31.3.15
A Bachelors in Psychology is Useful in Many Ways
8:19 AM
I decided to major in psychology when I was in college after I had the opportunity to take a class called Abnormal Psychology that really had a profound effect on me. Even though I work in a completely different field now, I have never regretted getting my bachelors in psychology, because it has helped me in many different ways.
When I first got out of college, I went into social work, as most people with degrees in psychology do, but I found that it wasn't for me, and moved on to take a writing job. I thought for a while that I had wasted my bachelors in psychology and almost regretted selecting it as my major.
What I soon discovered, however, was that nobody really cared what your degree was in as long as you had one, and the bachelors in psychology really had given me an insight into why people, both colleagues and people I was interviewing, did the things they did.
I met all kinds of people that I could tell had narcissistic personality disorder or avoidant personality disorder, and because I had studied these things, understood their roots and had worked with people who had these issues before, I could figure out how to best deal with them, and in some cases, even help them.
One of my very good friends who works at one of the newspapers for which I write had a social anxiety disorder and really had a hard time coping with being at the office at all. When I first met him, everyone told me he was kind of shy, but I quickly realized that it went much deeper than that.
As I got to know him, I asked him some of the questions that I learned to determine weather he did have a social anxiety disorder, and sure enough, he did. I recommended a good therapist whom I had met when I was working toward my bachelors in psychology, and she helped him tremendously. He will still come up to me to this day and thank me.
I have another colleague who had a classic case of depression. I talked to him one day and told him that I was worried about him and explained why. He actually broke down and started telling me about all of the problems he was having in his personal life. He had been internalizing them, and was literally at a breaking point. He also went to get the help he needed and is doing much better.
A bachelors in psychology has given me good insight into some of the mental health issues from which people suffer, and has allowed me to better get along with and understand such people. For a brief period of time, I did wonder if I had made the right choice in majoring in psychology, but now there is no doubt in mind that I did exactly the right thing.