What courses in high school will prepare you for majoring in psychology in college?
For sure AP Psychology. But what else? Biology, human anatomy and physiology, English, and statistics? And why is each course helpful to psychology? I’m trying to plan out my high school years accordingly.
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Math and science are good, but don’t neglect English – you’ll need good reading, writing, and analysis skills. Also keep in mind there’s very little you can do with a psychology degree without at least a masters in the field. Anyone can major in psychology no matter what you took in high school; it’s the second most popular major.
It really is not that important; take the general pre-college courses and ones that interest you. You will get all these all over again in college and those are the ones that will count for grad school-where you will get even more.
Don’t get too tangled trying to take prerequisite courses, chances are, you’ll have to retake everything anyway. That’s something most high schools don’t want you to know! It’s very annoying once you get to college, they want you to take THEIR version of those courses (and typically it’s much more interesting and updated). Of course math and sciences are obvious, but depending on what your school offers, try and think outside the box. Maybe even take an Art class to see how different peers express themselves (think about Art Therapy). Chances are in every art class there are a few kids with really hard lives and art is their thing. Someday you can really relate and think back on them, almost like they are little lab rats you had before you knew all the stuff you will someday learn.
I’m a psychology major and I didn’t take any classes even remotely related to psych until I got to college. For example, human anatomy’s too detailed for psych, so its a waste of time, Bio although required is not going to help very much. Stats might be helpful, however most proffs like to breeze over that class because SPSS (a stats program) is so readily accessible that learning the math that goes into different stats equations is all but unimportant.
Basically take relatively easy classes so you can get A’s then get into a good Psych program and you’re set, no prerequisites necessary.
I would suggest that you take as many AP courses as you can, but be careful to not become overwhelmed. You get credit for passing an ap class and the ap exam. Whenever you get credit for these ap classes, it means less classes for you to take in college. This can benefit you academically and financially.