Intro

Are you looking to add a class to your schedule for next semester but don’t know where to start? Psychology benefits every major and can even fulfill a social science requirement for many majors. Here are five reasons why every college student should take a psychology course sometime during his or her college career.

1. Psychology helps you understand people.

Despite what some may think about their future careers, all professionals must interact with other people, whether they be customers, patients, clients, or other professionals. Understanding how and why people act can give a new perspective on communication and human relations. Understanding how large groups of people tend to think and feel is also useful in many aspects of the professional world. Principles in psychology can be used to understand conformity, willingness to follow authority, cognitive dissonance, and other aspects of group dynamics that exist in the workplace as well as in the rest of society.

2. Psychology appeals to many interests.

Psychology is unique because while there are many processes and principles that are experimental and objective, there are also many other aspects that require intuition, creativity, and emotional understanding. Whether you love observing children in child development, learning history and exploring Freud’s theories, or hearing about experimental studies like the Stanford Prison Experiment, psychology has anything and everything that can be interesting to a student.

3. Psychology gives you practical skills.

Understanding how the human mind works can help you with communicating, studying effectively, relating to others, and even adopting a healthy lifestyle. When I learned about how sleep relates to memory storage and processing, I made it a habit to get a good night’s rest every single night!

4. Psychology could be the major for you.

Psychology majors don’t just go on to become therapists. They can work in research, human resources, marketing, social work, sports psychology, real estate, and so much more. I wanted to work in education, but classroom teaching wasn’t the best fit for me. When I switched to majoring in psychology, I knew that I could work in education, but in many more ways than just traditional teaching.

5. Psychology helps you understand yourself.

College is a turbulent time filled with growth and change. Many college students are on their own for the first time, trying to find their identities in their newfound independence. A psychology class can shed light on why you may think or feel certain ways and can help you learn how to combat certain thought processes or negative habits. Taking a psychology class is by no means a way of replacing the help of trained professionals when it comes to seeking assistance for mental or emotional health needs. However, psychology courses can provide helpful information regarding wellness for the general population.

Note:

If you feel that you are in need of more personalized support, contact the Samford University Counseling Services and Wellness Programs office at counseling@samford.edu, call 205-726-4083, or stop by Dwight Beeson Hall (DBH) room 203.

More information about Samford’s Psychology Department can be found here. Follow the Department Chair Dr. Stephen Chew on Twitter @SChewPsych!