When I tell people I am a psychology major, I can expect one of three responses: “Are you psychoanalyzing me?,” “Tell me what disorder I have!” or “Are you majoring in it to fix yourself?” It’s always followed by my awkward laugh and my inner dialogue saying, I’m too annoyed to be psychoanalyzing you and you wouldn’t want to know what disorder I am thinking of. No, I am not trying to fix myself because my psychological statistics class is not going to cure my trauma. Then I wonder, why does a psychology major not receive the “wow so you’re smart” comment like pre-med, engineering, math, or any typical STEM major does? Why do those majors not hear the same jokes like “hope you marry rich”? Why am I one of the many majors that become the butt of jokes and is failed to be seen as academically rigorous?
As I enter my senior year as a psychology major, I have become immune to the comments people make indicating that my major is easy. But as I begin the graduate application process, the more that frustration festers. To work as a clinical psychologist, you have to complete four to seven more years of education after you receive your bachelor’s. If my major is so easy, why do I need seven or more years of education (not including years to obtain licensure)? Within those years of education, there is an expectation to conduct or assist in research, an aspect of psychology that is often overlooked. There is an assumption that majoring in psychology means you learn how to diagnose and treat mental health disorders, when in reality, that usually doesn’t come until you enter a graduate program. I’ve taken more courses on how to conduct research, perform statistical analyses, and write research papers than I have on how to diagnose and treat patients. While my major isn’t science or math intensive, it doesn’t mean there aren’t difficult parts to it. Learning about mental health, being in the field, or assisting in research can be emotionally exhausting. You are constantly consuming academic content talking about the darkest parts of someone’s mind and thoughts. The disorders we learn about can be extremely devastating as they often have high rates of suicide or little research on treatment.
Typical STEM majors, such as engineering or computer science, have been placed on a pedestal since I can remember. In an eighth-grade social studies class, we were told to take a mini career aptitude test. My teachers at the time were asking what we wanted to be. But it seemed the only right answers were doctors, businessmen, or engineers. There was no option for “therapist” or “novelist”, and when I did mention I wanted to do psychology, I was met with, “Well that doesn’t make a lot of money.” But what if money wasn’t my only motivation? What if I wanted to enjoy my career? What if I can’t afford eight years of medical school? There is no doubt that some jobs are vital to our society, such as doctors, government officials, first responders, etc. What I failed to be taught was that many occupations are just as important. What you willingly choose as a career doesn’t mean you are smarter or better than everyone else. You just have different strengths and interests.
Entering high school, the competition to be the smartest in the room was always over GPA, AP classes, or extracurriculars. I thought that competition would end when I began college but it appeared in a different form. Instead of comparing GPAs, we were comparing majors. I have seen countless TikToks of people making content like “Top 10 most useless majors” or going around and asking “What is the easiest major?” But they aren’t asked, “What do you know about that major?” because the answer is probably nothing. We all have assumptions about different majors based on what society has told us is the most important career and we carry that into our adulthood without stopping to investigate. We are all in the same university because we got here with similar credentials. If you give a physics major an assignment to write a literary analysis of a Jane Austen novel, they might struggle with it whereas an English major would find it easy. The same would be true if you had an English major do an assignment about quantum physics. We all possess different facets of “smartness” and if we can be open to the idea that there isn’t one better than the other, we can get rid of this fetishization of STEM. Maybe if we encourage children at a young age that all careers are equally valuable, we could help areas that are severely understaffed, like mental health centers and education. So, stop making fun of my major. The inability to see how different majors can be intelligent, useful, and valuable doesn’t make you smarter.
“Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.” -Dead Poets Society