/sci/ - Science & Math

bls.gov

WTF can you do with a BA in psych.

Oh right, nothing.

Psychology has always been known as one of the most worthless degrees. It may be true that the CS market is becoming saturated but for people with psychology degrees its 1000x worse. You are lucky to get some shitty consoling job.

>BA

Real men get a BSc

psych really so bad?

pic related, i heart this guy's work so much


p.s. i run an nyc consulting firm and totally outsource all of my CS related shit. sorry, bolivians are better and cheaper than you.

It doesn't matter what your degree is in, honestly.

This was told to me by hundreds of successful people and by professors in my college. Do what you want and you think will make you happy because working hard at something you hate will not only make you suffer mentally but your grades will too.

Jon Stewart of the Daily Show has a bachelor's in psychology. His degree didn't qualify him to work at MTV and Comedy Central, his ambition and work did. Your college degree is basically a certificate that says you're marginally more competent than the average person, probably more literate, trainable, and may have organizational skills that can apply to thousands of different lines of work

A graduate degree says you are VERY dedicated, willing to be a team player, probably know a lot about your field, and are willing to humiliate yourself to get ahead.

A doctorate says you only know about one bit of arcana. Basically you are an aspie wizard.

My father is a millionaire, he has a degree in music. No, I'm not making shit up.

Good investing and breaking through your competition are key.

He got well known in the community as the best violin player in the whole city charges nearly $50 an hour for private lessons and does concerts for thousands of dollars at a time. I like how his 'cheap' violin is worth $40,000. Really puts a perspective on things.

Success is how hard you work,how smart you are, and how well you invest; not what you study.

>>2433655

>doctorate
>aspie wizard

=[

They are both pretty useless actually. Psychology is good if you want to go into teaching or child care, but other than that useless without a PhD. CS is being outsourced too much and is way too competitive.

Pick your poison.

>>2433571
>BA in Computer Science
>BA
>in Computer Science
She's right, that is worthless.

>>2433636
fuck yeah. Quirkology is a great book. He's been a guest on some of the podcasts I listen to, guy is funny as hell and does a great job of presenting psychology in a way that I think a layman could understand.

I'm going to say this as nice and politely as I possibly can. I think people hate on psychology for several reasons. First, people want to imagine themselves as fully independent and self controlling agents and not subject to bias, influence, or biology. Second, I think some are a little jelly. Psychologists get to learn cool, applicable shit to mess with our friends and what does everyone else get? Oh you can make methamphetamines I guess...or some cool trick making water flow up or something. Psychology is the root of magic and illusion, "mentalism," criminology (crime shows are HUGE right now, many involve profiling behavior) and cons/cults. It's a little dark and sexy. Which leads to a third reason, people think psychology is OUT TO GET THEM. Sure, some people may misuse this tool of science, but any tool can be twisted for harm.

I know no one will consider this before a post of OMG U R TEH STUPID PSYCHOLOGEE IS 4 DA FAGITS or something but I just had to stand up for my field. Psychology can make you endlessly entertaining at a party, not many people want to hear about salts, precipitates and molarity though...

>>2433687

lol'd

how did I miss this?

OP confirmed for high school fag underage b&

>>2433571

Major in an engineering field. Decent salary, and it shouldn't be hard to find a job after graduating.

get an MS or PhD in CS and you're golden

You should major in what you want. Otherwise you are going to hate it and failout wasting all kinds of time and money.

>>2433727

Nah. Major in a something that'll get you a good job.
That's what the degree is for.

A friend of mine is a computer science major, he's not even graduated and is getting job offers sent to his email just about daily. I don't agree that you necessarily NEED a degree to get a job, but even so, being recognized for being able to program is plenty motivation for a company to try to recruit you for a position.

P.S. worth is relative - opportunity isn't

>>2433757
That's horrible advice: "work really hard so you can work hard to make someone rich".
That's what you sound like.

