Effectiveness of development and psychology degree

[Haymond]

I’m think­ing about becom­ing a develop worker. Mainly because of my desire to try and con­tribute to end­ing poverty. But how much of this job really tackle this prob­lem? Also I’m doing a degree in psy­chol­ogy, is this rel­e­vant in becom­ing a devel­op­ment worker? Will i need to do a mas­ter in inter­na­tional development?

[Ben C]

Devel­op­ment work can be frus­trat­ing, but it can also be very reward­ing. There are jobs that take you to the fore­front of prob­lems – where you are faced with real poverty, and on the other end of the spec­trum are jobs with donors, where you will often only deal with rel­a­tively rich gov­ern­ments, orga­ni­za­tions and other donors.

Psy­chol­ogy does not strike me as some­thing par­tic­u­larly suited to a career in devel­op­ment, but any degree (espe­cially social sci­ence) is use­ful, and wouldn’t pre­clude you.

You cer­tainly don’t need to do a mas­ters to enter inter­na­tional devel­op­ment, but there are some jobs that may be off-limits if you don’t have one. As with a lot of careers, some choose to take mas­ters degrees later.

Hope this helps and good luck in your decisions.

[Haymond]

Thank you for your reply, it has been help­ful. How­ever i do have some more ques­tions. What are these jobs that take you to the fore­front of real poverty? And any advice into get­ting these kind of jobs?

Thanks,
Haymond

[Ben C]

I’m talk­ing about devel­op­ment jobs focus­ing on grass­roots issues. Most often this is an area NGOs con­cen­trate on.

The best piece of advice I can give you, with­out know­ing much about your back­ground, is to do vol­un­tary work in whichever field or with whichever orga­ni­za­tion you are inter­ested in. Com­pe­ti­tion for jobs is plen­ti­ful, but also, bud­gets are small and NGOs are also often ill-equipped and under-resourced, mean­ing the great idea or ben­e­fit you think you will bring to the orga­ni­za­tion is likely to fall by the way­side, unless you are will­ing to take on the task your­self, with­out bur­den­ing the NGO with finan­cial or resource (includ­ing time) out­lays. Until orga­ni­za­tions see rel­e­vant work expe­ri­ence they will be reluc­tant to take you seriously.

By vol­un­teer­ing you open doors, by gain­ing rel­e­vant expe­ri­ence, and mak­ing con­tacts. It also allows you to see whether you are inter­ested in doing this for the long haul, and it should allow you to work for whichever orga­ni­za­tion you want – most will be happy to take on a vol­un­teer. There are also more estab­lished vol­un­teer orga­ni­za­tions, e.g. Peace Corps, VSO, but these usu­ally involve a selec­tion pro­ce­dure. The ben­e­fit of these spe­cial­ist vol­un­teer orga­ni­za­tions is that they offer a struc­tured envi­ron­ment, and training.

Pay­ing to vol­un­teer is prob­a­bly the eas­i­est way to find a posi­tion over­seas, but I would rec­om­mend look­ing into vol­un­teer­ing locally and then try­ing to get a posi­tion over­seas after prov­ing your worth. That way you can avoid the often extor­tion­ate fees asso­ci­ated with paid vol­un­tary positions.

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