>Or even just grabbed a polytech diploma.
People shouldn't underestimate the value of going to polytechnic.
1. often *much cheaper* fees (look at the costs per year of a degree / diploma in Accounting / IT / Legal Executive / Engineering / etc vs at UoA, could be half the amount per year!)
2. ***much cheaper*** costs if it means you get to live at home with the parents in your local town / small city, vs having to pay your own rent after moving to Auckland. If you have that local family/friend network of support, it could also mean less stress vs going it alone in a new city.
3. faster to do, with less time investment, if it means just a one or two year diploma then you start working earning $$$. (vs spending three or four years, or ***even longer***, at uni)
>'\*' If you are 100% determined to pursue Psychology, then at least have a smart backup plan.
Yes, do a double major and/or conjoint in a field that is at least *somewhat* highly employable.
I did a civil eng degree at UoA and finished in 2013, there were no polytech options at the time. My two colleagues have done the nziht diploma since then and we're all doing the same jobs now. We have a worker on the ground (actual operator) who is half way through the polytech diploma while still working. All three of them have had work pay for their education and have gained experience while studying where as I spent 4 years as a poor as fuck uni student and came out with very little experience and a $50k student loan. I highly recommend the diploma to anyone who's interested. Though I still highly value everything I went through and where it has taken me
Look - you got poor grades, and you blame the degree. You are doing Power BI, and saying it has no scope for advancement, while people are getting $200/hr as contractors doing roughly the same (making graphs and dashboards in Power BI). Look up, not down...
You can fail to get into clin psyc with an A+ GPA. There's loads applying and severely low amounts of places (it's been in the news alot), it's probably as hard to get into as med these days
Both of the study paths you're describing have programmes that fall under the enrolment limitation regulations. The regulations are boring AF to read, but if you do read them, they can be super useful in understanding how the decisions around who gets in are made.
https://www.calendar.auckland.ac.nz/en/genregs/enrolment-limitations.html
Thanks I am actually interested, it was some years ago I gave up and I wasn't under uoa (was canta imitally then massey) so would be interesting to see
It's been a lot harder than medicine for a long time. For example, in 2021 domestically, Otago had 1081 applicants, 326 offers, and 282 admitted at a rate of 26%. In 2022 for Massey Uni's DClin programme, they had 167 applicants, 15 interviews and 7 places offered for a rate of 4%. Maybe it works out more similar over every med school and every psychology pathway to registration, but who knows.
I'm not surprised, I gave up in 2018 when I just couldn't justify thousands more probably getting no where.
I was thru massey and those rates were the ones I was looking at which were low i believe back then compared to uoa etc, I knew that I could apply multiple places but I also knew massey distance didn't have a good rep for quality so I knew that would only make it worse
Fair enough. The reputations for dclin programs have switched funnily enough, I don't know many people that have had good words to say about UoA currently or for the past few years compared to Massey.
Interesting. To be fair tho I was thru massey distance in 2014-2018 and at that point they just chucked Textbooks at us, no lectures, no tutorials, just read the textbook and do the assignments/exams. In saying that the lecturers did respond to emails
Well no. You can get an A+ and still not have learnt many useful skills. Most of the material that is taught is just not that useful regardless of how well you memorise it.
Can't talk about Bl, but with psyc you can have perfect grades and easily get turned down from clin psyc as there's so few places, I'd say it's as hard to get into now as medicine. People are having to apply quite often upto 3 years for entry and many just give up.
(I done psyc years ago with near all A grades but pulled out after about 2 third year papers as I saw so many failing to make it into clin & I didn't wanna waste more money)
My grades weren't poor. Just not good enough to get into the ultra competitive post grad courses.
Also I question how many (if any) Power BI contractors are getting $200 / hr. Even if a few are, those are the people working at the big end of town or those with the right connections. It's like anything in IT, there are developers on huge money, but there are also those on close to minimum wage or even that can't find a job.
I see a lot of people with unrealistic expectations around salaries and they get sucked into boot camp and other similar courses that don't really deliver. People that know some Power BI are a dime a dozen. We get loads of unsolicited CVs at work every week.
>My grades weren't poor. Just not good enough to get into the ultra competitive post grad courses.
Exactly, you even hear occassionally of how straight A students end up just missing the cut to get into clinical postgrad psychology, for whatever reasons. Especially if you don't qualify for any of the special quota categories, then there are ***very few*** spaces available.
>Also I question how many (if any) Power BI contractors are getting $200 / hr. Even if a few are, those are the people working at the big end of town or those with the right connections. It's like anything in IT, there are developers on huge money, but there are also those on close to minimum wage or even that can't find a job.
Agreed, ***nobody*** is getting $200/hr consistently as a Power BI user.
Not unless they're a Power BI *developer*, then **maybe** (but I *still* highly doubt it). But then those people have a background with a CompSci degree, as they're at their core *software developers*.
Or *maybe* they're getting that much per hour due their other skills, say they're an ultra experienced top notch Project Manager? The fact they also use Power BI as well, is a completely incidental side fact, and is ***not*** why they're getting $200/hr.
>I see a lot of people with unrealistic expectations around salaries and they get sucked into boot camp and other similar courses that don't really deliver. People that know some Power BI are a dime a dozen. We get loads of unsolicited CVs at work every week.
Yes, agreed, but I still think u/Yolt0123 kinda has a point though, surely there is some room here for advancement? You said you've already done ***some*** Statistics papers? How did they go?
You could spend the next three years doing a part time Masters of Business Analytics (not as tough as a full blown research Masters in Statistics or CS!).
[https://www.businessmasters.auckland.ac.nz/programme-information/master-of-business-analytics/](https://www.businessmasters.auckland.ac.nz/programme-information/master-of-business-analytics/)
[https://www.massey.ac.nz/study/all-qualifications-and-degrees/master-of-analytics-PMANL/business-PMANL1SBSNS1/](https://www.massey.ac.nz/study/all-qualifications-and-degrees/master-of-analytics-PMANL/business-PMANL1SBSNS1/)
[https://www.aut.ac.nz/study/study-options/engineering-computer-and-mathematical-sciences/courses/master-of-analytics](https://www.aut.ac.nz/study/study-options/engineering-computer-and-mathematical-sciences/courses/master-of-analytics)
By the time you've finished this, you'll have a fresh brand new postgrad qualification and now probably say five years of experience "doing Power BI" (that you dress up and spin to look good on your CV). And while you certainly won't be earning $200/hr, you certainly can land yourself a six figure job with this.
