Majors In Focus. Psychological Science and Applied Social Research
Hi everyone! Welcome back to our third majors in focus series. I've been having
a great time learning about these degrees and I'm super excited to be back
with Professor Ginger Wickline to learn about two more of our degrees,
Psychological Science and Applied Social Research.
Thank you I'm so excited to be here today. Hi everybody!
Uhm do you want to tell us about, a little bit about yourself?
Sure, so I've been at Miami for 9 years now. I have a PhD in Clinical Psychology although I do a lot with
getting students involved in the community, working with some of our
groups on campus like our English as a Second Language students. So, I am the
degree coordinator for the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences and I'm
also tenured through the Psychology Department at Oxford. So, I'm in a really
good place to help advise students with deciding what's the best fit for them
and with a Social Research Degree whether that's Applied Social Research or ASO.
Our Psychological Science major which is our Psychology degree that students can
start and finish at our Regional campuses or the Psychology degree. We
have two Psych degrees at Miami, which is a little confusing. That students can
start at the Regionals and finish at Oxford. So, we're happy to be hosting,
talking about two of those degrees that are regionally granted today.
Yeah I am excited too. So, remember if you guys have any questions please comment below. We will
have time to answer them during the video.
We left off with the uhm, how the two majors are different, do you want to pick back back up with that?
Yeah, absolutely. So, I think we're about to look at the Applied Social Research
degree, which is a little bit more interdisciplinary. So, when students do
our Applied Social Research degree they're not only looking at how
individuals do things, but they're looking at how systems do things.
Okay
And figuring out whether a business is working effectively, whether a nonprofit
is meeting the needs of its constituents. So, within the Applied Social Research
degree there's a lot of data, focus behind it. and we do that in psychology
as well, mostly quantitative. The Applied Social Research degree does some numbers
analysis and also some qualitative review, where they're you know, doing
focus groups, asking questions, doing some interviews so, you
see much more of that focus in the interdisciplinary center, and students
are taking a variety of classes in the Applied Social Research degree that
aren't just one discipline. So, they'll take some sociology classes, some
geographical systems classes, black world studies, anthropology, sociology.
Okay
So, they're looking at human behavior from a number of different levels or angles,
instead of just from the level of the individual.
Great, that's so great. Thank you for clearing that, for clarifying that for me.
No problem.
Uhm, so what would pursue a student to uhm, major in Psychological Science?
Well we find that students who are drawn to Psychology tend to come from a couple of
different backgrounds. First, they're trying to understand themselves, their
families, and why they do things, or the people that they know. So, they tend to
have a lot of curiosity about human behavior, and some people don't realize
that Psychological Science and Psychology also can be focused on other
animal species, but we get a lot of students down and focus on why people do things.
yeah
Uhm, I would say another significant portion of those individuals
also want to help people. So, they're driven, they see movies about therapists,
or people who are working with individuals with disorders, or criminal
minds, and they want to find out what makes people act unusually, or abnormally,
and they want to do something to help individuals who are under stress, or have
disorders. So, while only about fifteen or twenty percent of people in Psychology
actually go into the mental health field. I mean helping people who are struggling.
Students tend to come in with that preconception that that is the only
thing you can do with a Psychology degree. and what they don't realize is if you
understand a lot about human behavior, and how we make decisions that
Psychology or Psychological Science is a degree that can lead you into 300
different fields and all be successful. Because, if you want to go into
management you have to know how to get along with people, if you want to go into
law enforcement it's good to know how to get along with people, if you wanted to
go into law or medical school or research. So, there's many different ways
where a background in a Psychological Science degree can help students whether
or not they want to become a Psychologist,
Yes
when they finish their degree.
Oh, I didn't know know that. I love this statistic that you shared with us.
Uhm, so you talked a little bit about the classes in the beginning when you were
talking about the two different majors, uhm can you maybe go into more detail on
what type of classes a Psychological Science major would take?
Certainly, there's a core of four classes that all students have to take. Our psych 111
uhm, which also has a 112 hour added on to it that gets them some experiential
learning. Either practice and research, doing some service learning in the
community, and that's the foundation course that all majors take to expose
them to the wide array of things we study in Psychology. Then we have
students to take Statistics 261 and Psychology 293 and to 94, which are our
statistics and research methods sections. And students do that whether they take
Psychology or Psych Science. Our first two years are actually identical so,
Okay
students, that can that was done on purpose, so students could decide when
they finish whether they want to take their upper-level classes at the
Regionals, Psych Science or in Psychology at Oxford.
