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What career should I go for that involves both psychology an calculus?
I'm a senior in high school and I think I've decided to do something related to psychology. However, I heard that psychology doesn't involve much math beyond statistics and I think my skills lie in conceptual math like calculus. Any recommendations for my next course of action or major?
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Joseph’s Answer
Well here is something u may find interesting, Mathematical or Quantitative Psychology careers. I provided a link which should be helpful. Good luck
https://www.apa.org/education-career/guide/subfields/quantitative/education-training
https://www.apa.org/education-career/guide/subfields/quantitative/education-training
Updated
Chinyere’s Answer
Hello Ava,
Good question you've got here! If you’re looking for a career that combines psychology with calculus, a field like cognitive science or neuroscience might be an excellent fit! These disciplines often use advanced math, including calculus, to model how the brain processes information, understand neural networks, and develop computational models. Here are a few potential paths for you to consider:
1. Cognitive Science: This interdisciplinary field combines psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, linguistics, and philosophy. Cognitive scientists often use calculus and other advanced math to understand learning, memory, and perception. This major could allow you to explore mathematical and psychological aspects together.
2. Neuroscience: Neuroscience, especially computational or quantitative neuroscience, involves using calculus to model brain functions and understand the nervous system. It’s heavily research-focused and often requires advanced math to understand and analyze brain data.
3. Quantitative Psychology: Quantitative psychology focuses on developing mathematical models and statistical techniques to study psychological phenomena. While this career may lean toward statistics, you’ll still find opportunities to work with calculus when modeling psychological processes or analyzing complex data.
4. Behavioral Economics: This field blends psychology and economics and involves developing mathematical models (often calculus-based) to predict and analyze behavior in economic contexts. You might study how people make decisions, which involves both psychological insight and mathematical modeling.
5. Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence (AI): A path in AI or data science, with a focus on psychological data or neural networks, could involve significant calculus. Machine learning models, especially in areas like natural language processing or neural network design, draw from psychology and require strong math skills.
To get started, consider pursuing cognitive science, neuroscience, or psychology with a math or computer science minor. Also, as you move forward, seek out research opportunities in labs that focus on quantitative psychology or neuroscience.
Best wishes!
Good question you've got here! If you’re looking for a career that combines psychology with calculus, a field like cognitive science or neuroscience might be an excellent fit! These disciplines often use advanced math, including calculus, to model how the brain processes information, understand neural networks, and develop computational models. Here are a few potential paths for you to consider:
1. Cognitive Science: This interdisciplinary field combines psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, linguistics, and philosophy. Cognitive scientists often use calculus and other advanced math to understand learning, memory, and perception. This major could allow you to explore mathematical and psychological aspects together.
2. Neuroscience: Neuroscience, especially computational or quantitative neuroscience, involves using calculus to model brain functions and understand the nervous system. It’s heavily research-focused and often requires advanced math to understand and analyze brain data.
3. Quantitative Psychology: Quantitative psychology focuses on developing mathematical models and statistical techniques to study psychological phenomena. While this career may lean toward statistics, you’ll still find opportunities to work with calculus when modeling psychological processes or analyzing complex data.
4. Behavioral Economics: This field blends psychology and economics and involves developing mathematical models (often calculus-based) to predict and analyze behavior in economic contexts. You might study how people make decisions, which involves both psychological insight and mathematical modeling.
5. Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence (AI): A path in AI or data science, with a focus on psychological data or neural networks, could involve significant calculus. Machine learning models, especially in areas like natural language processing or neural network design, draw from psychology and require strong math skills.
To get started, consider pursuing cognitive science, neuroscience, or psychology with a math or computer science minor. Also, as you move forward, seek out research opportunities in labs that focus on quantitative psychology or neuroscience.
Best wishes!
Updated
Tony’s Answer
Hi Ava,
Regarding your question, mathematical, quantitative and experimental psychology are specific programs within psychology that involve "higher order" math. Careers include
.Psychometricians or professionals design and analyze psychological tests and assessments. Also
quantitative psychologists work as data scientists or analysts, applying their skills in statistics and data interpretation to various industries, including healthcare, finance, and technology. Careers in
Human Factors apply principles of psychology and engineering to design products and systems that improve human interaction and performance. Others include Market Research professionals and
User Experience (UX) Researchers.
Spend time researching programs and universities that might work for you and offer you practical experience along the way so it can help you decide where you might want to work. It's an exciting and growing area as I think the future will require more such professionals due to the UTadvancements that are happening.
Regarding your question, mathematical, quantitative and experimental psychology are specific programs within psychology that involve "higher order" math. Careers include
.Psychometricians or professionals design and analyze psychological tests and assessments. Also
quantitative psychologists work as data scientists or analysts, applying their skills in statistics and data interpretation to various industries, including healthcare, finance, and technology. Careers in
Human Factors apply principles of psychology and engineering to design products and systems that improve human interaction and performance. Others include Market Research professionals and
User Experience (UX) Researchers.
Spend time researching programs and universities that might work for you and offer you practical experience along the way so it can help you decide where you might want to work. It's an exciting and growing area as I think the future will require more such professionals due to the UTadvancements that are happening.
Updated
Mitchell’s Answer
I'd suggest looking into things like Item Response Theory or Patient-Reported Outcome Measures as a next step.
While the emphasis is on human factors and experience (the psychology aspect) there's a fair bit of math involved.
If these turn out to be tools you'd be interested in using, applying and/or developing, then next step of course would be looking for jobs that involve them.
Good luck!
While the emphasis is on human factors and experience (the psychology aspect) there's a fair bit of math involved.
If these turn out to be tools you'd be interested in using, applying and/or developing, then next step of course would be looking for jobs that involve them.
Good luck!
Updated
Christine’s Answer
Hi Ava, thanks for reaching out! While there may not seem to be overlap between psychology and math, there are a lot of different career paths that utilize the skillsets from both. Psychology is a great study for understanding how people operate (almost every career involves working with and creating solutions/providing services for people) and math (like calculus) is mainly rooted in complex problem-solving skills that can be used in almost any field.
As you're thinking about your next steps (and it sounds like choosing a major for higher education), think about why you're drawn to psychology and what it is that you like about calculus. If you like calculus for the problem-solving aspect, there are ways to apply that to psychology in research and practical application. If you really love working with numbers, then perhaps look more into STEM majors and identify ways to bring a more "people" component into it with skills you learn in psychology courses.
There are also niche majors or certificates at some universities, like Cognitive Science or Human-Computer Interaction, that combine the social sciences with math. Looking for inter-college degree programs (which let you combine majors between an engineering department and a liberal arts department) are another route as well.
As you're thinking about your next steps (and it sounds like choosing a major for higher education), think about why you're drawn to psychology and what it is that you like about calculus. If you like calculus for the problem-solving aspect, there are ways to apply that to psychology in research and practical application. If you really love working with numbers, then perhaps look more into STEM majors and identify ways to bring a more "people" component into it with skills you learn in psychology courses.
There are also niche majors or certificates at some universities, like Cognitive Science or Human-Computer Interaction, that combine the social sciences with math. Looking for inter-college degree programs (which let you combine majors between an engineering department and a liberal arts department) are another route as well.