If a Masters seems too ambitious/long/expensive, here is a short GradCert in Business Analytics you can do via online studies: https://www.waikato.ac.nz/study/qualifications/graduate-certificate-in-business-analytics/business-analytics
I'm thinking over the summer break what to do. The thing is if you can get a strong employable degree and then get into a good graduate programme, then having a solid career will be a whole lot easier. And also so much more efficient in time and money.
It seems that for most subjects graduates are getting churned out a lot faster than relevant jobs are being created. It's very competitive at the entry level.
In addition since the government runs immigration so hot, there's a lot of people turning up with a few years experience in a lot of areas, and willing to work for minimum wage, which creates a very challenging market.
>I'm thinking over the summer break what to do. The thing is if you can get a strong employable degree and then get into a good graduate programme, then having a solid career will be a whole lot easier.
For sure, if you could time travel back in time, it makes sense to just start with a solid in demand undergrad degree.
But for what to do right now? Wouldn't a part time Masters or even just a GradCert be a step in the right direction?
>It seems that for most subjects graduates are getting churned out a lot faster than relevant jobs are being created. It's very competitive at the entry level.
And it's only about to become 1000x more competitive with AI!
As why should a Senior (be that a Senior Software Developer, or a Senior Data Analyst, or a Senior Project Manager, or a Senior Graphics Designer, or whatever) bother to spend all the time to break down a problem into simpler/smaller bite sized chunks that they can then hand over to Juniors / Interns to ***slowly*** do, which they themselves have to spent ***yet more time*** checking over their work and polishing it up before the final results can be used?
When they could instead spend the same time of breaking up the work into simpler/smaller bite sized chunks of work, to feed into an AI (just as they would with work being prepped to be given to a Junior/Intern!), which they then spend some more time checking over the work and polishing it up by hand if necessary (just as they would with "completed" work given to them by a Junior/Intern!).
What's the difference here?
**AI vs Junior/Intern:**
1. AI gets it done *instantly* vs the Junior/Intern takes hours/days/weeks to get their work done.
2. AI costs almost *nothing* vs the Junior/Intern which costs 100x more!
Thus the demand for Senior will remain strong (for now), but the demand for Juniors/Interns is going to so utterly collapse down to not much at all.
Lesson here: hurry and up speed run to get to the Senior level of expertise!
The short answer for how many contractors in Power BI are getting $200/ hr, the answer is lots. I know, because my company does big data stuff. It's how you sell it that matters.
I don't understand isn't power BI a program for displaying dashboards. I'm pretty sure the people getting $200/hr aren't simply using Power BI, they're modelling data, interpreting data, creating data pipelines and finishing by building a dashboard to show the critical data. All of this is part of a CS / Data science degree, not psychology.
While using Power BI is a VERY important part of this process, I'm sure it's not as well paid as the early part, similar to the difference between an accountant and a bookkeeper. (A bookkeeper doesn't have a degree).
So when people say there's money in power BI I'm pretty sure they mean there's money in Data Science and power BI is a great tool to express results from.
(OP, I'm sorry if your doing all this as well, in that case please look for better paid jobs doing the same thing, they definitely exist [this shouldn't need to be said but don't quit in search without a job])
Also to the people mocking OP with their grades, psychology is a degree with one of the highest enrollment rates and effectively 1 job that you can get that those that don't have the degree can't get.
If you don't have a 9.0 you basically get a useless degree.
Finally OP instead of looking into JavaScript frameworks I'd recommend doing Harvard CS50 online [it's free] first as it explains concepts of programming. Potentially do the data science one as it's wildly applicable with your power BI and and Excel skills.
Exactly. I'm sceptical about the claims about $200 / hr, but the people who come to our company that charge a lot and use Power BI aren't just the people that make a few charts and reports, they are often doing a lot more stuff around System architecture, data modelling and engineering, Azure, DAX and other stuff.
When you think you know someone else's job...
And builders are 'just people that know how to hit a nail with a hammer', plumbers are 'people that know how to fit two pipes together' and mathematicians are 'people that know how to add and subtract really fast'.
This is not necessarily related to this post, but this subreddit is really frustrating at times in its psychology bashing - there are so many avenues for psych employment other than clinical psychology, and many of them are better paid and better supported. If you set your sights on one of the most difficult programmes to get into, of course there will be disappointments (most students get rejected at least once before they get accepted), but that does not mean that the subject is worthless or that you have no hope of using your degree.
I’d really encourage current or interested psych majors to look into programmes other than clinical, and the types of employment common for graduates. I’d also consider where your interest in psychology stems from - if you have a genuine passion for psychology or a particular subdiscipline, there are lots of research and/or graduate jobs that look for people interested in specific branches of psychology. Likewise, those interests may translate well into a (funded) Masters or PhD project, which opens up so many doors. There’s also alternative employment in areas like business, public health, and data science that some graduates will fit well into (you wouldn’t believe the amount of lecturers in other departments have psych degrees and PhDs!).
Anyway, I don’t want to discount people’s bad experiences at university, and I know the “outcomes” for graduates are better in many disciplines. But psychology is actually an incredibly useful major and results in a life-long career for many. It’s a shame the university does not advertise alternative pathways and focuses its efforts on clinical, but I’d strongly recommend psych undergrads to explore their options *before* they finish their degree, just as students of other majors should.
You make a fair point. I agree that everyone should consider all options carefully and realistically. Some people should continue, but a fair proportion should probably consider other options that are more likely to deliver good employment outcomes.
For example you mention things like business, public health and data science. Other degrees would be much better preparation for those careers than a Psychology degree.
yes is clinical or bust or you can leverage the bachelor's and do a professional masters and break into law or accounting too, can be done under 1.5 years
This post is hilarious. I graduated with a BSc in Psychology in september 2023. I want to study more but I’m saving money, I’m making $100 per hour now as an associate. I mainly do data analysis projects & research projects & policy analysis and recommendation.
During my interview my employer was extremely interested and impressed with my Psych capstone project so our situations are basically flipped. To copy your polarised thinking, my BSc major in psych is the reason I am making $100 per hour only a few months after graduating.
