Mature age (40) return to study. Financial implications

[laynie]

Considering returning to study a psychology degree at age 40. I know it takes 6 years to be registered. I have no debt, kids or dependants. I do rent and have a good deal at $390 p/W. Around 250k liquid at the moment.

I am wondering if this is going to screw me in the future? Main reason I am considering return is to do something where I can help people. Work one on one with people and earn a decent wage. The APS recommended rate is $300p/h these days. So when I finish people will likely be charging that or more per session.

I've taken 6 months off from my old job and I'm at a point where I just don't think I can go back to labouring, mining or an office job. I have no qualifications in anything. I've been fortunate in that I have been employed in lots of interesting jobs, but as I've gotten older I don't want to be doing high stress jobs where I am in charge of complex projects or on the tools.

 

[andeyolynn]

@laynie Diploma of counselling is 2 years online

You have to attend practical assessments

You also need to register once you qualify

Their material is sourced from Harvard

My mum studied it when she was 50 & ran her own business for 10 years

It’s not an easy course though she met a guy who had failed the prac assessment 4 times

https://www.aipc.net.au/courses/diploma-of-counselling

 

[sonnabendasw]

@andeyolynn Probably a dumb question but how do you fail a prac assessment in counselling?
Edit: 4 times too

 

[andeyolynn]

@sonnabendasw They were pretty intense apparently. I never took one so I cant really judge

 

[sonnabendasw]

@andeyolynn Fair enough!

 

[ericph]

@andeyolynn Hmm the link you shared says 12 months, online

 

[andeyolynn]

@ericph My mum did it in 2006 so it may have changed

 

[calbertvivier]

@andeyolynn Yeah but how many clients though?

 

[jackslick24]

@andeyolynn The diploma of counselling is also enough to be able to bill around ~120 an hour as a behavioural support for NDIS clients. Definitely a shorter pathway than psych even if half the wage its a sixth of the effort.

 

[karacohen]

@laynie I don’t think your reasoning is strong enough to take on 6 years of intense study. Also I don’t think you’ll get the outcome you seek. My two friends who are psychs don’t enjoy the work and are just doing it for the money. Both are your age now. I suggest seeing a career advisor.

 

[girlwholovesgod]

@karacohen

I suggest seeing a career advisor.

To this same end, perhaps the best (and don't take the word 'best' lightly; there's heaps of investigation you ought to do) action you can take is to seek out a slew of people with more [*insert industry*] experience than yourself. Doing so saved me years and gigajoules of hassle and grief (or so I think, without visiting an alternate dimension where I made the mature age career change). More explicitly:

Uni 2nd year students (To give you what was getting in like, while still fresh, but with a bit of stand-off hindsight.)

Senior students nearing graduation. (How's uni gone? You've met people who attended X instead of Y -- would you go there instead?)

Recent grads a year or two after graduation. (Got a relevant job? What's the job market like? Experience thus far vs what you expected?)

Journeymen or whatever you'd like to call the folks who have cleared all the academic and professional hurdles, and have been working in the industry long enough to trusted to work alone. I sense in a lot of professions this is when folks decide whether they're going to make a go of the industry as career / life, or make moves to something semi-related (or altogether new).

You're going to want to particularly seek out some experienced people who are aren't toeing the party (uni faculties, employers, professional bodies' PR departments, ...everyone who stands to make a quid off you) line. Journeymen who are getting out themselves, for real, tangible, meaty reasons. Ask yourself what sour grapes sound like though.

Masters / people making hiring decisions / people near retirement. Be forewarned that some pieces of advice hailed from the opposite end of the career pipeline can be pretty far-removed and/or crusty.

 

[mort_rainey]

@laynie You don't want an office job or a high stress job.

Psychology is a high stress office job.

 

[laynie]

@mort_rainey I know it's high stress, but it is not high stress in relation to deadlines and dealing with multiple parties like my other roles I have done in project management and engineering. I can work alone and practice privately. I did say this in my original post.

It's a one on one basis, the person comes for 40-50 mins. We talk I hopefully help them, they pay and leave. I might see them in a week or a month, or never again.

 

[scriba]

@laynie Ok I gotta speak up, I think you're being a little naive here. Do you think therapists come into each session completely unprepared? You will have 10 deadlines every single day. You will have deadlines to write up patient reports as they move to a different therapist/go to court/apply for restricted medications.

And then on the stress front, if you have 50 patients, that is probably 30 human beings who are highly dependant on you. You will have calls at 2am demanding an appointment because they are suicidal. You will have parents of patients blaming you for 'infecting their children with lies' and threatening to take you to court. You will also need to go to networking events and kiss arse of every doctor in your region so that they will send you patients.

Please, please don't try and do something like this for the money. You can only survive in this profession if you truly, truly love it.

 

[holygodjesus]

@laynie This isn't really the right attitude. You aren't just talking, you're helping them discover what in their trauma or patterning has made them act this way and then giving them strategies to help break this habit so they don't continue the undesirable actions.

 

[moonwalker_03]

@laynie I can say that despite postgrad being extremely competitive to get into, most universities have had to reconsider their admission standards because seeing patients, writing reports, and doing full time coursework, and writing a thesis, means that several of the 15 or so postgrad students each year were dropping out due to burnout or breakdown. It is not low stress as a study or as a career. Consider the suggestion of counselling instead. It is much more in line with your expectation of therapy than what a psychologist deals with.