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New Mexico Psychology Schools – NM
By an allied health world contributing writer
Published: February 5th, 2010
Becoming a psychologist takes a lot of education, so it’s best to start thinking about it early. It would be helpful to begin planning your career as a psychologist while you are in high school. Make sure you take (and study hard for) classes in psychology, chemistry, biology, physics and math. A psychologist is a behavioral scientist, and learning to think like a scientist will help give you insight into finding solutions to your patient’s mental and behavioral problems.
Do not neglect the humanities, however. Taking classes to boost your understanding of sociology, literature, religion, history and language will help you as well to understand yourself and your patients. And naturally, doing well on your standardized tests and with your grade point average will help you get into a better college.
Knowing—upon entering one of the psychology schools in New Mexico—what kind of psychology you want to pursue professionally will help you focus the classes you want to take. Should you choose to major in psychology, you will learn how to conduct psychological research, which, along with a good score on your Graduate Record Examination, will appeal to graduate schools where you apply.
You must then earn a two-year master’s degree in psychology, which by itself would allow you to become, say, an industrial-organizational psychologist. But you will likely work under the supervision of a psychologist who earned a doctorate diploma through one of the psychology schools in New Mexico.
To practice psychology without supervision, you must pursue your PhD (Doctor of Philosophy), including your dissertation, demonstrating the original scientific research you will conduct. This is the degree favored in the academic world. The alternative is to earn your PsyD (Doctor of Psychology), a newer degree placing more emphasis on clinical practice and less on research.
In either case, it takes at least five years to earn your doctorate.
Through campus based and online programs, aspiring Psychologists in Albuquerque, Las Cruces, Santa Fe, Rio Rancho and Roswell, New Mexico may be able to prepare themselves for the possibility of employment in some of the largest hospitals and healthcare facilities in the state including the St. Vincent Hospital, Presbyterian Hospital, St. Joseph Hospital and Memorial Medical Center.