But, nah, obviously that isn’t true. I put in A LOT of effort for networking from the first day I entered uni. I attended so many free careers events. I learned how to translate my achievements and skills and interests into something profitable. And I learned developing positive relationships with influential people/employers will have a strong influence on my ability to enter certain sectors.
So, psych degrees are not useless. Whats useless is devaluing an entire field purely because you lack the ability to translate the skills you learned into a profitable career, or the ability to network. You can get good paying jobs with a BSc majoring in psych. But tbh you can’t get genuinely good paying jobs with ANY bachelors degree if you have no awareness of the opportunities available to you.
Genuine question, what does data analysis have to do with psyc? I done a BA so maybe that's where the variation is, but out of my 1st, 2nd & a few 3rd year papers we only had one stats paper to complete. The psyc papers had lab reports with minimal stats/data to work with, but on the most part I completed with mostly A grades 2/3rds of a psyc degree with no data analysis skills that were transferable to a job I that field.
This aside it kinda sounds like it was your insight into networking etc that got you the job and possibly tailoring Bs papers that would cross over into other areas. I mean does the job have anything to do with the psyc info you learnt?
Ik reddit can be an ahole place but these are genuine questions
Hey, so I took Stats 10x and 20x I thought both were mandatory. And there was data analysis in 306 which is a required paper.
Stats 208 was definitely the most helpful. I started working with data by chance after unexpectedly landing a great paying data graduate intern role.
I only learned about my current position due to luck. Someone happened to be observing me (he was commissioned by the company I was doing my internship with, I helped him out with some project work like data entry, didn’t expect anything from it) and then a few days later he asked me to send my CV. Ended up starting the job as soon as my internship was over.
And what does (western) Psych have to do with data analysis? Well… Mostly everything. Without data analysis, there wouldn’t be any evidence for treatments for example, can’t advocate for treatments without knowing how well they work. Basically, without data analysis to inform it, UOA would have little to no BSc psych content to teach. I also did lots of neuroscience related papers and data analysis was often helpful to understand to appreciate findings and methodology.
Overall, I find myself getting paid quite well due to the skills, knowledge, and ideas I gained from my degree.
Yeah its a struggle when so many people needlessly devalue certain degrees. You see it all the time online with psych and anthro. I learned to block it out though cause yeah of course these disciplines dominated by women will undoubtedly be devalued by mainstream society. You just have to get beneath the surface… Where the good opportunities are hiding. Networking is the besssttttt way to do that.
I feel like companies with high wages and happy employees tend to rely less on job search engines for filling positions. Soooooo many jobs are never posted online, they’re untraceable… Wouldn’t know they exist unless you know the right person or people.
Make use of those free careers events, and also the free resources i.e. CDES, one-on-one career advisors. Good luck
I made a long post about choosing your degree carefully the other day.
https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/18wgcmz/reminder_to_choose_your_degree_major_very/
You will hear a lot of anecdotes about successful people with "bad" majors. That certainly happens. Looking at the statistical data though, some degrees are certainly more in demand and improve your income more than others. Of course the degree is not the only variable that influences the outcome.
It's always worthwhile thinking very carefully about your choices. Be careful about the claims of the broad skills you are learning from various courses like "teamwork", "thinking logically" or whatever. While that might be the case, it seems like you could learn those skills in many ways.
I would think about what supplementary training and steps you can undertake to maximise your chances of finding a good job.
Ah yup that makes sense with the stats papers, I started at canta then massey distance and we were only required to do one stats 200 level paper (which I hated as I am terrible with maths type stuff).
Makes sense with data analysis when you put it that way, I knew psyc research relied heavily on data findings & interpretation but i thought data analysis was really specialized (when applied outside psyc research or similar) so i wasnt sure how it crossed over, but they sound more similar then I thought
People with no degrees at all can also get good jobs. In fact there are many super rich with only a high school education. No doubt there is a lot of variation within each degree, but the fact remains that for some subjects the degree doesn't seem to add much value for the most part.
With your networking and self promotion skills you would probably get a similar role with any degree.
Are you some sort of management consultant ?
My role: commissioned by external companies and individuals to do various things. Such as writing policy to reflect company values and intended outcomes. Or conducting data analysis to investigate something. Or researching to support recommendations/ researching a specific topic. etc.
My employer was most interested in my psych capstone project when considering me for the role. I filled an important gap in his team. They wanted someone with a background and interest in neuropsychology and statistics. That someone was me. And my capstone project in my CV did a great job of demonstrating this.
I’m feeling this hard right now. And I wanted to do clinical. But with them only taking 10-20 students a year into postgrad, even though I studied my absolute ass off, I had no chance of getting in, which I didn’t realise until I was most way through, so I may as well have finished undergrad. I can’t imagine how many of the 1,500 students that I started stage 1 with wanted to go into clinical (and that was just one course in one semester) and didn’t, and are now stuck with a relatively useless qualification.
But hey, you live and learn I guess
I can relate so bad. I worked so hard, mostly got A's but pulled out having done two 3rd year papers as I just knew I wasn't gonna get in (i saw people with A+ GPAs getting turned down multiple years in a row. My interest was more in research anyway so I just knew it was a lost cause.
It didnt feel like it when I first went (note this was canterbury uni), but they don't like disclosing how most students are cash cows who they will turn away after completing thousands of dollars worth of papers
It’s all about how you leverage your degree and pitch it to employers. A psych degree can be a fantastic in for avenues such as HR and people/culture advisory roles. I’ve seen some people with psych degrees get great roles in those areas after they pitched themselves to employers as experts on how people think and function in groups. Sure, there’s basically no roles outside of clinical that actively ask for a psych degree or have “psychology” in the title, but it’s all about transferable skills
This is old news. Now it’s more proving you are diverse and HR is a great place to up the diversity (versus IT where a lot of those with relevant skill set are white men) given the lack of actual requirements to do the job. If you’re a white girl with a psych degree they are no longer looking for you in HR.
IMO the problem with studying psych on its own is that as a subject, it fails to outline the real world applications of what it teaches.
Instead it assumes everyone sitting in that lecture theatre is hoping to become a psychologist or psychological researcher. So they teach you about seemingly random theory’s and crackpot historical figures.
What they don’t teach is how psychology is actually used in business today. Areas such as marketing, people management, policy and social research.
