When I tell people I am majoring in psychology, I get a lot of comments thrown my way. Some of these comments are welcomed, but others are not so nice to hear. Here are some things you shouldn’t say to someone studying psychology in college:

"Oh, I can be one of your case studies when you’re done with school."

I don’t know what to say when people say this to me. ‘No, thank you. I don’t want to know what’s going on inside your head.’ I am put in a very awkward and uncomfortable position which usually leads to an awkward laugh, polite smile, and maybe a nod.

"What are you going to do with that?"

This question is a good question to ask if you are genuinely interested in my plans after college. If you ask me this question in a disgusted way, then this question makes you sound ill-informed, because I actually have a lot of flexibility with my degree. Psychology is such a broad field with so many different specialties. I could be a clinical psychologist, a sports psychologist, an industrial organizational psychologist, applied behavior analyst. That’s not even making a dent in all of the fields I could specialize in.

"You’re going to be in school for a long time."

*Wow, I didn’t even think of that. Thank you so much!* I know how long I will have to be in school. I will have to complete four undergraduate years and two to four graduate years. I already know I’m looking at six to eight years of schooling. The amount of schooling has not changed my mind about my major and neither will you.

"You’re going to have a lot of debt to pay off."

*What would I do without you to tell me all of this? I had no idea.* This comment is typically paired with the schooling comment, which does not make it any less aggravating to hear. It’s a good thing I’ll be earning a doctorate degree to pay off all my loans.

"You probably won’t be able to get a job after college."

That is so untrue. Psychology has been integrated into almost every job field. Companies have psychologists, schools have psychologists, even sports teams have psychologists. Businesses are formed around psychology. If something happens in the future and you, or a loved one, needs to seek professional help, guess who will be sitting there, ready to help? Me, and you’ll think back to the time when you told me I wouldn’t be able to get a job.

"Psychology isn’t even hard."

People who say this to me either haven’t taken any psychology courses at the college level or have only taken Introduction to Psychology. Maybe they did well in their intro class, and that’s good for them, but Intro to Psych is meant to introduce students to a variety of topics to study within psychology, not go into great detail. These people probably haven’t taken other psychology courses that delve deeper into one topic. The classes specialized in a certain field like developmental, social, and heath psychology are certainly more difficult that Introduction to Psychology.

"But you’re so smart!"

This comment is probably the most insulting comment to them all. When someone says this, they are basically implying that I’m wasting my intelligence. These people are ignorant of the fact that psychology is a very established career with very smart people within it. Without these smart people, a lot of psychological discoveries would still be unknown to us. I did not take the easy way out by choosing this major.

If you take nothing else from this article, just remember this: Think about what you say before you say it. If you think what you want to say sounds remote insulting, hold it in. Everybody has their own beliefs and opinions on everything, but not all of these beliefs and opinions have to be voiced.