Identity Crisis.

For the past few weeks I've been going back and forth about the major I want to pursue during my college career (as Jon and those who frequent IRC know), but seem to always run into a roadblock that stops me in my tracks.

I'm currently a biomedical engineering major who did not make the grades to move into "upper-level" my sophomore year (this semester). They lay out the curriculum in cycles, having some classes offered only during the fall and some only during the spring, meaning I have to wait until a year until I can actually continue with my degree. That's a lot of time that I don't know what I'm going to do with myself because, currently, I don't feel like I'm doing anything.

I've been debating pursuing a psychology major (or double major), much to the chagrin of my friends and disapproval of my mother (and probably my father, too). OB3LISK would probably agree with my mother when she says that a career in psychology will yield no future (at least one she doesn't deem worthwhile, I guess).

My motivation to pursuing a psychology career is that it just fits me, and it's something I've always wanted to do. How does the brain work? What makes this or that person tick? What's the motivation behind what they do/say? Most importantly: who am I?

tl;dr: For those of you in college, and graduated, how did you know when you were successful in your career choice? I will be honest when I say that, "I've always wanted to do this" will answer that question, it's not really helpful. My mother's worries are sound, not having a successful post-college experience, but what should the other alternative be if I don't love what I'm doing?

 Spoiler

Sorry for the life story. I've just been struggling with this for the past few weeks and whenever I try to take the opportunity to talk to someone about it some unforeseen obstacle gets in the way (as mentioned before).

You should do what you want to do, i know its the typical thing to say but if a psychology major is what you want to do then you should try.
In regards to job prospects, if you really are determined and willing, finding a well paying or enjoyable job in that field should be possible. If you really have the drive to do it, you can.
Also it doesn't matter what other people deem as "worthwhile" jobs. a road sweeper could easily find their job worthwhile, and necessary, despite what others may think

I'm facing a rather similar thing right now, my college is pushing me to apply for a course at university (months before they are usually handed in), yet i am still undecided about what i want to do at university, i don't want to be rushed into picking something that doesn't suit me and then feel like a failure if i quit or feel upset about a wasted 3 or 4 years if i went through with it.

I wish you the best of luck figuring it out, these things can really mess with your head

Psychology will get you a job. Who says it doesn't?

I would have to agree, i imagine that psychology would open up more job opportunities than bio medical engineering, but eh, i don't really know much about it, other than that it sounds specialized

I guess the issue would be more along the lines of how easy it would be to find a job in psychology; how long it could take.

Biomedical engineering is a growing field, so it's honestly very likely that I would find a career as soon as I graduate, especially since I'm considering co-op as an option for my junior and senior years, though it's possible that that option may also apply to psychology - I'd have to look it up.

I think my tendency to want to know how everything works would be considered a curse, in this case.

I have this same problem too. ): Want to major in zoology but ehhh, not sure how applicable such a degree would be. Good luck in your endeavors!

If you're not that great at biomedical engineering, then why do you expect to get paid well for it?

Screw it. Go to psychology (hold my opinion lightly, as I'm only in high school ha ha).

My study habits, rather lack thereof, impacted my grades, not because I'm "not that great" at it. Just throwing that out there; opinion didn't offend me.

Shut up Ladon I already told you no.

You're damn right I would say Psychology is fucking worthless. People don't want to pay $$ for a physcologist to tell them they have bad childhood memories holding them back now. Everyone wants to be a psychologist, it's supposed to be easy and you just learn to talk.

WORTHLESS.

I could be a psychologist successfully right now if I had a patient. I could just talk to them and make them feel comfortable. Anyone can.

Suck it up and keep studying and try to do an internship. I plan to get some internship experience too.

or switch to something demanding....CS...or a science...no arts lol...

You have a "free" year anyways, so why not try psychology? What other options do you have? Work? I'm assuming you don't have to redo ALL your courses...just the ones you did poorly in, so it wouldn't be a full courseload either way. That being said, if you're going into psychology to answer the question "Who am I?", I think you'll be very disappointed. If any subject will help you find the answer to that, it'd be philosophy, not psychology, and the question of "Who am I?" is not something any class can teach you, but something you must find out for yourself, usually without the use of any class.