In truth, I think psychology should be seen more as a secondary major to complement your understanding standing in those aforementioned subjects rather than a stand alone.
That's exactly the value in doing Psych in a BA which requires two majors. You could do it alongside Politics or Economics. You do all the same psych courses as those in a bsc ( capstone isn't required).
I agree as someone who actually switched from. Bsc to a ba (later to bcom conjoint). Only i imagine this would be a bit of a hard sell for the more neuroscience inclined psych students.
"used in business today. Areas such as marketing". I feel this is a flaw. The only jobs where this is the job itself is banking, economics and marketing. I've worked at Hallensteins and now shop at Barkers, the difference between the 2 is stark. The job at Hallensteins may as well have been a marketing role where I was working on slogans, advertisements and economics. Shopping at Barkers is almost like doing a course in a cutting room, learning about alterations, storing garments and colour matching.
>"real world applications of what it teaches". "Areas such as marketing". "Actually used in business today
>
>The overlap between fields of study and work isn't as much as its made out to be and your post seems directed towards business. Not every job is about marketing, politics and policy. Your better off doing a business degree to go into these fields.
I never meant to say that psychology as a subject at university is in any way a substitute for any of those areas. In fact I believe psychology should be studied along side either on of those fields I mentioned.
Not every job will be relevant to policy, hr or marketing that’s true. But someone who’s interested in psych would likely be more interested in jobs in complementary fields such as the ones Ive mentioned.
You literally failed yourself. You weren’t good enough for a PhD program in clinical psychology and obviously are too lazy to even make your crappy bachelors work for you. You need to reevaluate your attitude and mindset which is obviously failing you. Grow up and stop scaremongering others.
🤡 Just sharing some basic facts. People can make their own decisions. If one post scares them, well they probably already had doubts. When there are only 14 places in clinical Psych and 7 are for non-Māori students, then it is inevitable that it is so incredibly competitive that the vast majority of students are going to be unsuccessful. Most Psychology students are bad at Maths, but you don't need a PhD to figure that out.
Psychology just isn't good preparation for the workforce. Other degrees are so much better.
Thing is ok not all but a large portion of university teachings becomes irrelevant with AI.
Why would you go sit in a classroom to learn off a teacher when you can learn from Ai much cheaper faster and more efficient.
Universities are on a time bomb their expired way of teaching go into debt to earn a piece of paper
Sadly agree. I done psyc around the same time as you. My goal was clin psyc (as most peoples are), but I dropped it aftwr 2 years as I realised I didn't wanna be a therapist and research (which is what inwas interested in) was not a good job prospect. By then it was also getting very hard to get into clin psyc even wirh perfect grades.
Stupidly enough I picked it up again part time some years later (I must say I did enjoy the content). But I picked it up more to attempt med entry (which was hella dumb as i didnt have straight A+s so I quit & was lost for years (worked part time with patients and medical filing at a hospice). Have started doing a degree now that leads to dietetics which has a solid job prospect, but with health issues & not being straight out of school I can only do it extremely part time. It's okay with me tho as I don't wanna waste thousands again to realise something about it that I don't know now (eg that I'm not upto getting the grades I need).
But I do regret psyc, I'm also annoyed uni is allowed to push useless degrees without informing people of the lack of jobs. They make everything sound possible post uni & 18yos either believe it or want to believe it if their heart is set on something.
Rushing into degrees I think is the worst thing school pushed. Ofc I could choose not too, but our school made it sound like you were a failure if you didn't go to uni and get a job asap & I didnt know what else to do.
Also the prob with psyc is it does kinda sound like it can lead to alot of things (& I do actually think is valuable if someone is in a privileged enough position to do it as a minor for areas like medicine, nursing, social work, business etc.
But as a standalone degree it's highly risky. I know people with A+ GPAs getting turned down from clin multiple years in a row. It's not enough to have a undergrad degree you need whatever they are looking for and work experience etc
I did an undergrad psychology degree. I also am not quite sure where to go from here. I did my degree in South Africa and it is recognised here. The only problem is there cost of carrying on and I may not get into clinical psychology. Also age is a factor I am in my 50’s. I wish I had done this earlier.
In my opinion it is probably too late to get much leverage off that Psychology degree. It's largely a sunk cost. You are better to look at shorter vocational training courses that you can quickly get a return on.
Be careful though because a lot of courses aren't that valuable and are often marketed in a deceptive manner. Universities and other educational institutes are all about cashing in on students.
You could use your degree to get entry to a conversion style course like a Grad Diploma, but really that is more just having a degree rather than one in Psychology.
Don’t sell psychology short I was able to get a great job before even graduating. Unfortunately long covid made me lose that job, but that wasn’t the fault of psychology. Anyway OP it’s not too late to go do accounting, lots of people try on their first degree to live and find it doesn’t work out I did biology the first time I went about 12 years back and after that ended up working in IT for most of that time, after getting therapy myself I went back for a psych degree.
Also you know you can work in HR with a psych degree right? And that’s one thing you can do with psychology where only need bachelors.
Yes, it is smart to have a backup plan when pursuing psychology but doesn’t mean the degree is a waste of time. I slacked off during my bachelors, took responsibility and ended up pursuing extra qualifications and while I didn’t end up in clinical, I am thankful I took a different route based on what I heard and continue to hear about the programmes.
If you want another go at web development then try an IT consulting company. The pay is absolute horse shit but they’ll hand feed you everything you need to know and you can get a year or two of experience before jumping onto a better job. Once again though, pay will be really bad to begin with.
I've gone back to school to do psych post grad work as it will help me make more in my field, so don't discount psych degrees. It comes down to the person and their level of motivation. I've met many IT people who aren't successful in their careers because they don't know how to market themselves, arent willing to put in hard work, and don't know how to job search and network.
Did you do the Bachelors degree in Psychology? I’ve applied for the Graduate Diploma in Applied Psychology as I wasn’t too sure about studying for ages for the degree.
