Psychology as a Profession: an effective career exploration and orientation course for undergraduate psychology majors.

The authors describe an undergraduate psychology course that covers academic advising and career planning. Lectures included choosing a major, job opportunities with a bachelor's degree, applying to graduate school, and guest lectures from professionals in psychology-related careers. Students completed a plan of study, a resume, and a career exploration paper. Students evaluated the course and assignments as being moderately high in value and recommended that the course continue to be required for psychology majors. Nearly all students (93%) either changed their career plans or felt more confident about their plans after taking the course. Recommendations for implementing a similar course are provided.

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Many undergraduates enroll in psychology programs with the aspiration of becoming a licensed clinical psychologist, but graduate school admission rates are extremely competitive and only 6% of applicants to clinical psychology programs are accepted (Norcross, Sayette, Mayne, Karg, & Turkson, 1998). As a result, psychology majors need to consider alternative career paths. To inform students about the range of career options, psychology departments have offered career fairs, psychology clubs, and orientation-to-the-major courses (Dillinger & Landrum, 2002; Lattal, 1980; Satterfield & Abramson, 1998; Zechmeister & Helkowski, 2001).

Course Overview

For more than 20 years, the West Virginia University Psychology Department has required that prepsychology majors pass a one-credit Psychology as a Profession course. The class, with approximately 120 to 200 students, meets once per week for 50 minutes. Originally, the course was intended to facilitate advising meetings between students and faculty members by educating prepsychology majors about departmental graduation requirements. Over the years, the course has evolved to fulfill the following goals: (a) help students decide whether or not to major in psychology, (b) inform students about undergraduate psychology courses and enrichment opportunities, (c) introduce students to psychology-related career options and graduate school opportunities, and (d) help students acquire skills and knowledge to achieve career goals. Weekly lectures were as follows: "How to Choose a Major and Career: Identify Your Skills, Values, and Interests," "Should I Major in Psychology?" "The Four-Year Plan: Psychology Graduation Requirements," "Making the Most of Your Undergraduate Years: Organizations and Opportunities," "Job Opportunities With a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology," "How to Write a Good Resume," "First Steps to Finding a Job: Interviewing and Job Searching," "Job Opportunities With a Master's or Doctoral Degree in Psychology," "Job Opportunities in Psychology-Related Fields: Social Work, Law, Medicine, Etc.," and "How to Apply to Graduate School."

Lectures were presented on PowerPoint slides. (Copies of the slides are available upon request from the first author.) In addition to the faculty-taught lectures described above, we also included guest lectures from professionals who discussed their career experiences, offered advice, and answered students' questions. We allotted three or four class meetings for guest lecture presentations. We scheduled guest speakers from a variety of psychology-related backgrounds from year to year. For example, in one semester, we invited a bachelor's-level therapist who worked at a mental health clinic, a master's-level clinical psychologist who worked in private practice, a doctoral-level clinical psychologist who specialized in pain management, and a forensic identification expert.

Students were required to attend a minimum of 12 class meetings and complete three out-of-class assignments. The first assignment, the 4-year plan, involved completion of the psychology department's advising booklet, in which the student planned courses to meet graduation requirements for either a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science psychology degree. The second assignment involved preparation of a one-page resume. The final assignment was a career exploration paper that involved researching job outlook, work activities, education requirements, and so on for a bachelor's-level and a graduate-level career in psychology or related fields. To complete the career exploration paper, students were required to refer to the online version of the Occupational Outlook Handbook (U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, n.d.).

In addition to attending the lectures, students completed textbook readings (Morgan & Korschgen, 2001). Several similar textbooks are also available (e.g., DeGalan & Lambert, 2000; Kuther, 2002; Landrum & Davis, 2003; Sternberg, 1997). A 50-item, multiple-choice final exam covering lecture and reading material was administered at the end of the semester.

Method

Participants

During the spring 2003 semester, 168 undergraduates enrolled in the Psychology as a Profession course. Responses from 154 students were included in the data analysis; the data analysis did not include the responses of 14 students who withdrew from the course. The majority of students were female (62%). Thirty-six percent of the students were freshmen, 40% were sophomores, 20% were juniors, and 4% were seniors.

The course was graded on a pass/fail basis. A high percentage (87%) of the students passed, with grading based on earning at least 70% of the points for all required assignments and exams. Students who earned less than 70% were given an opportunity to revise and resubmit an assignment. Since fall 2003, we now evaluate students on a letter grade, rather than a pass/fail, basis. This change was in response to student evaluation comments that the workload demands merit a letter grade.

Materials and Procedure

During the 1st week of class, students completed a precourse survey on WebCT concerning their interests and career plans. During the final week of the semester, the survey was readministered, along with a survey to elicit evaluative feedback about the course.

Results

At the beginning of the semester, 87% of the students were prepsychology majors. Nineteen students were undecided. At the end of the semester, 7 of the undecided students planned to major in psychology and 4 decided not to major in psychology. The remaining 8 either remained undecided or withdrew from the course.

At the end of the semester, students rated the value of the course on a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = very low value, 5 = very high value). The modal response, endorsed by 48% of the students, was moderately high value (M = 3.76, SD = 0.95). Students recommended that the department continue to require the course for all psychology majors (n = 133, 86%). The majority of students (n = 108, 70%) felt the workload was "just right."

