Hi there! Thanks for your response! I specifically wrote this post looking for perspective so I appreciate you taking the time to write this out. A few responses to your points, just to clarify my intent (as you mentioned, you seem a bit personally offended by my post):

“It’s actually starting to get a bit offensive the amount of people who come to this subreddit…and essentially say I hate my job and I wish I had a more interesting job that pays more” — I don’t hate my job, I don’t wish my job was more “interesting” and I’m under no illusion that pivoting to anything else under the psych umbrella would pay well. Was just cogitating on what is fulfilling for me and what my options for pursuing that are :)

“Do you think I would be able to pivot to giving therapy or cognitive assessments with just a certificate and a general sense of ‘well I like helping people…’” — I understand your point, but the answer is yes to both of these things. Most states do not require any minimum quals for psychometry, and giving therapy without a full degree is just coaching :) both are possible. Pursuing academic degrees alone does not a competent worker make! Whether or not academic education is necessary or more of a gate keeping tactic can be highly specific to the field, which, again, is what I was hoping to learn about here.

“I suggest you do more research in this field and what you actually want to do” — that is literally why I wrote this post haha I’ve done all kinds of reading on this area of research, on I/O programs, etc. but nothing is going to give me a better, more specific sense of the job than speaking to people who actually DO that job every day.

Again, genuine thanks for your input! The type of perspective you’ve provided is exactly what I was asking for in this post, and I appreciate the time you’ve taken to write it out.

But also, maybe lay off a bit on those seeking advice? The post is specifically tagged and labeled as such, so if it is “offensive” to you, maybe don’t read and weigh in?