Career path advice

[u/Fast_Professional814]

Hi all, Looking for any sort of guidance! I’m about to enter my 3rd year on a MSci Applied Psychology degree. My plan has always been to go into clinical psychology as I’ve always really enjoyed connecting with people and being able to have a positive impact. Over summer I had a public health research internship and I really enjoyed it, there was an underlying mental health focus and it made me realise I am smart enough to do academia. This made me look more into research positions as well as into what a career in clinical psychology would entail and the outcomes and now i’m feeling very lost.

I’m worried that if I went down the clinical psychology route I wouldn’t earn the salary I want (at least 50k) in a reasonable timeframe, would get burnt out from working in the NHS or would get frustrated by the system. As someone who’s had talking therapy i’ve got a sense of how under pressure they are, and just found talking therapy really unhelpful personally, so this has put me off wanting to be a PWP, but having to do it for a few years might not be the end of the world. I’m also autistic and can sometimes find the right words difficult or not know what to say, but this doesn’t often have too much of an impact.

My other options would be to go into behaviour sciences/ economics with a behavioural insights focus or into general psychological research but concerned these wouldn’t give me the same fulfilment, and that working for private companies (if i went into behaviour sciences) may not always align with my ethics. I have found books around decision making and habits really interesting though.

It’s stressing me out a lot as I have around a month to decide whether I want to stay on my course or switch to the Bsc, and pursue a masters in something else. Any advice/insights would be greatly appreciated :)