Opps... life kind of passes quickly. Especially at the beginning of the school year. There are always many students around asking questions, training in the lab to be done, and new contracts.

I wanted to make sure I was staying up with my blogs, but it’s ok to fall off the writing wagon sometimes...

I recently was part of a book chapter that discussed future career options within the psychology and law field. More specifically, what was needed within your academic psychology degree to be involved in specific domains within psychology and law. It made me start thinking about how lost I felt when I started university.

How I really had no idea to what I was going to be doing for my future or how I was going to even get to that moment in life. Not to mention how many times I changed my mind!

I felt that this was a great opportunity for me to talk to some colleagues and past academic friends and see where their degrees have taken them and to see if they had any insights.

Because my undergraduate degree focused on Criminology and Psychology, I have a better insight here, but I have been able to discuss with many others, so here it goes! Wait… before I start… I might not mention all the options that exist out there. These are just jobs and directions people I know personally have went into. I also don’t think I will include engineering or commerce degrees, as a lot of those degrees lead you directly into a position. Example, if you are in accounting, you will most likely be an accountant. So, I will try for the more difficult majors.

Psychology Majors:

Here, everyone typically screams “go to grad school!” However, not everyone is cut out for that life. But if you are considering Clinical Psychology, you will need to fight your way into graduate school, which I could do an entirely different blog on. So, I am going to focus on undergraduate degrees for now.

Here are some jobs my colleagues and friends have gotten with their psychology undergraduate degree:

Student Advisor (undergraduate level)

Counselors/Case workers in group homes, shelters, and for non for profit. These are typically called “non-professional” counseling positions and aren’t related to any form of therapy.
Parole Officer/Probation Officer
Research Assistants/Coordinators (Hospital, University, Non for Profits)
Human Resource Management

This being said, I have had a lot of friends that have used their psychology degrees as a stepping stone to go to graduate school or other programs. If this is an option for you, here is the direction that some have gone into:

Clinical Psychology – This is your typical go to for most people I talk to, but they soon realize its not an easy route.
Counselling
Industrial Organization- Business Psychology pretty much! There is a lot of work in this field when it comes to Consulting, safety culture, and Human resource management.
Marketing
Health Promotions
Professor
Law School
Nursing
Social Work
Teacher
Occupational Therapy

This list could go on, but you get the point.

Sociology/Criminology Majors:

I have seen a broad range of work from my Sociology/Criminology colleagues.

Police Officer
Customs Officer
Coast Guard
Probation Officer
Correction Officer
Community Development Research

Again, with more work, and more schooling people have typically continued into:

Law School
Politics
Professor
Social Worker
Criminologist
Forensic Scientist

Environmental Degrees:

This is broad, but I felt I could group a lot of these together. This includes Environmental Science, Geography, sustainability etc.

Government – Policy, city mapping
Cartographer
GIS technician
Environmental Consultant
Forestry and Parks

With more education

Marine biologists
Oceanographers
Environmental engineers
Urban Planning

There is a lot of work in this field with Companies looking for environmental specialists, coordinators, and technologists.

Other positions from other degrees:

Within the Science degrees, most people I know have gone into graduate school, or they are working in Labs as research assistants.

Typically, one would need to advance their degree, but I do know of some people who are working within the government helping with policy or are working with companies as advisors. With more humanity-based degrees, they are either teachers, or they are scholars diving deep into academia.

I think I could probably go on for days about the type of jobs, where to educate yourself and what you need, but then no one would contact me 😊

Ill try to not have my next blog posting so far from my last. If anyone has any information or questions they would love for me to address, then I would love to write about it.