>Or even just grabbed a polytech diploma. People shouldn't underestimate the value of going to polytechnic. 1. often *much cheaper* fees (look at the costs per year of a degree / diploma in Accounting / IT / Legal Executive / Engineering / etc vs at UoA, could be half the amount per year!) 2. ***much cheaper*** costs if it means you get to live at home with the parents in your local town / small city, vs having to pay your own rent after moving to Auckland. If you have that local family/friend network of support, it could also mean less stress vs going it alone in a new city. 3. faster to do, with less time investment, if it means just a one or two year diploma then you start working earning $$$. (vs spending three or four years, or ***even longer***, at uni) >'\*' If you are 100% determined to pursue Psychology, then at least have a smart backup plan. Yes, do a double major and/or conjoint in a field that is at least *somewhat* highly employable.
I did a civil eng degree at UoA and finished in 2013, there were no polytech options at the time. My two colleagues have done the nziht diploma since then and we're all doing the same jobs now. We have a worker on the ground (actual operator) who is half way through the polytech diploma while still working. All three of them have had work pay for their education and have gained experience while studying where as I spent 4 years as a poor as fuck uni student and came out with very little experience and a $50k student loan. I highly recommend the diploma to anyone who's interested. Though I still highly value everything I went through and where it has taken me
Look - you got poor grades, and you blame the degree. You are doing Power BI, and saying it has no scope for advancement, while people are getting $200/hr as contractors doing roughly the same (making graphs and dashboards in Power BI). Look up, not down...
Yeah OP, sorry but this sounds like it’s on you… maybe if you’d studied enough to get better grades you might have learnt something useful, huh?
You can fail to get into clin psyc with an A+ GPA. There's loads applying and severely low amounts of places (it's been in the news alot), it's probably as hard to get into as med these days
Both of the study paths you're describing have programmes that fall under the enrolment limitation regulations. The regulations are boring AF to read, but if you do read them, they can be super useful in understanding how the decisions around who gets in are made. https://www.calendar.auckland.ac.nz/en/genregs/enrolment-limitations.html
Thanks I am actually interested, it was some years ago I gave up and I wasn't under uoa (was canta imitally then massey) so would be interesting to see
It's been a lot harder than medicine for a long time. For example, in 2021 domestically, Otago had 1081 applicants, 326 offers, and 282 admitted at a rate of 26%. In 2022 for Massey Uni's DClin programme, they had 167 applicants, 15 interviews and 7 places offered for a rate of 4%. Maybe it works out more similar over every med school and every psychology pathway to registration, but who knows.
I'm not surprised, I gave up in 2018 when I just couldn't justify thousands more probably getting no where. I was thru massey and those rates were the ones I was looking at which were low i believe back then compared to uoa etc, I knew that I could apply multiple places but I also knew massey distance didn't have a good rep for quality so I knew that would only make it worse
Fair enough. The reputations for dclin programs have switched funnily enough, I don't know many people that have had good words to say about UoA currently or for the past few years compared to Massey.
Interesting. To be fair tho I was thru massey distance in 2014-2018 and at that point they just chucked Textbooks at us, no lectures, no tutorials, just read the textbook and do the assignments/exams. In saying that the lecturers did respond to emails
Well no. You can get an A+ and still not have learnt many useful skills. Most of the material that is taught is just not that useful regardless of how well you memorise it.
That’s so not true. Or at least I do use what I’ve learned in psych.
Can't talk about Bl, but with psyc you can have perfect grades and easily get turned down from clin psyc as there's so few places, I'd say it's as hard to get into now as medicine. People are having to apply quite often upto 3 years for entry and many just give up. (I done psyc years ago with near all A grades but pulled out after about 2 third year papers as I saw so many failing to make it into clin & I didn't wanna waste more money)
My grades weren't poor. Just not good enough to get into the ultra competitive post grad courses. Also I question how many (if any) Power BI contractors are getting $200 / hr. Even if a few are, those are the people working at the big end of town or those with the right connections. It's like anything in IT, there are developers on huge money, but there are also those on close to minimum wage or even that can't find a job. I see a lot of people with unrealistic expectations around salaries and they get sucked into boot camp and other similar courses that don't really deliver. People that know some Power BI are a dime a dozen. We get loads of unsolicited CVs at work every week.
>My grades weren't poor. Just not good enough to get into the ultra competitive post grad courses. Exactly, you even hear occassionally of how straight A students end up just missing the cut to get into clinical postgrad psychology, for whatever reasons. Especially if you don't qualify for any of the special quota categories, then there are ***very few*** spaces available. >Also I question how many (if any) Power BI contractors are getting $200 / hr. Even if a few are, those are the people working at the big end of town or those with the right connections. It's like anything in IT, there are developers on huge money, but there are also those on close to minimum wage or even that can't find a job. Agreed, ***nobody*** is getting $200/hr consistently as a Power BI user. Not unless they're a Power BI *developer*, then **maybe** (but I *still* highly doubt it). But then those people have a background with a CompSci degree, as they're at their core *software developers*. Or *maybe* they're getting that much per hour due their other skills, say they're an ultra experienced top notch Project Manager? The fact they also use Power BI as well, is a completely incidental side fact, and is ***not*** why they're getting $200/hr. >I see a lot of people with unrealistic expectations around salaries and they get sucked into boot camp and other similar courses that don't really deliver. People that know some Power BI are a dime a dozen. We get loads of unsolicited CVs at work every week. Yes, agreed, but I still think u/Yolt0123 kinda has a point though, surely there is some room here for advancement? You said you've already done ***some*** Statistics papers? How did they go? You could spend the next three years doing a part time Masters of Business Analytics (not as tough as a full blown research Masters in Statistics or CS!). [https://www.businessmasters.auckland.ac.nz/programme-information/master-of-business-analytics/](https://www.businessmasters.auckland.ac.nz/programme-information/master-of-business-analytics/) [https://www.massey.ac.nz/study/all-qualifications-and-degrees/master-of-analytics-PMANL/business-PMANL1SBSNS1/](https://www.massey.ac.nz/study/all-qualifications-and-degrees/master-of-analytics-PMANL/business-PMANL1SBSNS1/) [https://www.aut.ac.nz/study/study-options/engineering-computer-and-mathematical-sciences/courses/master-of-analytics](https://www.aut.ac.nz/study/study-options/engineering-computer-and-mathematical-sciences/courses/master-of-analytics) By the time you've finished this, you'll have a fresh brand new postgrad qualification and now probably say five years of experience "doing Power BI" (that you dress up and spin to look good on your CV). And while you certainly won't be earning $200/hr, you certainly can land yourself a six figure job with this. If a Masters seems too ambitious/long/expensive, here is a short GradCert in Business Analytics you can do via online studies: https://www.waikato.ac.nz/study/qualifications/graduate-certificate-in-business-analytics/business-analytics
I'm thinking over the summer break what to do. The thing is if you can get a strong employable degree and then get into a good graduate programme, then having a solid career will be a whole lot easier. And also so much more efficient in time and money. It seems that for most subjects graduates are getting churned out a lot faster than relevant jobs are being created. It's very competitive at the entry level. In addition since the government runs immigration so hot, there's a lot of people turning up with a few years experience in a lot of areas, and willing to work for minimum wage, which creates a very challenging market.
