Psychology Master’s Degree Programs in Oklahoma
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Oklahoma has got a little bit of everything going on in a state where you would least expect it. Big immigrant populations fit together with proud natives; agriculture and industry share the stage in state productivity. It’s an affordable place to live that has nonetheless been experiencing significant wage growth since 2017.
But Sooners have got some problems hidden under that robust, stolid exterior. The state also ranks as the second unhappiest in the nation, coming in only behind West Virginia in that dismal assessment. Clearly, Oklahoma is a state that is in real need of some professional psychological assistance.
Although there’s a lot of open country in Oklahoma, don’t let it fool you—nearly two-thirds of all Oklahomans live near either Tulsa or Oklahoma City, making those areas the prime focus for psychological practice in the state. You’ll need a comprehensive education that covers all the bases in urban as well as rural issues to make your way in a psychology profession here.
Oklahoma Higher Education Is Up To The Challenge Of Training Psychologists
Oklahoma isn’t a huge state, but with luminaries like OK State available to enroll in for your master’s degree in psychology, it has plenty of highly-qualified, well-respected programs for you to choose from.
The best part may be the value these schools can offer you—all three universities in Oklahoma that offered advanced degree programs in psychology are public universities, with the affordable tuition rates you expect from such institutions.
Master’s Degrees Lay On The Path to Licensure in Oklahoma
First the good news; if you are aiming at becoming a school psychologist, a master’s degree from a regionally accredited or NASP approved school will be all you need in the way of an education to get started. You can also become a licensed counselor with only a master’s degree.
A Marriage and Family Therapist license is also on the table for you if you earn a psychology master’s, provided the program is structured to meet the coursework requirements in specific subjects.
For full licensure as a general psychologist, however, you’ll have to build on top of your master’s degree with a doctorate. Picking the right APA-approved master’s as a base is vital to that process.
School Psychology Is Critical For Oklahoma’s Future
As a state that emerged from the one-time Indian Territory, Oklahoma has always been pretty diverse, but that trend has only accelerated in recent years with an influx of immigrants from around the world. Typically younger, often with children, this has transformed the Oklahoma public education system… but not in the way you might think.
Despite the possibility for disruptions, the state ranks among the best in pre-K education, is number four in per-student spending, and has a drop-out rate of under 3 percent, ranking it among the top 20 states in the nation for high school completion.
Much of the credit goes to the hard work of school psychologists and counselors, like those emerging from the master’s program at the University of Central Oklahoma.
Counseling Plays a Big Role in Oklahoma Psychology Practice
They sound like a train coming right at you, survivors report. Ripping trees and telephone poles out of the ground, flinging sheet metal like throwing stars, whipping sparking high-voltage lines around like a mad vision of Robert Bosch, the widest EF5 tornado ever recorded touched down near Oklahoma city, killing dozens and decimating the landscape.
At the center of Tornado Alley, Oklahoma gets way more than its fair share of natural disasters. Central Oklahoma experiences more tornadoes per square mile than any other place on earth.
In their wake, the Red Cross, local hospitals, and other agencies flood the zone with counseling services to deal with traumatized survivors and to provide assistance in rebuilding both shattered psyches and lives.
Industrial-Organizational Psychology Is a Life And Death Business in Oklahoma
When people in the United States think oil, they usually think Texas. But that’s just because of some big hat PR work at play… the Anadarko Basin, with almost 500 million barrels of crude in reserve and nearly as much natural gas, lies beneath both states. Oklahoma is home to Devon Energy Corporation and other major Fortune 500 oil and gas companies, and all of them have big and transient workforces to manage.
Oil and gas production has been big in Oklahoma for a long time but the state’s clear blue skies have been attracting aviation companies for a long time too. Aerospace is an $11 billion industry in Oklahoma, and it’s one that demands precision and vigilance from its workforce. You don’t get to have bad days at the American Airlines Maintenance and Engineering Center in Tulsa, where 3 shifts of workers service around 800 aircraft per year.
Industrial-organizational psychology specialists help work out the details of managing all these staff. They can also serve as experts on human factors in aviation, helping to design systems that reduce crew mistakes in operating the complex systems that modern airliners comprise.
Learning such advanced organizational assessment and design techniques is all part of the program at a place like the University of Oklahoma, which offers industrial-organizational psychology as one of its advanced degree specializations.