What is the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population? If you guessed older adults (individuals 65 years of age and older), then you got it. This growth has a major impact on our world, including the job market and your future career opportunities. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that jobs related to aging services will experience some of the most growth.
Despite the potential for a highly rewarding career, most students interested in psychology do not choose a career focused on adult development and aging. Within psychology, students tend to pick niches and frequently veer towards specializations like clinical psychology, cognitive psychology, social psychology and developmental psychology with an emphasis on early life.
The reality is that there is a broad range of exciting and personally fulfilling career opportunities to work with older adults in both psychology and other intersecting fields. For example, you can study clinical psychology and focus on geropsychology and provide needed services to older adults. You can combine interests in psychology and engineering and design applications and technologies to help older adults remain independent. You can major in business and advise older adults on investments, retirement and estate planning. There are endless aging-related career possibilities to explore.
You just have to know how to get there. Easy, right? Not so fast. One reason many psychology students don’t embark on an aging career is that it may be difficult to find information about how to explore such a career path. Thankfully, the American Psychological Association’s Committee and Office on Aging have created a great website for you to explore. The Exploring Careers in Aging Roadmaps are step-by-step educational roadmaps (one for undergraduates and one for graduate students) to help you learn more about career opportunities in aging and ways to prepare including questions to consider, actions to take, many real-life examples of aging focused careers and lots of resources.
So besides, checking out the Exploring Careers in Aging Roadmaps, what else can you do?
- Talk to your psychology teachers and professors and ask them if they know anyone who studied aging or works with older adults and if you can set up an informational interview.
- Gain practical experiences in working with older adults, right now. Volunteer or find shadowing opportunities with older adults in places like senior centers or with programs such as friendly visiting programs and engage in internships and practicum experiences with older adults if you are an undergraduate student. In these practical experiences, you can ask your supervisors about their career trajectory.
- Find teachers and professors who are teaching classes in aging or have projects that include older adults and ask if you can assist. If you are an undergraduate student, inquire about being an undergraduate research assistant. It’s also helpful to get to know graduate students and have them as mentors because they know what it’s like to be an undergrad. They may be able to relate to you more effectively than a faculty member.
- Build strong and effective communication skills. Regardless if you’re interested in going into a research or a practice-oriented career, it is essential for you to effectively communicate — both verbally and through writing. Encourage mentor and instructor feedback on your written work and try to improve to become an even more effective communicator.
- Get to know statistics and how to read research articles critically. Whether you’re interested in pursuing a research-oriented career or a practice-focused one, it is important to understand statistics and know how to critically consume research articles.
Figuring out what you should major in and what sort of career path you want to take can be a challenging and exciting process. Allow yourself to explore the possibilities in aging.
About the authors
Walter R. Boot, PhD, is an associate professor of psychology at Florida State University and chair-elect of APA’s Committee on Aging. He received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in visual cognition and human performance. Boot is one of six principal investigators of the multidisciplinary Center for Research and Education on Aging and Technology Enhancement (CREATE), a long-standing National Institute on Aging-funded center dedicated to ensuring that the benefits of technology can be realized by older adults. His research interests include how humans perform and learn to master complex tasks (especially tasks with safety-critical consequences), how age influences perceptual and cognitive abilities vital to the performance of these tasks, and how technological interventions can improve the wellbeing and cognitive functioning of older adults.
Maggie Syme, PhD, MPH, is an assistant professor in gerontology in the Center on Aging and serves as a faculty member in the School of Family Studies and Human Ecology at Kansas State University. Her background is in counseling psychology and public health, with a doctoral degree from the University of Kansas and MPH from San Diego State University. Her clinical postdoctoral training was concentrated in geropsychology and neuropsychology as well as a research postdoc in cancer health disparities and aging. Prior to coming to K-State, Syme was a research assistant professor at San Diego State University working on grant-funded research from the Alzheimer’s Association on sexual decision-making among cognitively compromised older adults. Her research interests center on sexual health in later life and across the lifespan, sexual decision-making in long-term care residents, and person-centered long-term care.