What's up doctor came here today we're talking about how to become a psychologist now to attain this licensure right here I'm gonna break down all of the steps for you so this has been a highly requested video and you guys know I take video topics know that there are a lot of paths to becoming a psychologist but I'm gonna share with you my path how I got there alright so let's start with high school you don't have to do well in high school in order to become a psychologist I happen to have started off high school with a high GPA honors courses but that did waive her a bit later on in high school as I got a little bit distracted with friends and other activities so you don't have to be perfect in high school remember our brains are still developing and we might not even know our ultimate goal for our career at that time this is a time to explore to learn from mentors to talk to people that have been in the field to talk to a school counselor or figure out what it's really like to be a psychologist now going into college when it comes down to being a psychologist you want to really hyper focus on college and you definitely want to be passionate about this field.
Because you will spend a lot of years in school there are a lot of benefits to becoming a psychologist one is the variety you can teach you can write you can do therapy individual therapy therapy on children therapy on teenagers you can treat people with addictions in going to sports psychology industrial organizational psychology there's a lot of variety and even if you don't specialize right away with your internships you can still go on and have Araya t in your career now coming out of high school graduating high school you're gonna go ahead and pursue your a a degree or you're gonna try to get a transfer if you know you're gonna go into psychology then you just need courses to get through psychology to get into a bachelor's program you can go straight into a four-year university or you could go from a community college and transfer into a four-year university.
How To Become A Psychologist In India
If you're a hundred percent certain that you want to be a psychologist yes you can go from high school to a four-year degree and major in psychology what I typically recommend is that you work in the field at least starting in your junior year of college but sooner is even better you could volunteer or you could make money it depends on what your lifestyle is volunteering is sufficient especially as a bachelors you don't necessarily have to make money but at least volunteer part-time in the field going through my bachelor's I remember volunteering for a clinic in Huntington Beach they were actually teaching people with schizophrenia life skills try not to overdo it with work at this time if you can because you will have a lot of time that you need to spend interning and if you're in California for instance going as a psychologist you're not going to be paid for the initial internships so while you're getting your bachelor's degree make sure you're doing a little bit of work or volunteering just so you get that experience that foot in the door.
When you go to apply for internships the internships start after your bachelor's degree so you get into your master's degree some schools combined masters and doctoral programs in one so you may find a doctoral program actually gets you a master's degree along the way but let's go back to bachelor's degrees for a second at first I thought I wanted to be in business I thought that I wanted to be in business and marketing but then I decided that I wanted something that was gonna fill me up inside even more so at that time I switched my degree from business even though I was almost done so at that time I switched my degree which was business at the time to psychology perspective is actually an interesting thing I happened to have been grinding really hard on my internship at the time and my schooling and I took a vacation because someone really wanted me to go so I didn't really want to go on vacation I really wanted to just hyper focus on my business degree and getting that done but I'm flying back from this trip from Spain and I'm thinking to myself I have this realization after a nap I wake up and I think to myself you know what I don't want to work a nine-to-five I don't want to deal with a potential glass ceiling let me see if I can go into psychology.
I'd love to be a psychologist I think that's a good field where people respect you where you can help people and right away I went in and I switched my major so you don't necessarily know exactly what you want to do right away and if you're on a different major and you're thinking about taking another route remember that it's typical to switch majors it's typical to switch careers multiple times throughout your life when I talk to my peers other psychologists other MFDs most of them if not all are sustaining high life satisfaction due in large part to their career choice again because we have variety we get to help people we do have to watch for burnout because it can be especially if you don't mix it up okay so now you've maybe worked through your bachelor's got a little bit of volunteer or a little bit of work experience in the field working at some clinic or residential treatment center or something like that then you're gonna work on your essays maybe your entrance exam maybe your GRE to get into graduate school.
At this point many students decide on whether or not they want to be MFT such marriage and family therapist or psychologist which is doctoral level if you want to be an MFT you actually only need a master's degree and a couple more years of internship if you want a doctoral degree you need a bachelors plus at least four more years of a graduate program which includes masters and doctoral so that would be eight years total of college if you went all the way straight through it sometimes financials are a barrier I will say that I did go to school with some people who are not necessarily well-off and they were able to get some grants some loans so you could consider this for yourself even if you don't have a huge backing but taking out a big loan is a serious consideration so obviously talk to a financial adviser now let's say you're in the program whether it's masters or doctoral that includes a masters the first year all you have to do is basically study you're studying you're taking tests you're writing essays that's the first year the second year typically includes an internship the internship is usually not paid that could be two or three days a week in addition to the studies now let's move on to third and fourth year.
Both third and fourth year of a doctoral program would include an internship sometimes they offer little stipends but a lot of time they're not paid you study you take your exams you write your essays you enjoy the classes typically with maybe a little bit of stress weaved in but you're enjoying it because this is your passion it's not just a general egg class you're really wanting to be there and now the time comes to graduate graduation was incredible and a lot of psych professors say the one thing that no one can take away from you is your degree once you have that master's the doctoral degree or even just a bachelor's degree no one can take that away from you it's a big part of your identity.
At that point you graduate maybe you take a little break in summer and you get right into getting more licensure hours in California after you graduate you're still going need to accrue some more licensing hours and your psychology board in your state will actually show this on the website how many more hours you'll need after graduation but this time you will definitely be paid for it so you could work in a private practice you could work at a residential treatment center under someone else's license as long as they're working there with you so you're working let's say your dream job maybe you're working at a rehab or a private practice treating your ideal population and getting paid once you've acquired all your hours for licensure then you're gonna take a couple of exams one exam is about ethics and another exam is more about the field and treating others these two exams are very doable there are plenty of credible organizations that actually offer video courses books materials to study.
0 Comments