<p>I want to be an actress but I don’t want to major in drama, I was wondering if I should major in english or psychology. Which one do you think would better prepare me for a career in the acting business?</p>
<p>Just a point of observation. I wish you the best, but most actors are not successful, so the best degree to get if you are considering a career as an actress, you should earn a degree in something which will not become significantly out of date by the time that you (if you’re not a successful actress) decide to enter the workforce as something other than an actress. </p>
<p>In the spirit of that, my answer to your question is English. It is possible that by the time several years go by you will have missed major changes in the industry and that Psychology may be moving in a different direction than it was when you were studying it in Undergrad. English may have had some development or changes, but I doubt there would be as much of a lag between your knowledge base and those of recent graduates. Both of them would certainly be easier to remain current in than a major in a hard science (Chemistry, Physics), but I would say that English is the safer bet.</p>
<p>Just curious, but what direction is Psychology moving in in industry? As in what will people with psychology degrees do in the future?</p>
<p>Also, why suggest an English major? I very certainly could be wrong about this, but I though that English majors really couldn’t apply themselves to very much. I though journalism was the better application because you can go on to becoming a reporter and writing articles.</p>
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I vehemently disagree. You are right that English is not going out of date, but there’s absolutely no demand for English majors in the first place. Psychology majors at least are set up to go to graduate school for psychology or social work. </p>
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If you are serious about a career in acting, you should probably go to a performing arts school that has some connections in the industry. You are really handicapping yourself by studying liberal arts at a regular university.</p>
<p>@joynjoyness23: the options offered were either English or Psychology.</p>
<p>@b@r!um: I disagree, English majors can have successful careers as grant writers, also it is a good major for preparing to go to Law School or to take a position as a paralegal. Not to mention being qualified immediately for a job teaching at private school or in a public school after a state certification.</p>
<p>As to the issue which is implied by both of your posts, the difference (in my opinion) between the two majors is the rate of diminishing return as time, post-graduation, goes on without further secondary education; since she will be pursuing her passion. The degree which would have less value as time went on would clearly be the psychology degree because the field is in a constant state of evolution, with new theories and new illnesses being documented on a regular basis. In order to be an effective and competitive candidate for graduate study in Psychology, the student would have to either be up to speed already or get up to speed in a hurry. There would be no such loss of value for the holder of an English degree; unless for some reason the OP neglected to state that she (for example) was an Indian national who intended to pursue acting in her home nation while utilizing little to no English in her work or private life.</p>
<p>While I agree with b@r!um’s second statement, the question here is which would prepare her better. Those are debatable, since the use of language is a major part of acting and a familiarity with tomes that encapsulate regional dialect and banter may provide insight into how to play a character from New England or Michigan’s U-P. Similarly the Psychology study may help for the development of empathy and an emotional grounding of the character portrayed. To me, it’s a toss-up. So I would suggest that the OP make the most sensible choice in light of the circumstances and (provided the constraints of the question) choose the degree which has the more durable and less-diminishing value, English.</p>
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Guess what: all of those career options are open to a psychology major as well.</p>
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Not true. Graduate programs will teach you the new stuff. The foundations of psychology haven’t changed in decades and I doubt they will anytime soon. </p>
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I agree with you that a psychology major “loses value faster” than an English major, but you are missing the crucial point: the psychology major is worth much more than the English major to begin with, and it will never be worth less. Much like an asymptote: <a href=“http://www.fao.org/docrep/w5449e/w5449ejw.gif[/url]”>http://www.fao.org/docrep/w5449e/w5449ejw.gif</a> Think of the usefulness of the psychology major as the top curve and the usefulness of the English major flatlining at the x-axis, with x being time. In the long run, the only useful aspects of both majors are the skills students acquire in their liberal arts training. Psychology majors in addition have some knowledge that is valuable now (and whose value might decay over time, as you have rightly pointed out) while the knowledge of an English major is never really in demand.</p>
![http://www.fao.org/docrep/w5449e/w5449ejw.gif[/url]](http://www.fao.org/docrep/w5449e/w5449ejw.gif%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
<p>I am not sure that English or Psychology is “better” in and of itself… if you do not want to major in acting, but want to pursue a career in acting I would suggest attending a school where non-majors can take acting classes and participate in productions on a regular basis. You likely want to stay away from schools with auditioned BFA and/or BA acting programs. This would likely make it more difficult to participate in classes and productions.</p>
<p>You may also want to look at schools that have a high record of placement in MFA acting programs or have a number of grads (regardless of major) working in the performing arts industry.</p>
<p>All the best! :)</p>
<p>I would recommend an acting program, of course, but at a liberal arts school, communications would probably be wise</p>
<p>I know it’s a convenience sample, but the people I know who have degrees in Psychology do the following work: barista, waiter, bartender, daycare worker and youth gang intervention. One of them is in a “career” which uses their degree and the one who makes the most money is the waiter. Meanwhile the people who have degrees in English are public school teachers (2), a private school teacher, in a masters program at Johns Hopkins, newly minted lawyer and also waitress (along with the Psych major waiter). </p>
<p>The waiters are atypical though because the particular restaurant that they work at is elite and they make incredible amounts of money and just about everyone who works there has a college degree.</p>
<p>Once again a convenience sample, but I asked my Dad and he says as long as a degree’s title doesn’t have “studies” or “interdisciplinary” in it then it’s a good degree. I didn’t expect this answer since he’s an aerospace executive and I expected “Engineering, Math, Finance” to come out of his mouth since that’s all he says to me, but I guess there’s a different standard for other people’s kids.</p>
<p>My thought was that English would be better fit over Psych. This way you’d have more material to draw from as an actress, plus better understanding of plot, character analysis, etc.</p>
<p>The field of marketing communications is filled with English majors.</p>