Picking a Major (and wrangling interests)

juillet
Sun, 31 Jul 2016 08:10:23 +0000

I can answer the first two together:

-Is the psychology you use in your line of work very in-depth psychology (to the point where a major would be extremely helpful)? Or is it some of the more basic concepts (to the point where a minor or a few classes would suffice)?

-What do you do in your field?

It’s definitely more in-depth. I’m a user experience researcher; my job is (as described in a recent ad in my company’s research organization) “to discover, describe and predict user behavior … and ensure these insights are activated as real product and process change. You’ll partner closely with Designers, Program Managers, Software Engineers and researchers across the company to be directly involved in creating compelling new experiences.” I work for Xbox; I use my psychological research training and background to design research studies of different kinds to help game designers and developers to make games more fun. The psychology I use 1) the social science research methods I learned and 2) is an understanding of human behavior, used to interpret the results and explain them to our developers/designers/engineers and others.

You couldn’t do this job with a few classes in psychology; most people with my job have a master’s or a PhD in psychology or a very closely related field. But there are other jobs in the field of HCI that could be done with a few classes - for example, if you were a UI designer instead of a researcher.

-(This is unrelated to the psychology aspect, but more of a general question) If I were to take a few classes in psychology (or any field for that matter) and wanted them to show in my search for employment, is it common practice to list them on resumes?

No, it’s not, but you could list your psychology-related skills in a skills section.