High School Credits Needed to Become a Psychologist
- Psychologists are first and foremost, social scientists. They apply scientific methods in all of their work and ideally let data and logic, not personal emotions, sway their diagnoses and treatments. Science classes like chemistry and biology are fundamental for teaching you these methods. They also provide clues about basic human anatomy, which relates to psychological function. For example, in a biology class, you may learn the process of how neurons in the brain develop and send messages through the body. An understanding of these functions will help you spot instances where a patient's psychological problems may relate to disease or be assisted through medications.
- The psychology field involves a great deal of math, primarily because psychologists have to acquire data through research. For example, they may need to apply statistical principles to figure out what percentage of their clients see improvement in a trial of a new therapy technique. Measurements also are important, since a good psychologist has to understand the amount of medications clients may be on.
- Languages like English and courses like composition are essential to psychology because you will need to keep good records and write research reports. Familiarity with connotations and word choice will help you catch the hidden meanings in what people say. Courses like history, religion and sociology all teach you what motivates people to act as they do. With an understanding of these motivations, you are better equipped to analyze psychological needs.
- Because high schools often focus on getting students to earn good test scores, and because of budget cuts, many humanities classes are disappearing from high school course offerings. It may be harder for you to find the classes you ideally should have as a result. A solution is to dual enroll so you can get your humanities classes at other academic institutions. With many facilities offering distance-learning and online courses, you should be able to earn the credits recommended. Your high school guidance counselor can give you tips on specific courses to take for entrance into different colleges. Not every high school will offer psychology classes, but you should take both basic and advanced psychology if your school provides those courses. If there are certain courses you cannot take for logistical reasons, don't fret -- you can take basic levels of the courses you'll need in your freshman year of college. The only downsides to this are that it reduces the number of credits available to pursue other courses and that it requires that you pay for information that you might have gotten for free otherwise.