses).

psychology is much broader than abnormal psychology which makes up only a small portion of the field, so don't fall into the "abnormal trap" that most do when thinking of psychology.