After W&M

Decisions, decisions

As a student of psychology, you will have a lot of options after you graduate. Sorting through them all is a process you should start soon after you declare your major. It might be tempting to put this process off until after graduation, but that is a very poor strategy.

Keep in mind that this is a process - not something you can sit down and knock out in an afternoon. During your first couple of years at William & Mary, you should choose a wide variety of courses to help give you a sense of which major to select. When you take courses within your major, those courses can give you the knowledge you need to help you plan your next steps.

Most people have two broad options after graduation: to launch a career, or go to graduate school. In our department, the numbers of majors making either choice is split roughly 50/50. About half our majors immediately look for a job, the other half apply to graduate school.

One of the best resources for helping you think through this decision is your major advisor. The more you meet with your advisor, the better they will understand your goals and strengths, and the better their advice will be. Another place to seek help is the Office of Career Development & Professional Engagement. They host career and graduate school fairs, can help you find internships, and offer several self-assessment tools.

We also have a network of Psychological Sciences alumni who are happy to discuss how their W&M experiences have helped them along their paths.

You will lose important opportunities if you wait until the senior year to start making long-range plans. Sophomores and juniors have plenty of time to plan to take any specific coursework needed for a particular graduate program or find the internship that will make them a stronger job candidate. Seniors' time is running out to make those plans.