There are thousands of majors to choose from, some in the business field, some in the arts, some in health and sciences, some that will literally never get you a realistic job, and some that are nearly impossible to pass. I’d like to think that psychology is somewhere in between of all of those, if that even makes sense. Being a psych major has it’s highs and lows, if you truly love it, the highs will stick out to you so much more than the lows and by the time a new semester comes you’ve basically forgotten about the fact that you stayed awake for 24 hours straight studying for an exam or that you cried multiple times throughout last semester because of how stressed you were. For some reason that all melts away and basically all you feel is that love you had for psych, as if it was the day you declared your major and it was all so new and exciting. This feeling takes passion.
1. First, you need to learn how to love talking equally as much as you love listening, I promise there’s a balance.
2. Second, get used to everyone asking you if you’re analyzing them the SECOND you tell them you're a psychology major, I’m serious this happens and it happens often.
3. After that you’ll need to kiss half of your social life goodbye and find your favorite spot in the library, you’ll be there a lot.
4. Once you find that spot, pull out your trusty laptop, get onto Google and find an easy way to make a billion dollars, you’ll need this for books.
5. Memorize the names of the psychologists you will learn about in literally EVERY psych class you’re ever going to take, ya know, the classics like B. F. Skinner, Sigmund Freud, Piaget, Carl Rogers, Erik Erikson (Yes. His parents actually named him this), Pavlov, his dogs, Maslow, and of course Wilhelm Wundt.
6. Get ready to be determined as hell to prove every person who tells you “psychology is a dead-end field” wrong.
7. Get used to the feeling of being really annoyed when people mix up therapists, counselors, psychologists, and psychiatrists. But like c’mon IT’S NOT THAT HARD.
8. Remember that you wear a “psychology hat” and a “normal person hat,” when you go out to the bars with friends you don’t have to over-analyze every person you see, including your friends. *spoiler alert* they'll get super sick of this.
9. When you finally have free time for Netflix you're going to end up diagnosing every strange or out of ordinary character with a psychological disorder. That counts as studying, right?
10. Alright let’s get serious here. Chances are if you’re becoming a psychology major you most likely enjoy helping people, so don’t forget about yourself along the way, you can’t truly help anyone unless you first help yourself. Remember this always.
11. Once you've completed numbers 1-10, sit back, take a nice deep breath and give yourself major props (no pun intended), being a psychology major is hard and takes time and dedication. This field takes a selfless and caring personality and those people are rare and hard to find in this world. You want change in this world, and you’re willing to make it yourself. That’s true passion.
