On Line Psychology Degree
There are many students who are interested in the field of psychology as an area of study, but who may be unsure of what kind of jobs are available with a psychology degree. The fact of the matter is that the field of psychology is one that is constantly growing and changing because of advancements made in the field itself and in fields that are associated with psychology. Some of the advancements have to do with new knowledge about the physiology of the brain and how it relates to human activity. Some other advancements are related to job growth in the field due to outside forces such as changes in laws, or medical advances, or a need for program evaluation in other work fields.
The field of psychology is very broad and encompasses many different aspects. Using scientific methods, psychologists work to have a better understanding of the workings of the human brain and associated outcomes that have to do with thought and emotional and behavioral patterns. An online degree in psychology can lead to many different career paths that are in almost every field of work, from child care to military service.
If you decide to enroll in an online college to study psychology, you will learn about the many different areas of psychology that are being affected by advances in the field. One area that is being greatly influenced by medical advances is the study of language development in deaf children. Understanding how language affects development in children and their subsequent brain development is a field that is now attracting a great attention because of developments like cochlear implants that can bring hearing to profoundly deaf children. Without understanding the psychological impact of hearing and language loss, perhaps some of these amazing developments would not have taken place. As recently as the mid-1900s, children who were profoundly deaf were often institutionalized because it was believed their mental abilities were diminished. With advances in psychology, these notions have been proven to be completely unfounded, thus giving children with physiological conditions like deafness a much brighter future.
Another area of advancement you may learn about in an online degree program in psychology is the area of legal rights for mental health patients. Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, it was becoming more and more apparent to practitioners in the field that stigmatizing patients with mental health issues was detrimental and counterproductive not only to the patients, but to society as a whole. New anti-discrimination laws were put into place that greatly affected segments of the population that had before been either underserved or ignored.
With a psychology degree, you may be able to focus your attention on the area of physiological psychology, or biopsychology. These two fields concentrate on the physiological or biological aspects of the human brain that can affect emotions, behavior, or even learning processes. Much of the work in these two sub-fields of psychology is conducted in a laboratory, usually with non-human subjects, but sometimes with humans as subjects. Understanding the link between the biology and physiology of the brain has led to advancements like mood-altering drugs to treat depression, or the knowledge that vigorous exercise naturally increases mood enhancers in the brain called endorphins.
Schools online that offer psychology degrees will likely also focus on the field of program evaluations and intelligence testing. Many work fields outside of psychology rely on the knowledge that has been developed over the past few decades regarding the ability to psychologically evaluate potential candidates for various jobs. For example, police departments rely heavily on these evaluations to determine whether or not an applicant has the necessary psychological make-up to participate in this sometimes dangerous field. Often life and death decisions must be made in the blink of an eye, and making sure the people who hold these jobs are psychologically able to handle difficult decisions is important for the safety of the officers, as well as the general public.
Another area that has seen advancement is the area of educational psychology. Online colleges that offer courses in this will focus on many different aspects of education and the psychological aspect of learning. For example, many school districts now recognize that children with certain disabilities or physiological conditions learn differently than others may, and have special programs to meet the needs of those children. An example of this would be the schools that have special learning programs for children with autism spectrum diseases. Another subgroup that might be a focus of educational psychology would be children who are considered gifted, usually determined by a series of tests given by a child psychologist. Some of the tools that might be developed by an educational psychologist would be instructional design programs, types of classroom management, or different kinds of educational technology.
Being in an online degree program that focuses on psychology will give you a very wide range of choices in the work field and a free college course could show you the basics. New advances are continually being made in the field of psychology, which only serves to create a brighter employment picture for students who are interested in pursuing a psychology degree. Those students will have an opportunity to be in a field that is dynamic, and possibly life-changing, not only for themselves, but for those whom they serve.
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