In my two years at RPI, I have naturally met a large number of people who have asked what my major is, and of course I respond that I am a psychology major.
Now, in my mind, there is nothing wrong with being a psychology major, but my response will invariably earn me a strange look or a "you can’t be serious." Well yes, I am.
Unlike many of the psychology majors at other schools, I have no intention of being a clinical psychologist. If I were it would be ridiculous for me to be attending RPI. However, I am far more interested in studying psychology as a science—something that might actually make sense at a technical school.
It may surprise you to learn that MIT has a fairly reputable psychology department. While I realize that MIT and RPI are not one and the same, it does bring to light the fact that a technical school can have a good psychology department.
Further, at RPI there are a lot of research opportunities. This is because of the fairly decent staff in the department, which is engaged in some interesting projects. Without leaving campus it is possible to obtain the kind of experience that any future employer would look for. More importantly though, going to a scientific school like RPI helps you develop a scientific approach.
Back in the 1800’s it was perfectly fine for Sigmund Freud to randomly theorize about people’s behavior. He was a pioneer in the field. He could get wealthy aristocrats to pay him an awful lot of money just to listen to them and pretend he knew what he was talking about. He never did any research and merely developed theories based on what he thought people should think.
Today Freud would probably be strung and quartered by his fellow psychologists. When discussing psychology as a science, you will rarely hear postulations about what a person may be feeling or thinking. Instead, models of behavior are created based on what can be measured through either observation or self reports. Theories just aren’t believed any more unless there are numbers to back them up.
Without the kind of training that can be found at RPI it is very difficult to be taken seriously in the world of psychology today. If you think of it like that, it makes sense to major in psychology here.
