There are hundreds if not thousands of potential career paths for psychology majors. It is usually difficult to organize them into a finite number of broad categories. The following categories encompass many (but certainly not all) fields in psychology. When thinking about your own career objectives and how they fit into these categories, try to think as broadly as possible. For example, you won’t find art therapy or sports psychology named within the list below, but they can both be thought of as fields within clinical and counseling psychology.
For each category, you’ll find suggested courses (and perhaps complementary majors or minors) at Virginia Tech, recommended extracurricular experiences, and a discussion of graduate training that might be needed.
For any career path that might interest you, we highly recommend you search for it on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website (https://www.bls.gov/) and O*NET (https://www.onetonline.org/). There are also very useful tools through the Center for Workforce Studies located on the American Psychological Association website. The APA has a good presentation on Understanding and Marketing Your Skills as well. We also strongly recommend you make an appointment with a career counselor at the Career and Professional Development Center (https://career.vt.edu/).
Also, regardless of which career path might be best for you, it will be very important to get professionally relevant experiences outside of class, and clearly present them on a Resume or CV.
For more information on paths that psychology majors might follow, please click on the following links: