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Asked by anon-283929 on 4 Mar 2021.
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anon answered on 4 Mar 2021:
Hi Phoebe,
In psychology, there are various stages and job levels that correspond with your qualifications. If you have a BSc degree, you can be an assistant psychologist (if you are interested in mental health interventions and that sort of thing) where you assist clinical psychologists in health care settings, prisons, and so on, or you can be a research assistant, where you work in research, and this is normally in health care settings or in universities.
When you do a masters, this is a step up, and helps you to focus more on a specific area of psychology (e.g. health psychology, or forensic psychology) and develop your skills, which means you are in a better position than someone with a BSc degree if you are applying to a particular role (for example, a forensic psychology masters would be better if you apply for an assistant forensic psychologist post). However, work experience and volunteering can make up the difference here – I’d prefer to hire someone I know has the practical skills that the job needs and a degree, than someone with a masters but no experience.
If you want to work as a clinical psychologist however, or a lecturer, you will need to do a PhD eventually to be qualified but these can be competitive to get onto and take a long time – I didn’t start my PhD until I was 27, and got lots of experience first in a variety of jobs and took time to figure out what area I would like to do my research in. I hope that helps!
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Comments
Dennis commented on :
The great thing about psychology is that it’s a flexible field which can lead to many different career paths. With an MSc, you can work work as an assistant psychologist. But when I finished my MSc, I taught at a local college and then I worked for a marketing company in London. Generally, people who want to work in academia would do a PhD. But that’s not the case for me; I am doing a PhD but I can’t see myself working in academia. I am doing a PhD because I am passionate about my research topic and I want to establish myself as an expert. Whether you would do a PhD or stay with an MSc is really a matter of what your long-term goals are.
Lisa commented on :
Hi Phoebe, a PhD will certainly help (or even be necessary) if you are looking to work in research more. Most senior staff members who teach at university will have a PhD. If you are planning on applying for grants (funding to do your research), some of the funders will ask that the “Chief Investigator” of a trial has a PhD. You can of course work on research studies without a PhD – but if you would like to apply for funding and be the lead researcher yourself, it certainly helps to have a PhD vs a masters. As the others said – a masters degree can still enable you to do a range of incredibly interesting jobs and as Dennis said – PhDs allow you more time to research something in depth that you are really interested in!
I would also say it’s important to bear in mind that you do not have to make this decision now – I started mine when I was 30 and only really made the decision to do one the year before! Some also skip the MSc degree and go straight for a PhD after their undergraduate degree- there are many different paths to take 🙂