Dilemma

Most of my friends of my age are about job hunting, as their university life comes to an end. I, on the other hand, am worried of which pathway should I choose. Initially, I was so gung ho on doing clinical psychology because I wanted to become a clinical psychologist. I have a huge interesting on eating disorders and throughout my four years oftertiary, I've done two research essays on eating disorders and both were the best papers I had ever written (not trying to blow my trumpet here... ). However, now I am reconsidering this ambition of mine because of most tutors have informed me the importance of the PhD. I came into psychology, with knowledge that with a Masters, one can gain the accreditation to become a psychologist but the PhD will enrich one's career. After all, there is a reason why so many psychology related jobs demand a strong research background.

Not that I do not love clinical psychology. It's just the thought of doing the PhD that scares me. Imagine all that writing and reading!I mean, I'm three years into university and I feel pretty worn out by the essays and readings. Maybe because the Melbourne Model degree works differently from Honours or Masters. I mean, in the past two and a half years, I've done a broad range of subjects. Each subject is rewarding in the sense that each of them teach me more about the world but it comes with the expectation that one is able to finish their essays on time. Bear in mind, the minimum amount of essays I have per semester for my second year was eight. The maximum was ten. I have only twelve weeks per semester. That's an average of 0.84 essays per week. It is taxing and at some point, I felt dehumanized. I felt that I was just some essay-writing cum book-reading machine. I was about to give up but I did not because I was so damn persistent on the whole idea of doing psychology. And now, here I am. Very much alive and kicking.

Then again, maybe postgraduate programmes are not as demanding as a bachelor's degree in! a sense that a degree requires you to scatter your attention to different fields of knowledge...

Apart from that, the university fees bit is a bit awkward as well. Currently, my degree costs me about 29000 AUD per year and I will only be seeing the numbers increase every year.

At the moment, I am considering consumer or industrialorganisationalpsychology. Both are pretty interesting and demand more working experience than finishing a PhD. Plus, I have a strong interest towards consumer psychology and work stress issues.

However, I just want to keep options open. Just in case my overwhelming passion towards eating disorders, depression and Facebook addiction get the better of me and my mom wins the lotto. Just in case.

Anyway, I've discovered two new food items. One is marinated baby crabs, a Korean drink snack. Another is some weird passionfruit-like fruit that has its origins from New Zealand. It's called tamarillo.

Oh and tomorrow, I'll get my braces removed!!! Rah cheer!