December 4, 2024
There's a way I was incredibly lucky when I was high school. I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I knew that I wanted to study psychology.
I admit that I thought what that meant was that I would be a therapist. I didn't think I wanted to be a professor. I didn't really know anything about research and certainly wasn't interested in working with children (if you don't know, I study cognitive development, which involves mostly working with children - how I got there is a subject of another post).
So, when I got to college, I took Introduction to Psychology in my first semester. I took a bunch of other classes too. One turned out to be in computer science, and I found it interesting. So, I took another (well, technically, I took a math class, but it was the math class that you had to take to satisfy the requirements for the Computer Science major). Then I took a third computer science class. So, by the time the Spring of my sophomore year rolled around, I was already three courses into a Computer Science degree, and I was enrolled in my fourth computer science class.
This was important because in the Spring of my sophomore year, I also had to declare a major. I wanted to be a psychology major, so that was what I was going to declare. I didn't really have the intention of studying computer science. Also, the computer science class I was taking that semester was REALLY HARD. (Well, it was really hard in the first two weeks - I think I have to write about that in another post). So, around that time (like January 28), I called my mom and she asked me what I was going to major in. I told her psychology. She kind of flipped out.
"What do you mean you're going to major in psychology? That's not useful? What are you going to do with that? How are you going to get a job?"
For context, my mom was a middle-school science teacher. She has a BA in Botany. Much later in life, she went to graduate school to get a Master's in Education. My dad joined the army out of high school. His educational history is a much longer story. He passed away when I was young, so at this point - my sophomore year of college - it was just my mom.
"What about Engineering? You should major in Engineering. That's it. Go major in Engineering."
I calmly explained that the Engineering major required 20 courses, and was a special program that you had to apply to as a first-year student. As a sophomore, I lived in a quad suite with three other guys. Two of them were Engineering majors. They had class at 8am every morning (because Swarthmore weeded Engineering students out that way). One of them is now a Professor of Engineering at Howard University. The other became a teacher. The third guy was a math major. He had some interesting false starts in his career out of college, but eventually got a Ph.D. in Applied Math. He now works as a Quantitative Risk Analyst at a firm on Wall Street. I don't think his salary is eight figures annually yet, but it's really close. He lives in a completely different world.
"Well, if you major in Psychology, I don't think I can pay for that."
My mom denies that she said this. But this is my blog, and not hers, so I'm going to leave it this way - the message was pretty clear - she was pretty disappointed with this choice.
"Well, I've taken a bunch of computer science courses. What if I double major in computer science?"
The next part of the conversation involved explaining what computer science was and what double majoring was. I won't bore you. In the end, she agreed that this was an acceptable decision. So, on Feb 1, 1993, I submitted my declaration materials to the Swarthmore College registrar with the intention of double majoring in Psychology and Computer Science. When I graduated in 1995, I was the first double major in those two fields in the history of the college. (don't get too excited - I'm also the fourth CS major in Swarthmore's history - I'm not even the first double major - technically that privilege goes to my Wall Street roommate, who picked up CS along with his Math degree - his last name comes earlier in the alphabet than mine, so technically he graduated before me.
That's how I majored in computer science.
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So, I earnestly started studying computer science in my sophomore year. And even with saying that, I had already taken a bunch of classes in the field. So it's hard to say that I was a novice to the field when I graduated college (or even entered my senior year). There were parts of computer science that I was good at (mostly work in AI and Computation). There were parts of it that I wasn't good at (algorithms and architecture). But I liked it enough that I actually applied to some graduate schools in computer science. I even got into one of them (Johns Hopkins...long story).
What I want to talk about in this post is what happens when you discover psychology (cognitive science, cognitive neuroscience, etc) well after you declare your concentration. Maybe as a senior, you take a course in the CoPsy department, and you really like, and then you take another, and you have an epiphany that maybe the Cognitive/Psychological Sciences is what you really want to do. It's a tough thing to happen - you've spent most of your college career on a particular trajectory, and that trajectory is still interesting and important and valuable. But there's a pull to the Cognitive and Psychological Sciences. Maybe there's something unexplored and you want to know what's next? Maybe you have the idea that you want to go out and work for a while, but then eventually go back to school to explore this field more.
So what do you do?
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There are three ways to answer this question. The first is to try to use the time you have left in college to really decide what you are interested in. Brown, in particular, offers the option for students to take many classes S/NC, so this is a good way of exploring the curriculum, particularly if you stumble onto a new subject at the very end of your college career. But, many students might not discover their passion for psychology until the spring of senior year, or after they graduate.
So, the second is to graduate, but then continue your education. Education doesn't stop when you graduate college (or at least, it doesn't have to). (Mental note: write a blog entry with a set of trade books for people interested in psychology - I will do this eventually). This could entail just reading books. But this could also entail figuring out where you are going to move to, and looking at the psychology department of a local university. Almost every major American city has a major, research University in it. Look who's there. Try to reach out. Try to connect. Much in the same way that I encourage students at Brown to talk with professor, or encourage graduating seniors who want to get a job to reach out. This could also be through volunteering - volunteering in a mental health facility, or with a mental health practice or hospital to get experience in your branch of psychology of interest.
But here's a third way: instead of trying to get a job specifically related to your concentration, look for jobs in psychology - particularly research jobs. I wrote about this here. And here is a list of job listings that I keep generally up to date (at least the ones that cross my desk). The funny thing about this is that it's not always clear what researchers are looking for, and many skills transfer. I was asked by a computer science student once whether it mattered that she didn't have any experience in psychology. What she didn't realize is that so many psychology professors want students with backgrounds in programming and computer science - having even a little background in Psychology and a degree in computer science, I thought people would bend over backwards to hire her. Frankly, I can teach someone the background in my field. It's much harder to teach someone how to code.
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This post was inspired by a student who came to my office a few days ago and asked if I could write out this advice. I'm not sure this is enough, and I am sure that I'm missing something important here. So, if there are alumni reading this or others who have switched into the field, feel free to email me if you want to share your story. I will also mention that the student asked me for a list of popular books that are accessible for learning psychology. I tried to craft one here.