Did college prepare you for the workforce?

I think after my undergraduate psychology degree, I was underprepared for the workforce, and (to a lesser degree) for graduate school. I was overconfident, headstrong, and underskilled. I would get excited about research questions, but I hadn’t learned how to navigate the veritable sea of research. I didn’t know what was most interesting to me, so I hadn’t found a topic in psychology that could hold my attention. (Pun? Maybe.) I struggled as a Master’s student, and at one point, I emailed my prof to tell him I was no good and “I am beginning to think I should just find a good factory job.”

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Now, four years after finishing my B.S. in Psychology and one year after finalizing my M.S. thesis in Human-Computer Interaction, I feel like I have matured drastically. I know what not only piques but also sustains my attention. I know what I need to do to have a successful workday. I know that I am not the smartest person in the room, which doesn’t mean I am not smart or that I am an impostor, but that there are others while different knowledge that I need to integrate to be successful.

All of that is to say that while my degree prepared me to apply for grad school, it did not prepare me for grad school in itself. For Psych students looking to their future, I would consider the following:

1. Don’t rely on your courses to give you a full picture of what a psychologist can do. If you like research, but don’t want to be a professor, look at literature in applied psychology: I/O, Human Factors, CSCW, HCI, Sports Psych… I’m sure there are others. Look for them!
2. You will not know what you are doing. Be curious and not judgemental for the first few years in your next position. You aren’t an expert after a bachelor’s degree. Your superiors (and likely your peers) have something to teach you.
3. Find a mentor. Find a support network. You will need both to thrive, wherever you are. And if you are going to grad school, you won’t necessarily be supplied with either of these when you arrive. For 3.2, this is especially true if you leave Psych proper, and there isn’t a focus on cohorts in your program.
4. Embrace your undergraduate training. You ARE a psychologist. You are a student, but don’t discount your progress. It will help when the impostor syndrome kicks in.