How would I break into either of those fields with a psychology major and business minor? Both of those fields interest me. I know the former of the two is strongly associated with I/O psychology, which I am considering going to grad school for, while the latter also interest me, but does not tend to require a master’s degree. I am interested in hearing what the people here have to saw on the matter. I am a senior, who graduates in May, by the way.
What type of insurance? If you are interested in claims work, a psych degree could be useful. My H has one and went on to law school with it. Many insurance companies hire new adjusters with just college degrees and train them. A claims adjuster evaluates information, forms opinions and does investigation type work. They also negotiate settlements with plaintiff’s attorneys and that is where a psych aspect can come in very handy. My H is an excellent negotiator because he has the ability to read people. I, OTOH, don’t enjoy the negotiation aspect of legal work and much prefer the adversarial setting of the courtroom; I leave the handling of the settlements to the claims people.
Human resources is another field you might want to look into. Clearly, a psych degree could be very helpful in dealing with employees.
People with purely liberal arts majors, such as Art or Philosophy or History or English, go into fields like insurance, consulting, investment banking, etc., all the time. There were no pre-professional majors at all at my college (Williams), but plenty of people who became investment bankers or went into other business fields right out of college. My brother-in-law works in insurance and he was a Government major at Skidmore.
Your college’s career office can help you learn about opportunities to interview with businesses that interest you, either on or off campus. It is likely that your knowledge of psychology will be helpful in any field that involves working with people, and that your experience with critical thinking, reading, research and writing from your college years will serve you well in any career you choose.
Contact your career office, because their entire job is to help link seniors with opportunities to find jobs in fields of interest to them. Sometimes they know alumni who are happy to help a fellow alumnus/a get started, etc.
One other thing I hear a lot is that careers in those fields are rather stressful? How much truth is there to that? Is it just general internet negativity, or more?