OP here, first off...you're right, a *BS* in computer science. I pulled a stupid, I apologize. Second, this thread was a lot more helpful than I could have imagined. Solid advice, even though some of it is cliche. I appreciate the first hand stories. Those really help and put some sort of perspective on things. I love you guys sometimes <3

>>2433757
You are missing the point. I am just about to graduate from engineering. Every single person I know who did engineering for the money dropped out by their second year.

>>2433655
A doctorate is more like a noble sacrifice, it allows you to dedicate your life to researching a certain area to better humanity for shit pay.

It's a very selfless thing.

>>2433870
It's an ego stroker's endeavor.

>>2433695
But that's actually the exact reason I disrespect psych; too many parlour tricks, not enough actual science.

It's kind of like saying that people disrespect a sprots and fitness degree or someshit because OH YEAH BRO YOU GET HUGE MUSCLES AND GET ALL DA LADIES. Nope, they disrespect it because it's a pitiful excuse for a degree.

>>2434358
There's plenty science in it. The problem is that the interesting parts (why is this mother fucker schizo) are more biochemistry.

Also, summary of psych:
1) People are irrational
2) People live off stroking their egos. No one like hearing that their a unnecessary, unoriginal, normal human being. Everyone loves hearing that their special or have been screwed out of the opportunity to be special.

>>2434398
Don't mind the spelling and grammar. I'm kinda drunk.

I have a BS in computer science. It's not a bad degree. It's not necessarily better than any other. When it comes time to finding a job it will come down to your grades and experiences. But, yeah everybody says it's a congested field these days. You need to specialize in something if you want to get ahead.

I was working on a MS in computer science but I quit this past semester because I felt like I was only extending my general technical education, when I should be looking to specialize in something. If you do get a computer science degree, try to look into study something else on the side. The truth is, computer science knowledge is very helpful in almost every field and industry, but computer science on it's on is pretty weak.

>>2434358
Spoken like a person who has never read a contemporary Psych journal.

>>2433695
>>2433636

It's not like psych is that bad, but if you want a hard sciences degree (get your BS not BA) like psych, physics, math, etc, you better be willing to take it to PhD level.

>>2433695
If I wanted to entertain people at a party with psychology I could just read a book on it. The same way that some people discuss current events because they read an article on it. I don't have to waste four years of my life on it. If your only defense for your field is that it's a good party conversation topic, then I feel sorry for you.

>>2434398

>biochemistry.

someone is confusing psychology for psychiatry.

there are many many respectable sciences that look at the human brain and the many personality problems that come from it malfunctioning

you can be a psychiatrist, neurologist, or many other things that actually work.
psychology is a band aid, something to help people with slight personality problems but is useless for anyone with an actual medical problem like clinical depression.

now when we got that out of the way.
you can get rich with any major but not any major is useful.

for instance psychology isn't usefull beacuse you need to be very very good for people to come to your practice.
making a bs insufficient.
most people need to study further and even then only a small percent will get a good paying job.

Is American-brand psychology really such a laughably soft excuse for a science?

summary of this thread:

STOP LIKING WHAT I DON'T LIKE! BAWWWW

>>2437113
No, just a bunch of butt-hurts whining about how psychology is just "talking" and only think of clinical. I had many classes discussing brain biology and sensation/perception that involved learning about neurotransmitters, electrical conductivity, how to measure brain activity, biological diseases of the brain, etc. I had lots of statistics too. I really do believe that most hate on psychology from other fields is jealousy. Jealous that people who study psychology are often interested in other people so we tend to be pretty social and don't have tons of punishing calculus. Also I was usually outnumbered 15:1 by women in my classes so I got really good at conversing with them and had plenty of female friends (sure they're all crazy but what women aren't).

And I realize you might say to that: HA! SEE!? YOU'RE NOT AS "SERIOUS" AS MY FIELD! Psychology is a different personal skillset. If you are good at math, you're good at math and maybe have other areas of weakness. I really enjoy interacting with people and learning what's going on with them, their past, their dreams, etc. Psychology is science and philosophy.