The most highly rated lecture was "How to Apply to Graduate School" (M = 3.86, SD = 0.84, mode = 4), followed by "The Four-Year Plan" (M = 3.80, SD = 0.89, mode = 4), "Job Opportunities With a Master's or Doctoral Degree in Psychology" (M = 3.71, SD = 0.82, mode = 4), and "How to Write a Good Resume" (M = 3.71, SD = 0.93, mode = 4). The lecture with the lowest rating was "Making the Most of Your Undergraduate Years" (M = 3.40, SD = 0.76, mode = 3). Ratings for the remaining lectures, from highest to lowest rating, were as follows: "Job Opportunities in Psychology-Related Fields" (M = 3.69, SD = 0.86, mode = 3), "Guest Speakers Lectures" (M = 3.66, SD = 1.03, mode = 4), "Job Opportunities With a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology" (M = 3.49, SD = 0.84, mode = 3), "Should I Major in Psychology?" (M = 3.49, SD = 0.78, mode = 3), and "How to Choose a Major and Career" (M = 3.42, SD = 0.74, mode = 3). Students did not rate the "First Steps to Finding a Job" lecture because the lecture was not presented in its entirety due to inclement weather.

For the required assignments, students rated the 4-year plan assignment as most valuable (M = 3.98, SD = 0.89, mode = 5), followed by the resume (M = 3.69, SD = 0.93, mode = 4) and career exploration (M = 3.18, SD = 1.10, mode = 3) assignments.

The course affected the career plans of 93% of the students, with 96 students (62%) reporting that they changed their plans, including 17 students who changed their plans drastically. In addition, 31 students (20%) reported feeling more confident about their plans.

At the start of the semester, 32 students were undecided about whether or not to attend graduate school. The number of undecided students decreased to 24 at the end of the semester. Five students at the start of the semester stated they did not plan to attend graduate school, and this number remained unchanged at the end of the semester.

At the start of the semester, 105 students planned to enter graduate school immediately after completing their undergraduate degree, and 25 planned to work before attending graduate school. At the end of the semester, the number of students planning to enter graduate school immediately after completing their undergraduate degree decreased to 93, and the number of students planning to work before attending graduate school increased to 40.

Discussion

Students rated the Psychology as a Profession course as moderately high in value and recommended that the course continue to be offered. Of the required assignments, students evaluated the 4-year plan assignment as most valuable. We recommend that instructors who wish to offer a similar orientation course also include a 4-year plan assignment to help students map out the courses they need to take to meet graduation requirements. This assignment also facilitates subsequent advising when students later declare their major and are assigned a faculty adviser.

The students expressed a strong interest in attending graduate school, and lectures about applying to graduate school and graduate-level job opportunities were highly rated. Lectures on applying to graduate school and graduate-level job opportunities can help students get a head start on preparing for graduate school and also provide realistic--and possibly distressing--information about the competitive nature of graduate school admission. We recommend that departments offer subsequent optional orientation courses, such as a course on applying to graduate school (Buskist, 1999; Dodson, Chastain, & Landrum, 1996; Lammers, 2001). Approximately 10 years ago, our department established a second orientation course on applying to graduate school, offered every fall semester, designed for seniors.

To present supplemental course material, we developed a WebCT course home page with links to online resources and assignment instructions (Cohen, Futoran, Thorn, & Karraker, 2000). We pilot tested the site over several semesters, and data on the Web site have been published elsewhere (Heffner & Cohen, 2005). We recommend that other psychology departments offer a supplemental Web site to allow students to access updated career information, even after they have completed the course.

References

Buskist, W. (1999). Teaching an undergraduate course in preparing for graduate study in psychology. Teaching of Psychology, 26, 286-288.

Cohen, S. H., Futoran, D., Thorn, C., & Karraker, K. H. (2000, August). Integrating the psychology major with a Website. Poster session presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Washington, DC.

DeGalan, J., & Lambert, S. (2000). Great jobs for psychology majors. Chicago: NTC/Contemporary Publishing Group.

Dillinger, R. J., & Landrum, R. E. (2002). An information course for the beginning psychology major. Teaching of Psychology, 29, 230-232.

Dodson, J. P., Chastain, G., & Landrum, R. E. (1996). Psychology seminar: Courses and graduate study in psychology. Teaching of Psychology, 23, 238-240.

Heffner, M., & Cohen, S. H. (2005). Evaluating student use of Web-based material. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 32, 74-81.

Kuther, T. L. (2002). The psychology major's handbook. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Lammers, W. J. (2001). An informal seminar to prepare the best undergraduates for doctoral programs in psychology. Teaching of Psychology, 28, 58-59.

Landrum, R. E., & Davis, S. F. (2003). The psychology major: Career options and strategies for success (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Lattal, K. A. (1980). Psychology as a profession: A brief course providing career information for psychology majors. Teaching of Psychology, 7, 243-244.

Morgan, B. L., & Korschgen, A. (2001). Majoring in psych? Career options for psychology undergraduates (2nd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Norcross, J. C., Sayette, M. A., Mayne, T. J., Karg, R. S., & Turkson, M. A. (1998). Selecting a doctoral program in professional psychology: Some comparisons among PhD counseling, PhD clinical, and PsyD clinical psychology programs. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 29, 609-614.

Satterfield, C. D., & Abramson, C. I. (1998). The undergraduare psychology club: Possibilities and suggested activities. Teaching of Psychology, 25, 36-37.

Sternberg, R. J. (1997). Career paths in psychology: Where your degree can take you. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. (n.d.). Occupational outlook handbook. Retrieved March 2, 2006, from http://www.bls.gov/oco/home.htm

Zechmeister, E. B., & Helkowski, C. (2001). A career course and fair. Teaching of Psychology, 28, 276-278.

Michelle Heffner Macera and Stanley H. Cohen, Department of Psychology, West Virginia University. Michelle Heffner Macera is now at the Center for Hope of the Sierras, Reno, Nevada. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Michelle Heffner Macera, 2219 Big Trail Circle, Reno, NV 89521 (e-mail: [e-mail]).