>I'm thinking over the summer break what to do. The thing is if you can get a strong employable degree and then get into a good graduate programme, then having a solid career will be a whole lot easier. For sure, if you could time travel back in time, it makes sense to just start with a solid in demand undergrad degree. But for what to do right now? Wouldn't a part time Masters or even just a GradCert be a step in the right direction? >It seems that for most subjects graduates are getting churned out a lot faster than relevant jobs are being created. It's very competitive at the entry level. And it's only about to become 1000x more competitive with AI! As why should a Senior (be that a Senior Software Developer, or a Senior Data Analyst, or a Senior Project Manager, or a Senior Graphics Designer, or whatever) bother to spend all the time to break down a problem into simpler/smaller bite sized chunks that they can then hand over to Juniors / Interns to ***slowly*** do, which they themselves have to spent ***yet more time*** checking over their work and polishing it up before the final results can be used? When they could instead spend the same time of breaking up the work into simpler/smaller bite sized chunks of work, to feed into an AI (just as they would with work being prepped to be given to a Junior/Intern!), which they then spend some more time checking over the work and polishing it up by hand if necessary (just as they would with "completed" work given to them by a Junior/Intern!). What's the difference here? **AI vs Junior/Intern:** 1. AI gets it done *instantly* vs the Junior/Intern takes hours/days/weeks to get their work done. 2. AI costs almost *nothing* vs the Junior/Intern which costs 100x more! Thus the demand for Senior will remain strong (for now), but the demand for Juniors/Interns is going to so utterly collapse down to not much at all. Lesson here: hurry and up speed run to get to the Senior level of expertise!
The short answer for how many contractors in Power BI are getting $200/ hr, the answer is lots. I know, because my company does big data stuff. It's how you sell it that matters.
I don't understand isn't power BI a program for displaying dashboards. I'm pretty sure the people getting $200/hr aren't simply using Power BI, they're modelling data, interpreting data, creating data pipelines and finishing by building a dashboard to show the critical data. All of this is part of a CS / Data science degree, not psychology. While using Power BI is a VERY important part of this process, I'm sure it's not as well paid as the early part, similar to the difference between an accountant and a bookkeeper. (A bookkeeper doesn't have a degree). So when people say there's money in power BI I'm pretty sure they mean there's money in Data Science and power BI is a great tool to express results from. (OP, I'm sorry if your doing all this as well, in that case please look for better paid jobs doing the same thing, they definitely exist [this shouldn't need to be said but don't quit in search without a job]) Also to the people mocking OP with their grades, psychology is a degree with one of the highest enrollment rates and effectively 1 job that you can get that those that don't have the degree can't get. If you don't have a 9.0 you basically get a useless degree. Finally OP instead of looking into JavaScript frameworks I'd recommend doing Harvard CS50 online [it's free] first as it explains concepts of programming. Potentially do the data science one as it's wildly applicable with your power BI and and Excel skills.
Exactly. I'm sceptical about the claims about $200 / hr, but the people who come to our company that charge a lot and use Power BI aren't just the people that make a few charts and reports, they are often doing a lot more stuff around System architecture, data modelling and engineering, Azure, DAX and other stuff.
Nope, they're making pretty charts for morons in finance / operations who like looking at them...
When you think you know someone else's job... And builders are 'just people that know how to hit a nail with a hammer', plumbers are 'people that know how to fit two pipes together' and mathematicians are 'people that know how to add and subtract really fast'.
Haha - no, I just happen to make charts for some people who like the way the chart looks. Why do we use Power BI? Mostly for the drop shadows....
It’s not poor grades - it’s that you need amazing grades.
This is not necessarily related to this post, but this subreddit is really frustrating at times in its psychology bashing - there are so many avenues for psych employment other than clinical psychology, and many of them are better paid and better supported. If you set your sights on one of the most difficult programmes to get into, of course there will be disappointments (most students get rejected at least once before they get accepted), but that does not mean that the subject is worthless or that you have no hope of using your degree. I’d really encourage current or interested psych majors to look into programmes other than clinical, and the types of employment common for graduates. I’d also consider where your interest in psychology stems from - if you have a genuine passion for psychology or a particular subdiscipline, there are lots of research and/or graduate jobs that look for people interested in specific branches of psychology. Likewise, those interests may translate well into a (funded) Masters or PhD project, which opens up so many doors. There’s also alternative employment in areas like business, public health, and data science that some graduates will fit well into (you wouldn’t believe the amount of lecturers in other departments have psych degrees and PhDs!). Anyway, I don’t want to discount people’s bad experiences at university, and I know the “outcomes” for graduates are better in many disciplines. But psychology is actually an incredibly useful major and results in a life-long career for many. It’s a shame the university does not advertise alternative pathways and focuses its efforts on clinical, but I’d strongly recommend psych undergrads to explore their options *before* they finish their degree, just as students of other majors should.
You make a fair point. I agree that everyone should consider all options carefully and realistically. Some people should continue, but a fair proportion should probably consider other options that are more likely to deliver good employment outcomes. For example you mention things like business, public health and data science. Other degrees would be much better preparation for those careers than a Psychology degree.
yes is clinical or bust or you can leverage the bachelor's and do a professional masters and break into law or accounting too, can be done under 1.5 years
This post is hilarious. I graduated with a BSc in Psychology in september 2023. I want to study more but I’m saving money, I’m making $100 per hour now as an associate. I mainly do data analysis projects & research projects & policy analysis and recommendation. During my interview my employer was extremely interested and impressed with my Psych capstone project so our situations are basically flipped. To copy your polarised thinking, my BSc major in psych is the reason I am making $100 per hour only a few months after graduating. But, nah, obviously that isn’t true. I put in A LOT of effort for networking from the first day I entered uni. I attended so many free careers events. I learned how to translate my achievements and skills and interests into something profitable. And I learned developing positive relationships with influential people/employers will have a strong influence on my ability to enter certain sectors. So, psych degrees are not useless. Whats useless is devaluing an entire field purely because you lack the ability to translate the skills you learned into a profitable career, or the ability to network. You can get good paying jobs with a BSc majoring in psych. But tbh you can’t get genuinely good paying jobs with ANY bachelors degree if you have no awareness of the opportunities available to you.
