The Future!

Now that I'm done with over half of my undergrad work (!!!!), I've started thinking about what I'm going to do with myself once I graduate from NYU. Come 2012, I'm going to have a bachelor's in Applied Psychology, and the world will be my oyster.

Now, a bachelor's Psych degree is, in general, pretty useless. I could probably work for a human resources department, but that's not what I want to do. I want to have my own practice, as a clinical psychologist. And that means grad school- lots of grad school.

So, for the past few days, I've been looking at a few different places, requesting information about programs and learning more about what I'll be doing. Most schools offer only PhD programs, which isn't what I want to do. The difference between a PhD and a PsyD is about the same as the difference between CAS Psych and Applied Psych here- the PsyD is more directed towards being a practitioner than a researcher. Since there are only a few schools that offer the PsyD, my choices are pretty narrow.

So far, I've seen quite a few places that look promising. The weather here has been pretty chilly lately, which is probably why I'm feeling this way, but right now my top choice is a school in Honolulu. It's a really good school, fully accredited, and it's in Hawaii. There are some other schools as well; in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, L.A., Melbourne...of course, the program is the most important part, but I could totally see myself attending classes in between drinking cocktails on the beach for five years.

That's another thing. To get my PsyD, I'm going to be in school full-time for an additional five years. It's a long time (it means that I won't graduate until 2017 at the earliest), and being in school until I'm at least 26 sounds like kind of a drag, but I figure it's best to get everything out of the way now, while I'm young, than worry about trying to get my degree once I'm working full-time, possibly with kids. It's a long way for me to think into the future, and it's the first time I've ever seriously considered life after NYU, which is scary. But I know that this is what I want to do, and just think- I'll be a doctor!

Looking at all of these grad schools is so reminiscent of doing my search for colleges back at this time four years ago. Back then, I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life, or how I should even go about looking for a program. But I lucked out, and ended up at the perfect school for me. Hopefully I'll be just as lucky this time around.