How to know if a master's degree in Psychology is good?

A common experience among recent graduates in psychology degree training is the appearance of this disturbing question in their minds: what now? Plunging headlong into professional practice seems like a terrifying idea for anyone, for a number of reasons. Perhaps it could be due to the fact that many degree courses tend to focus the content of their study plans on a theoretical dimension and not so much. in practice, or that undergraduate training in psychology tends to focus on the clinical area, leaving other branches relegated to the end of the career.

In this way, there is the possibility that many recent graduates will be able to recognize which is the specific area of ​​psychology for which they are interested. interested and in which they would like to work in the future, but consider that they do not have sufficient training to enter the field labor. Fortunately, many universities offer master's degrees to train students in the particular field of psychology that interests them. However, a new question may arise:

how can one know if a masters in psychology is good? In this article we will develop a series of guidelines that can be used to assess the quality of the offers of this type of training.

• Related article: "How to become a professional in Psychology?"

Criteria to evaluate if a master's degree is good or not

In recent years, the offer of training for psychologists has multiplied in accordance with the developments of this discipline in its different branches. The spectrum of training opportunities is wide: in the clinical, labor, legal, social, community, educational, marketing, neuropsychology areas, and we could go on. Such a magnitude of elaborated knowledge makes addressing all the fields of psychology an incomprehensible task for the curriculum of any degree training. This reason leads many students to want to specialize in a specific area, and for this, training in a master's degree is a great option. To make the task of selecting a master's degree to enroll easier, below we will detail some tips to evaluate which is the best option.

1. Search for information online about the entity that dictates it

When deciding which master's degree to enroll in, it is essential to review What is the organizing entity?. There are multiple factors that we can analyze about the university that dictates the master's degree. Some of them could be the prestige of the center or university in general and in the specific area of ​​interest, or how long the university has been providing training. Taking these criteria into account could give us a clue as to whether a particular master's degree is reliable, since there are many programs that could have great benefits or values ​​so affordable that they could raise doubts.

Regarding the latter, however, we must consider that there is the possibility that a specialization course is very good and yet have few years of experience. This could be due to the fact that, for example, the branch you are targeting is relatively new. For this reason, taking into account which is the entity that dictates the master's degree is important, but it would not be convenient to let all the weight of the decision fall on this point.

• You may be interested in: "12 professional opportunities in Psychology"

2. Review study plans

A good idea to decide if enrolling in a master's degree is worth it or not is to check if your plan of studies is consistent with the degree offered, and above all, if it meets the expectations that have. It is of the utmost importance Keep a record of the study plans of the master's degrees that interest us in order to compare them. Some aspects that we can point out are the subjects or subjects that are taught and if they have a more practical or theoretical approach.

3. Check if the subject programs are up to date

On the other hand, we can also investigate the specific programs of the subjects that make up the training. Access to these is usually public, so we can start by entering the web pages of the universities to review them. In case of not finding them, there is always the possibility of sending an email expressing the intention of knowing more about the programs of the master's subjects.

Once we have access to these, it would be a good idea to analyze the foundation and objectives of the program in question within the framework of the master's degree that interests us. In these sections we could find information about the epistemological paradigm or the theoretical framework of reference from which the subject is approached. Considering whether a master's degree is good or not according to this criterion will depend on the type of training that interests us. However, we can agree that a guideline to determine if a master's degree in psychology is good is that its position be made explicit in its study plans and programs. The same with the bibliography corresponding to the course. Something we can also look at is make it as up-to-date as possible.

4. See if the teachers are specialized in the area

Another criterion that we can take into account to determine the quality of a master's degree is to review who the professors in charge of the subjects are. The names of some of them may be familiar to us if we are contemplating the possibility of enrolling in a master's degree taught by the same university where we completed the degree. If this is not the case or we simply do not know who they are, one possibility is to search for them in the browser to learn a little more about them: where they have been trained, in which branch they specialize and what their projects are in course.

5. Have external references

Finally, one of the surest methods to know if a master's degree in psychology is good is to contact someone who has done that training before. This too It will give us a different perspective than the one we can access through the formal route.. If we don't know someone, we can always contact a student or graduate and kindly ask them if they would be willing to answer our questions about the master's degree. Of course, it is important to consider that the response we receive from that person will always be sealed by their subjective experience. Another point of reference external to the master's degree to know if it is good is to find out if it has agreements with other institutions or companies to carry out professional internships —if this corresponds to the type of master's degree we are planning aim-.

Do you want to train in psychotherapy?

If you are interested in training as a psychotherapist, the Master in Integrative Psychotherapy of Mensalus Institute is what you are looking for. Here you can learn from psychotherapy professionals in their workplace, observing and participating in sessions with real patients. Its groups are very small, and it has a face-to-face or online format.