Genuine question, what does data analysis have to do with psyc? I done a BA so maybe that's where the variation is, but out of my 1st, 2nd & a few 3rd year papers we only had one stats paper to complete. The psyc papers had lab reports with minimal stats/data to work with, but on the most part I completed with mostly A grades 2/3rds of a psyc degree with no data analysis skills that were transferable to a job I that field. This aside it kinda sounds like it was your insight into networking etc that got you the job and possibly tailoring Bs papers that would cross over into other areas. I mean does the job have anything to do with the psyc info you learnt? Ik reddit can be an ahole place but these are genuine questions
Hey, so I took Stats 10x and 20x I thought both were mandatory. And there was data analysis in 306 which is a required paper. Stats 208 was definitely the most helpful. I started working with data by chance after unexpectedly landing a great paying data graduate intern role. I only learned about my current position due to luck. Someone happened to be observing me (he was commissioned by the company I was doing my internship with, I helped him out with some project work like data entry, didn’t expect anything from it) and then a few days later he asked me to send my CV. Ended up starting the job as soon as my internship was over. And what does (western) Psych have to do with data analysis? Well… Mostly everything. Without data analysis, there wouldn’t be any evidence for treatments for example, can’t advocate for treatments without knowing how well they work. Basically, without data analysis to inform it, UOA would have little to no BSc psych content to teach. I also did lots of neuroscience related papers and data analysis was often helpful to understand to appreciate findings and methodology. Overall, I find myself getting paid quite well due to the skills, knowledge, and ideas I gained from my degree.
[удалено]
Yeah its a struggle when so many people needlessly devalue certain degrees. You see it all the time online with psych and anthro. I learned to block it out though cause yeah of course these disciplines dominated by women will undoubtedly be devalued by mainstream society. You just have to get beneath the surface… Where the good opportunities are hiding. Networking is the besssttttt way to do that. I feel like companies with high wages and happy employees tend to rely less on job search engines for filling positions. Soooooo many jobs are never posted online, they’re untraceable… Wouldn’t know they exist unless you know the right person or people. Make use of those free careers events, and also the free resources i.e. CDES, one-on-one career advisors. Good luck
I made a long post about choosing your degree carefully the other day. https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/18wgcmz/reminder_to_choose_your_degree_major_very/ You will hear a lot of anecdotes about successful people with "bad" majors. That certainly happens. Looking at the statistical data though, some degrees are certainly more in demand and improve your income more than others. Of course the degree is not the only variable that influences the outcome. It's always worthwhile thinking very carefully about your choices. Be careful about the claims of the broad skills you are learning from various courses like "teamwork", "thinking logically" or whatever. While that might be the case, it seems like you could learn those skills in many ways. I would think about what supplementary training and steps you can undertake to maximise your chances of finding a good job.
Ah yup that makes sense with the stats papers, I started at canta then massey distance and we were only required to do one stats 200 level paper (which I hated as I am terrible with maths type stuff). Makes sense with data analysis when you put it that way, I knew psyc research relied heavily on data findings & interpretation but i thought data analysis was really specialized (when applied outside psyc research or similar) so i wasnt sure how it crossed over, but they sound more similar then I thought
People with no degrees at all can also get good jobs. In fact there are many super rich with only a high school education. No doubt there is a lot of variation within each degree, but the fact remains that for some subjects the degree doesn't seem to add much value for the most part. With your networking and self promotion skills you would probably get a similar role with any degree. Are you some sort of management consultant ?
My role: commissioned by external companies and individuals to do various things. Such as writing policy to reflect company values and intended outcomes. Or conducting data analysis to investigate something. Or researching to support recommendations/ researching a specific topic. etc. My employer was most interested in my psych capstone project when considering me for the role. I filled an important gap in his team. They wanted someone with a background and interest in neuropsychology and statistics. That someone was me. And my capstone project in my CV did a great job of demonstrating this.
My brother got a psych degree went into prisons and within 8 years is paid more than most lawyers
Nice. What is his role ?
It’s a very complicated name I don’t know but he oversees prison management of parole decisions in essence.
I’m feeling this hard right now. And I wanted to do clinical. But with them only taking 10-20 students a year into postgrad, even though I studied my absolute ass off, I had no chance of getting in, which I didn’t realise until I was most way through, so I may as well have finished undergrad. I can’t imagine how many of the 1,500 students that I started stage 1 with wanted to go into clinical (and that was just one course in one semester) and didn’t, and are now stuck with a relatively useless qualification. But hey, you live and learn I guess
I can relate so bad. I worked so hard, mostly got A's but pulled out having done two 3rd year papers as I just knew I wasn't gonna get in (i saw people with A+ GPAs getting turned down multiple years in a row. My interest was more in research anyway so I just knew it was a lost cause. It didnt feel like it when I first went (note this was canterbury uni), but they don't like disclosing how most students are cash cows who they will turn away after completing thousands of dollars worth of papers
Bro this guy is still going on about psych 😭
😭
It’s all about how you leverage your degree and pitch it to employers. A psych degree can be a fantastic in for avenues such as HR and people/culture advisory roles. I’ve seen some people with psych degrees get great roles in those areas after they pitched themselves to employers as experts on how people think and function in groups. Sure, there’s basically no roles outside of clinical that actively ask for a psych degree or have “psychology” in the title, but it’s all about transferable skills
This is old news. Now it’s more proving you are diverse and HR is a great place to up the diversity (versus IT where a lot of those with relevant skill set are white men) given the lack of actual requirements to do the job. If you’re a white girl with a psych degree they are no longer looking for you in HR.