There is a misconception about University being about being in the faculty to get a job in a certain field. And while it often opens the door to it, you should really think about how much of what you learn is really important and relevant. Ask someone working in a field they studied in University, and ask them how much of what they're doing now is related to what they learned. They might tell you that they're using things from 3-4 of the classes they took. In general, a degree is 40 classes, so they're essentially only using 10% of what they've learned. University is about learning to learn. You learn how to get along with people, you learn how to manage your time (or learn how messed up your life is when you DONT manage your time), you learn how to study (and studying in University is very different from high school, where most of what you need can be found through pure memorizing), and you learn how to adapt in order to succeed. Each faculty has their own emphasis (music on accuracy and expression, English on interpretation and imagination, math on using formulas, etc.), and I'm sure that the way psychology courses are structured are VERY different from how bio-med engineering courses are in what they emphasize and what they find important. The exposure to a different way of doing things can do wonders so I'd recommend you at least try it. In the end, University isnt about learning all the calculus formulas or learning how to interpret Shakespeare. It is about learning how to learn in the real world, which is more often than not, something that can't be learnt from a textbook. No course is a waste if you were able to learn something about yourself, and something about how to succeed.

Shut up Ladon I already told you no.

You're damn right I would say Psychology is pineappleing worthless. People don't want to pay $$ for a physcologist to tell them they have bad childhood memories holding them back now. Everyone wants to be a psychologist, it's supposed to be easy and you just learn to talk.

WORTHLESS.

I could be a psychologist successfully right now if I had a patient. I could just talk to them and make them feel comfortable. Anyone can.

Suck it up and keep studying and try to do an internship. I plan to get some internship experience too.

That's the thing. Everyone thinks they can be a psychologist, yet psychologists still make so much money and have so many customers, so something doesn't add up. What you're saying about psychologists already dooms you for failure in the field. A psychologist's job is not to give advice, but rather to listen. Their greatest skill is listening, and knowing when to say something to get their patient to continue talking. Many times, people need to talk to psychologists because they have something they want to say, but they can't say it to their friends or family or other people they know, so they go to a psychologist (a complete stranger) and talk to them, because there is no consequence in letting them know everything. People are essentially paying psychologists for their time and confidentiality, and paying for your listening skills.

Learning to listen and analyzing personalities/the internal can go a long ways in any field, even if you do not become a psychologist. Being able to listen will make you popular amongst your workmates in any field/profession/job, especially if they feel you can relate to them and what they're going through. Additionally, it gives you an understanding into what people are thinking, so you can react accordingly for the best results. It's similar to English: English itself does not lead to very many (if any professions), but studying English will go a long ways into making you successful in other areas. You'll need to be able to write if you were to become a journalist, or if you were going to work in the financial field and write reports. And reading comprehension skills will make sure you're doing the right thing. Additionally, a good grasp of English can allow you to sound more polite, or more convincing, or less offensive. Like English, you can never go wrong with some skills you gather from psychology.

I have a problem with giving up on things, so once I set myself on bio/pre-med, I knew nothing short of death would stop me.

Don't listen to people telling you to go for it. There are far more useful things you can do with your life.

Come to Mexico. In the past few years in the state I live in psychology majors are almost non-existent, with lawyers going down that path thanks to the trails revamp. (Which opens a lot of room for me in the market since I'll begin to study law.)

I've seen many psychologists here get a decent amount of money, around 10k dollars a month.(if the peso-dollar ratio is still of 11 pesos per 1 dollar.)

I tell you, moving here is a quite great choice.

Don't listen to people telling you to go for it. There are far more useful things you can do with your life.

Retalion put it nicely, though.

If anything I can double major, which is a completely feasible option.

Rest assured, I won't solely become a psychology major.

@ Terry - Haha, that was a well-needed chuckle (in a good way).

@ XL - CS seems like it'd be good for some things, but overall I'm not truly interested in investing my life into it; the sciences, since I'm a biomedical engineer, will happen, though.

@ Eliseo - I know you're probably joking, but Mexico's been having problems lately and I don't want to die yet.

I heard it on the Good Wife a week ago, but I can't remember the exact wording of it, so I'll paraphrase. "Some people have to Work. We can't all spend our lives trying to live our dreams."