Okay
But uhm, all students take
that base of statistics and research methods to understand how to think
better, more critically and how scientists use numbers to answer
questions. So, the data and the numbers are a means to an end.
Both of our degrees focus on science, both of our degrees focus on logic, and
answering good questions. You can't be a Therapist who just says well try this
therapy we don't know if it works or not but
yeah
you need to understand how we
figure out what works, what doesn't what are side effects, what are risks, and
those are the things that statistics and research methods classes help prepare
students to think well. We then have five areas that students have to take courses
in, social, developmental, individual like personality or abnormal, the bio
psychology and then cognitive. Again, thoughts, behaviors, feelings,
social angles to look at all the ways, that things influence what we do.
And then students take upper-level classes either in Psych Science and 300 and
400 level classes that are focused on specific topic areas. or if they're going
to finish at Oxford they take PSY courses. Again upper level classes, where
they get some choice
okay
so they get that breath of
things that interest them a little more.
Yeah, thank you. I like how you talked
about that they're both the same the first two years, and I think that that's
really important for students to be able to decide which path they think will be best for them.
Absolutely, the two most common questions we get is is
Psychological Science more science because it says science in the name,
Yeah
and it's not. We just weren't allowed to have two psychology degrees with the
same name.
Yeah
do the same things. Similarly students worry that if they
come to a Regional degree it's gonna be not as effective or not prepare them for
jobs or graduate school. So, sometimes they're like well but I want that Oxford
degree, it's gonna be that's the only one that can get me into grad school, that is
so totally not true. We have a very good success rate so far with students are
about to graduate in Psych Science with getting accepted into grad school, if
that's where people want to go. We've had very high hit rates or getting people
placed in the field because of at the Regionals we still have small classes
available, but people are really getting to know their professors, getting those
recommendation letters that get them on to their next steps. So, students should
not worry about quality whether they're finishing you at the Regionals our
Oxford, they're both high quality degrees that will prepare them for the next steps.
Yeah that's great. So, what kind of jobs would someone with
a Psychological Science major look for? There are a lot of possibilities some of
it does depend on how much more schooling they want to go to.
Okay
Like if somebody does want to be a counselor in private practice, there's actually
three or four different ways to do that, as a psychologist, as a licensed
professional counselor, as a licensed social worker. So, master's degrees are
going to be required for some things. If they want to go in just into research, if
they want to be in private practice and working with clients, those require more
training, but again there are like 300 degrees that students could do right out
of college with a Psychology degree and if anybody's interested they could
Google Drew Appleby Psych Job,
Okay
and you get into a list of things that one of the Guru's in our field Dr. Appleby has put together that has suggestions
for students. Some of the ones we hear students talk about the most are things
like a child development specialist, they tend to work in daycares and preschool
centers to work with young children. Child Life specialists that tends to
help work with children in hospital settings, to help them calm down and
understand the medical procedures. Substance abuse technician we have quite
a few students right now who are volunteering on the hotline at Sojourner
Recovery Services or doing intakes for them and working towards
their certification as a chemical dependency counselor assistant, which you
can actually do with a high school degree and specified training within
Psychology. And then the associate's degree or bachelor's degree helps
Yes
to move up in that field. Market research department manager, Human
Resources, social and community service managers, literally any job that you can
imagine needing to work and get along with people a background in Psych
Science could help prepare you for it.
Great, so now we're going to shift over
to our second degree that we were going to talk about which is the Applied Social
Research. So, when I think of the word applied I think of a hands-on experience,
so how is the applied Social Research major an applied degree?
That's an excellent question. One of the key things about the Applied Social Research degree
is the requirements have four to six hours of either an internship or
independent study, which we recommend students do in their junior or senior
year after they've got a little bit of experience developed perhaps as a volunteer. It's
one of those degrees that doesn't come quite as straightforward as Psychology
everybody here psychology and thinks they know what it means
Yes
but there's usually a lot more to it. But with Applied Social Research they could use
that understanding about data, and answering questions, and helping
businesses be more effective, and people do what they need to do in a variety of
settings. So, it's really crucial for our majors to get out and have an
independent study or internship with a research center, on a hotline in
partnership with local service providers that are doing work for individuals in
the community to help their quality of life right, and assessing whether that's
working. So, that's one of the key foundations of that Applied Social
Research degree. We actually encourage the same kind of thing in Psychology and
Psychological Science as well.
Okay
And most majors that I know of, employers
aren't looking to hire you if you took a test or read a book on the subject. I
mean imagine hiring a babysitter who said I love kids I took
test once and they got an A on it.
