Turn Theories Into Practical Applications With A Psychology Course

It seems every time we turn around, a new career path is being created. If there is one thing all these options have in common is a conventional, simple college degree focusing on one key area is not enough. These interdisciplinary occupations are often a mixed bag, relying on two or more academic tracks; one usually as a major, the other as a minor. That being the case, those studying many of the humanities and business might want to consider psychology as their minor.

In its near 150 years of existence, one thing psychology has proven is it can be applied to just about every discipline involving a human being. At its core, it's a science that specializes in understanding such basic human factors as motivation, desire and human behavior in general. As such, it can be applied to everything - from those as ethereal as history or art appreciation, to as pragmatic as marketing, health care and criminal justice.

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If anything, a professional armed with a psychology minor now has the tools to not only quantify how a person or group will do something, but also get into why that group or individual did it. This can provide an employer with invaluable data when it comes to everything from planning an advertising campaign to fighting crime.

One thing students will find is just how fascinating a field psychology can be. Yes, most everyone has heard of such historic contributors as Freud or Skinner, as well as the team of Masters and Johnson. On a more practical front, the concepts these various psychologists produced provide some illuminating philosophies on how the mind works.

One can pile up the reasons to consider courses in psychology. Fortunately, a student can test the waters pretty easily before making the jump. What that student can do is simply consult with their brick and mortar or online college's list of courses and take an Introduction to Psychology course as a free elective. If you like the class, and do well, then consult with your career counselor about making it a minor. If not, you filled a free elective class at the worst.

If you do decide to continue, recommended additional courses should include courses with titles like Analysis of Psychological Data, Behavior, Applied Psychology and Development. In all, most schools require one or two basic courses and three to four advanced, but that's another subject to discuss with your career counselor.

True, there is no study showing if people with psychology minors do earn more than those who don't have one. On the other hand, there's anecdotal data proving those with better-rounded degrees are becoming more desirable than those who concentrated on one field and one field only.

Turn Theories Into Practical Applications With A Psychology Course

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Advancements in Psychology Create Wide-Spread Applications and Opportunities

There are many students who are interested in the field of psychology as an area of study, but who may be unsure of what kind of jobs are available with a psychology degree. The fact of the matter is that the field of psychology is one that is constantly growing and changing because of advancements made in the field itself and in fields that are associated with psychology. Some of the advancements have to do with new knowledge about the physiology of the brain and how it relates to human activity. Some other advancements are related to job growth in the field due to outside forces such as changes in laws, or medical advances, or a need for program evaluation in other work fields.

The field of psychology is very broad and encompasses many different aspects. Using scientific methods, psychologists work to have a better understanding of the workings of the human brain and associated outcomes that have to do with thought and emotional and behavioral patterns. An online degree in psychology can lead to many different career paths that are in almost every field of work, from child care to military service.

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If you decide to enroll in an online college to study psychology, you will learn about the many different areas of psychology that are being affected by advances in the field. One area that is being greatly influenced by medical advances is the study of language development in deaf children. Understanding how language affects development in children and their subsequent brain development is a field that is now attracting a great attention because of developments like cochlear implants that can bring hearing to profoundly deaf children. Without understanding the psychological impact of hearing and language loss, perhaps some of these amazing developments would not have taken place. As recently as the mid-1900s, children who were profoundly deaf were often institutionalized because it was believed their mental abilities were diminished. With advances in psychology, these notions have been proven to be completely unfounded, thus giving children with physiological conditions like deafness a much brighter future.

Another area of advancement you may learn about in an online degree program in psychology is the area of legal rights for mental health patients. Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, it was becoming more and more apparent to practitioners in the field that stigmatizing patients with mental health issues was detrimental and counterproductive not only to the patients, but to society as a whole. New anti-discrimination laws were put into place that greatly affected segments of the population that had before been either underserved or ignored.

With a psychology degree, you may be able to focus your attention on the area of physiological psychology, or biopsychology. These two fields concentrate on the physiological or biological aspects of the human brain that can affect emotions, behavior, or even learning processes. Much of the work in these two sub-fields of psychology is conducted in a laboratory, usually with non-human subjects, but sometimes with humans as subjects. Understanding the link between the biology and physiology of the brain has led to advancements like mood-altering drugs to treat depression, or the knowledge that vigorous exercise naturally increases mood enhancers in the brain called endorphins.

Schools online that offer psychology degrees will likely also focus on the field of program evaluations and intelligence testing. Many work fields outside of psychology rely on the knowledge that has been developed over the past few decades regarding the ability to psychologically evaluate potential candidates for various jobs. For example, police departments rely heavily on these evaluations to determine whether or not an applicant has the necessary psychological make-up to participate in this sometimes dangerous field. Often life and death decisions must be made in the blink of an eye, and making sure the people who hold these jobs are psychologically able to handle difficult decisions is important for the safety of the officers, as well as the general public.

Another area that has seen advancement is the area of educational psychology. Online colleges that offer courses in this will focus on many different aspects of education and the psychological aspect of learning. For example, many school districts now recognize that children with certain disabilities or physiological conditions learn differently than others may, and have special programs to meet the needs of those children. An example of this would be the schools that have special learning programs for children with autism spectrum diseases. Another subgroup that might be a focus of educational psychology would be children who are considered gifted, usually determined by a series of tests given by a child psychologist. Some of the tools that might be developed by an educational psychologist would be instructional design programs, types of classroom management, or different kinds of educational technology.

Advancements in Psychology Create Wide-Spread Applications and Opportunities

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