When it all comes down to it, an undergraduate degree in ANY field is about the same. If you're top of your class in chemical engineering like my cousin you MAY get offered a massive job by Exxon Mobil, but chances are you will be looking for entry level positions with lots of competition in any job.

If you really care about the PURITY OF SCIENCE, then you will have to go for an advanced degree. If you care about money, going to a technical school is just as good. Plumbers and mechanics make decent money I hear. If you want to be a millioaire then you need more than just a piece of paper with your name on it, you need lots of ambition and drive and it won't matter what the fuck your paper says when you add that in.

Neuroscience fag here. Got a lot of experience with psych since that's like half my major. Just comment on a few things I'm seeing in this thread:

>Yes, a BA/BS in psych is fucking worthless, although it can be used to wiggle yourself into a marketing or HR position at a corporation if you play your cards right. To do anything with psych, like all sciences, you need a PhD. People like to claim you can get away with an MS in psychology too, but that stopped being true 20 years ago.
>Clinical psych is really gluttted right now, even for PhDs. Becoming a clinical psychologist now is like trying to become a lawyer; unless you get into a top 20 school, don't do it. I/O psych is better, neuropsych is doing great, and academic psych is pretty much in the same boat as all other academic psych jobs.
>When I call psych a science keep in mind I'm referring only to cognitive psych, biopsych (which is really just neuroscience with a different focus), and computational psych. Social psych is practically just sociology and it tends to be where most psych majors flock to because its the only field where you talk about bullshit like personality and social interactions.

Why the fuck are you geting a BA in Comp. Sci.? Get a BS, dumbass.

>>2433636
Outsourced is cheaper, but it sure as fuck isn't better. Anyways, there are lots of tasks companies wouldn't trust shitty outsourced code monkeys with: namely anything they want to keep a secret and anything requiring even the slightest smidge of creativity.

True, the SHITTY CS jobs are gone, but only an idiot would have wanted to work in those anyways, they're a fucking mind poison.

>>2433695
Meh, the only "parlor trick" I like to do with psych is to sit a young child down at a table and spread two rows of coins (or any object) in front of them, with one row spread longer than the other (same amount of coins, just greater distances between them). I count the coins with them, and then ask them which row has more coins. They always go for the longer row due to not hitting a particular developmental phase yet. This is great to use in front of the kid's parents if they were just bragging about how smart their little brat is. The look of horror on their faces is always priceless.

Also, a little trick I picked up on my own is manipulating people's memories. Turns out you can brute force a false memory into a person's head if you tell it to them enough, give enough detail (really helps if you include details that actually happened), and the lie isn't too big.

I can't believe there are so many people saying that a degree in computer science is useless. I don't know about all cs grads but cs grads from my university (university of waterloo) are extremely employable.

i have a ba in psychology. didn't learn a fucking thing outside of the brain stuff that i've forgotten. but neuroscience isn't psychology, it's what's going to replace it (thank god). the other subfields rely on wishful thinking and haven't produced anything interesting since milgram.

psychology majors claim their rigor: really just obnoxious apa formatted, wishfully interpreted statistics. a topic which they frankly don't understand well anyway at any level of education

>>2437298
Neurofag from >>2437239 here. There's a very gray line these days between neuroscience and psychology. You'll actually find a lot of biopsychologists and cognitive psychologists in neuroscience departments, and vice versa.

If you came away thinking that psychology isn't a very scientifically rigorous field then you probably focused on social, cultural, and personality psych during your education which, judging by the fact you got a BA and not a BS, would appear to be the case.

>>2437367

yep. my argument is that most of it belonged in a history of psychology class, not as required coursework. they linger around academia as an irritating, tenured relic that siphons money at a rate far greater than any returned benefit. that's why i don't want to label neuroscience as psychology - it doesn't deserve that stigma of overwhelming uselessness

>>2437267
University of Waterloo is a piece of shit. It's the shitstain on Canadian education that smears the whole system in it's funky, hippy-esque fudge chunks.

UofT >>> other Universities > George Brown >>>>>>>>>>>>> Waterloo

I got my BA in Psychology over two years ago. And I'm still waiting tables. Yay.