Yeah
They don't care. They care that you've
had experience working with people that you can get along in a team, that you can
solve problems, that you can work independently, you can strategize
when when issues come up, and those are things that the Applied Social Research
degree and the Psych Science degree would help prepare students for.
That's great I think preparing students for whatever they wish to do with their
majors is so important.
Absolutely
So, what type of classes would an Applied
Social Research major take?
Good question. So, we have a couple of foundation
courses there are three classes in Applied Social Research at the 200, 300,
and 400 level that students take so they get background with a variety of data
analytic procedures,
Okay
quantitative things, and computer programs that help
you crunch numbers, qualitative research so you can do focus groups and
interviews. So, those are three core courses. We also require another
statistics class and several sociology classes in research methods. So, it's kind
of a method heavy thing, we want people to be able to go out and answer
questions in a variety of different ways. So those are the things that all Applied
Social Research majors do.
Okay
They then take two classes that help prepare them for a
diverse and global economy. So, they have a host of classes they can take that
help them think about themselves as a person with culture, and how they
interact with culturally different others. So, those classes are in
anthropology, black world studies, geography,
Okay
political science, social
psych, you can pick two from that list, so that they're broadening their horizons
and understanding how they fit in an ever-changing world.
Yes
And then they
take fifteen hours, with nine hours at the three or four hundred levels in a
variety of our social science classes. Again anthropology, black world studies,
computer and information technology, english and technical writing, geography,
psychology sociology, political science,
Hi! Welcome back. We're so sorry that we lost connection with you guys but we're
gonna pick back up with Dr. Wickline and we're going to jump to our next question
with her on Applied Social Research, which is what kind of jobs would someone
with this major look for? The key thing with Applied Social Research in helping
businesses or organizations answer questions, is that there's going to be a
lot of data-driven things the students do. So, some of the areas that we would
see students with this major go into could be individual and Family Services
okay
think about foster care and whether they're taking care of their families or a
institution that works with people with disabilities and are they meeting those
individuals. So, they could help them figure out if they're doing their job effectively.
Social services work, health care and support people had background with a
little bit of medical terminology and took some of our health and information
tech classes, you know combine that with Applied Social Research they'd do well to
do inputting medical records, or looking through medical records to see if
they're effectively working with certain kinds of clients. Market research,
business and industry look all the time for what's selling and how to better
Oh yeah
reach their constituents. So, a lot of our individuals could go into human
resources, into marketing for corporate America and help them be more effective
at distributing their product. Geographic and information sciences, such as one of
the things I think is really cool. If students learn the mapping technology
they could actually help local organizations find out how to better
reach their people or provide the resources. So for example, some of our
Global Information Sciences students last year worked with the Butler County
Board of developmental disabilities, but to put together in the map in our
community. So, parents could know if my child has a disability where can I go
for various kinds of service.
Oh wow.
Where are the churches that have you know ramps
and disability friendly classes, where the medical providers who specialized in
talking and working with disabilities, where the summer camps, where the job
opportunities, where's the employment, where's that helped me grow for young
children. So, that kind of mapping technique can really help a community
know how to make the most of the things already out there.
Yeah, that's awesome.
So, that's one that we
think is really kind of cutting edge and helping students to understand the world were in.
Yeah
So, in lots of these places again whether it's for-profit or nonprofit
there are going to be going into business organization and saying what do
you need to know, how can we help you get that information.
That's great, sounds like there's a lot of different options for students which
is really nice. So, what would you say are the most common misconceptions about
both of these majors? Interesting, I think we've addressed it with Psychological Science,
Yes
Some how students think it's more sciency than the other psychology
major we have in Miami. When both of them focus on that. Students in Psychology
sometimes think it's a lot of art and Criminal Minds and having people lie
down on couches and that's a small part of but we do know we want to help expose
them to the many ways that psychologists help improve our quality of life.
The thing about Applied Social Research is I think students don't sometimes
understand how much analysis is involved in that.
Yes
And they have to normally have
the curiosity, but the willingness to have that rigor and like precision, to
answer questions well.
Okay
So that's one that both of our degrees
take a little bit of detail oriented people, and conscientiousness is good,
curiosity is good. But I'd say that what we find is usually people who don't know
what Applied Social Research tell me what that looks like and then
with Psychology they think they know what it is, and don't realize how much
more there is available to them.
That's great I think that you clarified a lot of those questions
for me today, which was really awesome. So, thank you so much for meeting with me
and answering my questions today.
My pleasure.
Uhm next week we will be back on Tuesday at 11 am with Janet Marshall
to discuss our Forensic Science major.
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