Graduates with a bachelor’s degree in psychology are all facing the same challenging question: What’s next? For many, the answer is advanced education. While there are several job opportunities that only require a bachelor’s degree, most require at least a graduate degree.

While this might be frustrating for recent bachelor’s-level graduates, it also demonstrates the value of a master’s degree in psychology. It offers many opportunities as well as needed guidance when deciding what field of psychology you want to pursue.

Psychology career pathways

There are many pathways for those interested in pursuing a career in psychology. To make such an important decision, however, you’ll need to understand the different types of careers that are available to you.

Non client-facing psychology positions

While many people only think of therapists and psychologists, there are a myriad of opportunities available to psychology majors who aren’t interested in client-facing positions. Some fields that aren’t human service oriented include developmental, experimental, and forensic psychology. Some positions can include those in research or even academia.

However, that doesn’t mean that these roles don’t require some form of communication. In any psychology-related career, you can expect to connect with coworkers, fellow faculty members, research colleagues, or students. The key difference is that you aren’t typically communicating with clients or patients in a therapeutic capacity.

Client-facing psychology positions

Client-facing roles are more commonly associated with psychology. Some job titles that are human-service oriented include school psychologists, clinical psychologists, and counseling psychologists. Since these roles focus on studying and helping people with cognitive, emotional, and social difficulties, frequent patient contact is essential for effective treatment.

Non-traditional psychology positions

There are several career paths available to psychology majors that aren’t necessarily directly related to psychology. Social work is a great example of this. While social workers share overlapping responsibilities of contributing emotional support and providing solutions to their clients’ social, behavioral, and health problems, it isn’t necessarily categorized as a career in psychology. Additional examples include human resources, rehabilitation, and counselling positions.

Top job titles in psychology

While there are an abundance of opportunities for those pursuing a career in psychology, your degree plays a major role in what positions you’re qualified for. Unlike other fields, a master’s degree alone doesn’t typically get you the highest paying jobs, but it does provide more opportunities to grow, and acts as a steppingstone to additional education when needed.

The top job titles held by graduates of an MS degree program in psychology include:

• Program managers
• Project managers
• School psychologists
• Adjunct faculty members
• Licensed clinical social workers
• Adjunct instructors
• Medical social workers
• Mental health professionals
• Mental health therapists
• Academic advisors

Several job titles, including psychologists and psychiatrists, are excluded from this list because of the additional education required. For example, a psychologist needs a PhD or PsyD, while a psychiatrist must earn a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree. However, school psychologists are the exception to this rule. In order to become a school psychologist, you need to earn a Master of Science (MS) and a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study (CAGS) in School Psychology.

So, if you’re graduating with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and you’re not sure what’s next, consider getting a master’s degree in psychology! Open yourself up to a world of possibilities and find your dream career.