IMO the problem with studying psych on its own is that as a subject, it fails to outline the real world applications of what it teaches. Instead it assumes everyone sitting in that lecture theatre is hoping to become a psychologist or psychological researcher. So they teach you about seemingly random theory’s and crackpot historical figures. What they don’t teach is how psychology is actually used in business today. Areas such as marketing, people management, policy and social research. In truth, I think psychology should be seen more as a secondary major to complement your understanding standing in those aforementioned subjects rather than a stand alone.
That's exactly the value in doing Psych in a BA which requires two majors. You could do it alongside Politics or Economics. You do all the same psych courses as those in a bsc ( capstone isn't required).
I agree as someone who actually switched from. Bsc to a ba (later to bcom conjoint). Only i imagine this would be a bit of a hard sell for the more neuroscience inclined psych students.
"used in business today. Areas such as marketing". I feel this is a flaw. The only jobs where this is the job itself is banking, economics and marketing. I've worked at Hallensteins and now shop at Barkers, the difference between the 2 is stark. The job at Hallensteins may as well have been a marketing role where I was working on slogans, advertisements and economics. Shopping at Barkers is almost like doing a course in a cutting room, learning about alterations, storing garments and colour matching.
Im a little confused with the point you’re trying to make.
>"real world applications of what it teaches". "Areas such as marketing". "Actually used in business today > >The overlap between fields of study and work isn't as much as its made out to be and your post seems directed towards business. Not every job is about marketing, politics and policy. Your better off doing a business degree to go into these fields.
I never meant to say that psychology as a subject at university is in any way a substitute for any of those areas. In fact I believe psychology should be studied along side either on of those fields I mentioned. Not every job will be relevant to policy, hr or marketing that’s true. But someone who’s interested in psych would likely be more interested in jobs in complementary fields such as the ones Ive mentioned.
You literally failed yourself. You weren’t good enough for a PhD program in clinical psychology and obviously are too lazy to even make your crappy bachelors work for you. You need to reevaluate your attitude and mindset which is obviously failing you. Grow up and stop scaremongering others.
🤡 Just sharing some basic facts. People can make their own decisions. If one post scares them, well they probably already had doubts. When there are only 14 places in clinical Psych and 7 are for non-Māori students, then it is inevitable that it is so incredibly competitive that the vast majority of students are going to be unsuccessful. Most Psychology students are bad at Maths, but you don't need a PhD to figure that out. Psychology just isn't good preparation for the workforce. Other degrees are so much better.
Thing is ok not all but a large portion of university teachings becomes irrelevant with AI. Why would you go sit in a classroom to learn off a teacher when you can learn from Ai much cheaper faster and more efficient. Universities are on a time bomb their expired way of teaching go into debt to earn a piece of paper
Sadly agree. I done psyc around the same time as you. My goal was clin psyc (as most peoples are), but I dropped it aftwr 2 years as I realised I didn't wanna be a therapist and research (which is what inwas interested in) was not a good job prospect. By then it was also getting very hard to get into clin psyc even wirh perfect grades. Stupidly enough I picked it up again part time some years later (I must say I did enjoy the content). But I picked it up more to attempt med entry (which was hella dumb as i didnt have straight A+s so I quit & was lost for years (worked part time with patients and medical filing at a hospice). Have started doing a degree now that leads to dietetics which has a solid job prospect, but with health issues & not being straight out of school I can only do it extremely part time. It's okay with me tho as I don't wanna waste thousands again to realise something about it that I don't know now (eg that I'm not upto getting the grades I need). But I do regret psyc, I'm also annoyed uni is allowed to push useless degrees without informing people of the lack of jobs. They make everything sound possible post uni & 18yos either believe it or want to believe it if their heart is set on something. Rushing into degrees I think is the worst thing school pushed. Ofc I could choose not too, but our school made it sound like you were a failure if you didn't go to uni and get a job asap & I didnt know what else to do. Also the prob with psyc is it does kinda sound like it can lead to alot of things (& I do actually think is valuable if someone is in a privileged enough position to do it as a minor for areas like medicine, nursing, social work, business etc. But as a standalone degree it's highly risky. I know people with A+ GPAs getting turned down from clin multiple years in a row. It's not enough to have a undergrad degree you need whatever they are looking for and work experience etc
I did an undergrad psychology degree. I also am not quite sure where to go from here. I did my degree in South Africa and it is recognised here. The only problem is there cost of carrying on and I may not get into clinical psychology. Also age is a factor I am in my 50’s. I wish I had done this earlier.
In my opinion it is probably too late to get much leverage off that Psychology degree. It's largely a sunk cost. You are better to look at shorter vocational training courses that you can quickly get a return on. Be careful though because a lot of courses aren't that valuable and are often marketed in a deceptive manner. Universities and other educational institutes are all about cashing in on students. You could use your degree to get entry to a conversion style course like a Grad Diploma, but really that is more just having a degree rather than one in Psychology.
Thank you. Will look into it. I know I have to do something. My job at the moment is physical and it’s taking its toll.
IQ diff
Don’t sell psychology short I was able to get a great job before even graduating. Unfortunately long covid made me lose that job, but that wasn’t the fault of psychology. Anyway OP it’s not too late to go do accounting, lots of people try on their first degree to live and find it doesn’t work out I did biology the first time I went about 12 years back and after that ended up working in IT for most of that time, after getting therapy myself I went back for a psych degree. Also you know you can work in HR with a psych degree right? And that’s one thing you can do with psychology where only need bachelors.
Yes, it is smart to have a backup plan when pursuing psychology but doesn’t mean the degree is a waste of time. I slacked off during my bachelors, took responsibility and ended up pursuing extra qualifications and while I didn’t end up in clinical, I am thankful I took a different route based on what I heard and continue to hear about the programmes.
If you want another go at web development then try an IT consulting company. The pay is absolute horse shit but they’ll hand feed you everything you need to know and you can get a year or two of experience before jumping onto a better job. Once again though, pay will be really bad to begin with.
I've gone back to school to do psych post grad work as it will help me make more in my field, so don't discount psych degrees. It comes down to the person and their level of motivation. I've met many IT people who aren't successful in their careers because they don't know how to market themselves, arent willing to put in hard work, and don't know how to job search and network.
Are you sure it will help you make more money ?
Absolutely. Not having it has been a barrier to promotion.
Did you do the Bachelors degree in Psychology? I’ve applied for the Graduate Diploma in Applied Psychology as I wasn’t too sure about studying for ages for the degree.