School Psychology? Help.

[TheOhioStateUniversity]

To give everyone a little background information I am a sophmore at the most prestigious university in the world. All jokes aside, I am currently undecided and admittedly kind of lost as to deciding on a major. One thing is fairly clear, I believe I would get the most reward out of working with young adults (middle school age) to some capacity. The obvious first idea that came to mind was the profession of teaching. There are several reasons I am a bit hesitant about teaching in middle school, mainly I took a class last quarter that allowed me to sit in on a 7th grade class 4 days a week to observe and paricipate in a more limited role than student teaching. I thoroughly enjoyed the interaction with the children but I do not think I have the personality or patience to deal with a room full of middle school children by myself. Also, the pay is not that great and to my knowledge the job prospects are bleak in Ohio. My mother, who is a speech pathologist recommended school psychology for me. I have been reading up on this field but I was wondering if anyone in the community could offer some insight as to the responsibilities, pay scale, and rewards of the position. I know in Ohio you are not required to get a PHD in order to work in this field and Ohio State has a 2 year master program followed by a 9 month paid internship. If anyone could answer these questions or point me in the direction of some other avenues I would appreciate it. Pay is not the most important thing but I would like to live very comfortably (whatever that equates to yearly). Time is running out for me to declare and I am very discouraged at this point.

[st.cronin]

I would suggest not worrying about what sort of career you are going to have, and just follow your interests, whatever you think those are at this point. I believe you'll be happier in the long run.

[Eaglesfan27]

One of my friends and colleagues was a school psychologist before Katrina hit. She also "only" had a Masters degree. She was responsible for covering 2 public schools in a suburb of New Orleans. She was paid about 40,000/year. She also saw private therapy cases and made about about 30k/year doing that.

As far as her school responsibilities, she mainly was responsible for screening for depression, suicide, and homicide in at risk cases. If an "incident" happened at a school, she was responsible for the initial triage and crisis management. This often entailed evaluating the child for 30 minutes or so and the frequently sending them to the psychiatric emergency room that I work in. She didn't get to do nearly as many therapy cases at school as she would have liked, and she felt she was often stretched between the two schools (which each had about 300 kids.)

However, I'd imagine there is a great deal of variability depending upon where you work and in what type of school setting.

[Eaglesfan27]

Dola -

The "paid" internship varies by state but can be as low as about 20k/year in some states.

[panerd]

Advice from a teacher here. I really hope this doesn't come across as negative because it isn't intended that way at all. But if you have concerns about pay before you even start the job you should not do it. I work with quite a few men who rethink the pay issue everyday and complain about it just as often. The way I look at it there are plenty of benefits of teaching/education... complete autonomy, satisfaction of actually making a difference from what you do, the local community holding you in a high regard, long vacation time during Christmas/Spring/Summers and days like tomorrow :D . But pay is not one of them (even for the psychologists) and never will be. So if you think this is really what you want to do know that in 15/20 years you will still be making middle of the road pay. I love the job, do part-time work that I enjoy over the summers, and I end up making a pretty good living. I will never have a second lake home, but most people don't.

As far as dealing with the kids, it is completely different when it is your own classroom. You set the standard for how strict (or unstrict) you would like to be. This will ultimatly blow up on you for a few attempts, but eventually the kids will behave and interact at whatever level you want them to. And no college experience (including student teaching) can even give you a glimpse of how different having your own classroom is. So if you really think you want to work with kids don't worry about your education 101 experiences and do it. But as long as you work for the government you need to remember the money is never going to be there.

[TheOhioStateUniversity]

thanks to everyone so far

[GrantDawg]

All I have to say is good luck. School Psychology is a great but tough field. If I could afford it, I'd go to school to do that as well.

[M GO BLUE!!!]

I am proud of you.

It is the rare student at your school that can sctually spell a word, much less string several sentences together in a complete paragraph. Good job!

[Butter_of_69]

I am proud of you.

It is the rare student at your school that can sctually spell a word, much less string several sentences together in a complete paragraph. Good job!

What was that?

Sorry, couldn't read that, what with all of these Fiesta Bowl trophies blocking the monitor here.

[Barkeep49]

There are other ways to work with middle schoolers than in a school setting. I personally love working with them as well, but have done so through a youth center and religous group envoirnment, in addition to teaching them. If you really like working with the age and want to be in a school envoirnment I would suggest perhaps trying school social work instead. There tends to be more consistent interaction with students rather than the piecemeal involement of a school psychologist.