I had this same debate with myself for a really long time. I have an extreme passion for film, and even got into the film school that I wanted into. Instead I decided to pass on it and become a Buisness/Econ major. Why? Because it was the practical thing to do. If I'm going to spend 20k a year to go to school, I'd best be doing something with that money that will get me somewhere in life. If I take the practical route, I'll have the money to do all of the things that I want to do in life, and should I change my mind in the future, I at least have a financial basis to support such endeavors if I so please. Maybe that isn't the best plan for you. It's not for everyone, but that's just how I see it. I'd rather live my life with the comfort of knowing I can support my hobbies and possibly a family someday if I wanted to, instead of getting a degree that is far less lucrative.

This isn't the exact case for you, given that both of your possibilities will yield you a nice career path, so I don't see much of a downside in going the psychology route other than that it might be a significant amount of schooling added onto what you were planning in your bio-engineering major. I'd weigh the pros and cons of both and really analyze what best suits your life. If it's the psychology route, then by all means, go for it.

It's not supposed to be funny.

 Side story

I'll be honest with you, I'm very very VERY biased against psychology because this major slut from my high school is going to the school I am to be a psychologist. Believe me when I say she's a slut. There were pictures of her getting touched by and kissing this short Indian kid who had a big mouth on the internet taken by some photographer who noticed them in an alley near school. And I'm not lying when I said, because she was Guyanese and so am I, she teased me all the time in Senior and Jr year spanish class passing me notes saying "Let's pineapple" or stupid things like that. My Mom would have literally threw me down stairs if she saw things like that, that wasn't the way I was living life.

Now. She said she's going to be a psychologist, and I know she's going to succeed. Is she smart? No not at fucking all. But she can talk, which is why she's going to be a psychologist, and it disgusts me because I know her attitude and what she's really like.

Don't lie to me. I don't care if this sounds harsh, I'm not speaking to anyone but you when I say this.

You don't really like studying the human brain/mind and seeing how it ticks. Sure it's slightly interesting, but you're not really fascinated by it. Of course your first choice would be to continue your biomedical engineering. Believe me, I'm taking the same classes you are because while I'm still taking classes to go to med school, I'm also majoring in physics to be an engineer if things don't work out, and I know the classes are fucking hard.

But like I said before, suck it up. You said it yourself, you didn't do well enough because you don't study enough. Study more. Make it happen. I wasn't studying nearly enough this semester trying to play WoW and browse SP. But this weekend, I made a huge change. I cut off my WoW desktop, turned the music channel on the TV, and every day, Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues, even though I wanted to go on WoW and play and bullshit or chat with friends, I read my textbook and did work and studied, and it feels so accomplishing.

I know you can make a change like that. I bet you're either being lazy about studying or are fucking goofing off playing Maple or doing something stupid. Stop. Make the time, you're not selling cars or cashiering at Wal Mart or a bank teller, you're going for a career that actually causes you to think. Start now.

I don't give a pineapple about the people who are saying go for psychology are saying. "Oh it's harder than it looks and that's why they get paid so well." No offense, but those people probably don't know what the pineapple they're talking about.

So stop being a lazy peach and put the work in to be a biomedical engineer.

As I said before, try to get an internship somewhere doing biomedical engineer related stuff for this year, and take the break to STUDY. This isn't high school, you're not learning to pass a test, you're learning to understand and do your career.

How the hell would you know whether he's interested in the human mind or not? The brain is amazing and it's so interesting to learn about cognitive bias, perception of time, sensory input and how all of that affects everyday life. Psychology is one of the fields that has huge relevance to everyday life and it would have applications anywhere so if he wants to do it during his year of not doing anything else, I say go for it and see how you like it. If you don't like it, pick up biomed next year, no big deal.

He's right for the most part, honestly. I can still do both I just need to manage my time better, as he's already said.

I'm not just sure. I'm HIV positive.

No, honestly I'm very VERY sure he wants to be a biomedical engineer and he's just thinking about psychology because he wants an easy way out. He needs to dedicate more to his studies and try harder.

Am I mean? Yeah, I'm direct and it's what he needs to hear.