I Need Help With A Very Important Decision!!! (NOT Related to Poker)

[roundhouse]

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Psychology will help you understand people and that will be +EV in all of your endeavors.

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This is a common misconception. And if I see anyone else type "and it isn't even close" I might just scream. It is very close.

Before I go on. I no nothing of the US system (which I assume you're in) harking from the UK as I do, but I know a fair bit on these subjects. I have a BSc in Psychology which included a year's worth of Philosophy courses (I went on to do an MSc is something not a million miles away from Economics too).

You should do which ever one you enjoy more. Both will teach you transferable skills (problem solving, structured thinking, writing & presentation skills etc.). Both are really a collection of very disparate subjects. I don't think one has an advantage over the other in terms of fitting with your Economics degree. If you have the option to try both, do it, then decide.

My 2 cents on each subject (dusting off my memory):

Philosophy. All science can trace it's origins to philosophy. All religion and politics have philosopical content and critiques. In other words, philosophy touches everything. If you do it well it'll make it might make you a more logical being; but you're not going to have any practical exciting stuff to do (lots of textbooks, discussion and writing). Majority of philosophy students are male.

Psychology. A science - don't let anyone tell you otherwise - and one of the newest. Being a relatively new science it is not as well understood by joe public (and this includes future employers). This leads to ignorant Qs like "can you tell what I'm thinking then?" and the like. Being a new science there are more developments; theories tend to have a shorter shelf life in new sciences, which leaves plenty of scope to discover genuinely new stuff. But unless you intend to become a lecturer/researcher this probably doesn't matter so much. Work wise psychology nutures many of the same skills as philosophy but adds hands on stuff like designing and carrying out experiments... on people.

And the most important thing. Majority of people taking psychology are female (7 to 1 ratio when I did it [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] ).

RH