J. Wyatt Ehrenfels entertains many e-mails from practitioners, academics, graduate students, and undergraduates. But no e-mail was relished more than one from a discerning high school senior with a critical eye to his own future:

"I'm a high school senior who has, as many do, been pondering upon what major was right for me. I felt that psychology is a broad enough major that it allows for many avenues and for the present seems like a reasonable major. However, after reading some of the critique and hearing some of the response from those who have come from the field, I'm beginning the reevaluation of my decisions. Having been a 3 time state champion debater and having heard every possible critique under the sun and defended many of them, I have learned one thing that I use to evaluate critiques. It comes when I realized that you can critique things all you want but without providing a feasible alternative then it is utterly pointless. So my question to you (you being those who support this critique and i guess most importantly the doc) what is the alternative you suggest for a person in my position who graduates in 7 days and is in some of the final stages of deciding on a major in order to begin college? What major do you suggest? And what form of discourse are you suggesting with your critique? If this is a question that has been answered or something that is relatively dumb, please forgive me but like I said I'm just emerging in the academic community."

Ehrenfels offered the following as advice to this and all high school seniors toying with the idea of selecting psychology as a college major.

"Good question. I actually have an essay on the web site that addresses this, but it would be cold for me to refer you to it, so I'd like to respond personally.

"Psychology can be effective in an adjutant role, which is to say as a (1) collection of courses, (2) a minor, (3) a second major or (4) an interdisciplinary major. But if you are inclined to stake your education and your future in only one major, Psychology is a poor choice.

"Many majors have innate psychological implications. Criminal Justice. Human Resource Management. Public Administration. The psychological aspects are more efficiently and also effectively engaged within these majors than in psychology, which is rather vacuous with respect to substantive content and issues. Case in point. I once provided administrative support for a Department of Management Science, which resided in the Business School rather than the College of Arts & Sciences. I was surprised to learn that the curriculum and the instruction of this department entertained personality and small group dynamics with far greater scope and depth than any one of the 9 psychology departments with which I have been affiliated at one time or another.

"Unfortunately, while a course or two in psychology may be useful, most colleges require Introductory Psychology (and in some cases even other courses) as prerequisites to the advanced course or seminar. I suspect this insures faculty some regularity with respect to expectations of teaching load, but it also protects them from a critique like my own, which might inspire bright and open-minded individuals like yourself to cannabilize the curriculum by taking this or that course cafeteria-style. (I find it humorous that psychology professors tell students that without Introductory Psychology, students would be lost in the more advanced classes. The prerequisite system does not reflect a true latticework or stepwise gradation).

"But whatever you decide, be guided by this principle. You want to put together a package of skills and knowledge that you can sell to employers. But in addition to career preparation, you also want to satisfy your most compelling curiosities and get a good general education. Psychology, in my opinion, neither trains nor educates. More accurately, it trains undergraduates for graduate school in psychology, which will be beyond reach of most undergraduates anyway given all the competition for limited spots. Now some psychology majors do go on to graduate studies in Public Administration, Criminal Justice, Human Resource Development etcetera, but I would not rely on the undergraduate psychology major as a reliable stepping stone to these objectives. I regret wasting my time in Psychology's over-extended and arid curriculum, with its handful of substantive ideas spread thin or repeated ad neauseum across 12-15 courses. If you want an education that builds -- one in which you can grow personally and professionally -- you may wish to consider coordinating public service/business courses or, even better, life science courses. There is a great range of employment opportunities for even the BA who does not pursue an advanced degree if that BA is in a life science.

"A general education is often not a silver bullet. While an improvement over Psychology, the General Education major may not work within the constraints of many prerequisite systems, where you would end up surveying a spectrum of survey courses as if from a discount buffet. Survey courses are organized by textbooks, the true uses of which are limited to syllabus design and instructional padding. They serve the instructor and should never be assigned as primary readings for students. The content of the course is thin and leveraged against hundreds of students thrown into an auditorium which serves as a bush league for the real 'majors.' Little if any real or lasting learning occurs in studying for the mass multiple-choice exams, and little if any real or lasting learning in taking the exams and in reviewing the results of the exams.

"The key to getting the most out of college is to understand it for what it is. College is first and foremost a factory for mass certification and socialization. It is where you pay in semester installments for a diploma that will qualify you to apply for jobs. Graduates pretty much roll off an assembly line. If you want to build a bigger life and mind for yourself, you will have to expend some effort to rise above the idiot machine by exercising care and research in the selection of courses and professors and by avoiding incarceration in the wrong major. The psychology major is a prison that cuts you off from stimulating challenges and sources of ideation. And when you've finished serving your sentence, you'll find yourself with something like an ex-con's reputation. You won't have what you need to engage in meaningful intercourse with the world. Even philosophy majors, while notably handicapped in the job market, can earn a reputation for being critical thinkers and perhaps even good writers. There is a skill set associated with the philosophy major, and unlike psychology majors, philosophy students are not forced to swallow one hotdog after another. This is not to say that I endorse the choice of Philosophy as a single major. But for those who feel called to such a major, I would not allow the career preparation risks to scare you into its bastard cousin, Psychology. Psychology will offer no greater access to jobs, and a steady dose of philosophy courses could refine mental skills, allow you to engage your natural disposition to contemplation and reflection, and build character, faculties which are lost in the psychology slush. But perhaps most importantly, the attitudes of graduate faculty in Psychology, as well as the policies and procedures that regulate professional training and development, adversely affect the careers of those called to study the human condition. In this field, we like to make milestones contingent on the kind of personal sacrifices that adversely affect genuine professional development. True professional development (not institutionalized reinforcement for following instructions) encompasses adult maturation and individuation. Do not believe any professor who claims that scientific progress requires a steady mind-numbing course of immolation. Just remember that the next time you see an abnormal psychology instructor boast about how far we've come as a discipline since the days of bloodletting.