Pros:
-Plenty of careers with a background in Psychology
-An Honours degree looks good to potential employers and you will usually require an Honours degree to get into graduate school, if you choose to go that route
-It's an interesting program

Cons:
-A large program?

All in all, you need to be interested in whatever you take in university. If you're not interested in something, no matter how 'popular' it is, you're not going to enjoy it and the chances are that you won't do very well either.

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High School Graduate '10
Will be applying to:

That's not necessarily true. With a Psych degree, yes it'll be difficult to get into anything directly Psych related (psychologist, counselor, etc.) because you'll need additional training. However you can become a teacher, you can get into marketing, you can get into advertising, you can get into public relations, etc. The possibilities are endless. No degree is useless. It depends on what type of person you are.

In terms of how difficult it is to get into graduate school for Psych, I wouldn't say it's extremely difficult or anything. I'd say that a GPA of ~3.5 should get you into most Psych grad programs. It really depends on the school, though.

You don't necessarily need to become a Psychologist if you're going to study Psych. There are always many, many people who get Psych degrees. They all go and do their own thing. I know a few people who have a B.A./B.Sc. in Psychology. They did the following: high school teacher, went to get their MBA, went to grad school, went into advertising, became a therapist, got into social work, etc.

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High School Graduate '10
Will be applying to:

Perhaps the same reason I do not dare pursue a career in philosophy, history, etc. Supply and demand. Supply and demand.

Go for what your passion is. If you take something due to external influences, you might be making the largest mistake in your career path. Yes, it might be possible to change it, but it'll be much more difficult.

Nursing despite sounding terrible is actually a fairly vigorous program. I know people who are going into that field from Second year and it has much higher requirements than one would originally suspect. The GPA required to enter nursing is similar to that of a graduate Medical School, around 3.7 for U of T and they only accept about 80 students or a small number who transfer from other streams in the Third Year I was told. The main difference between nursing and medicine is the focus. Nursing focuses on talking and interacting with patients, while medicine deals with treatment.

For those individuals that listed pro/cons of psychology - to become a psychologist requires at least a Masters (rare) and most of the times requires a PhD or PsyD. Psychiatry requires an MD and for the other jobs such as teacher, I believe they are already listed.

Main differences between psychiatry and psychology:
1 - The former has a MD, the latter a PhD/PsyD (both are graduate degrees).
2 - The former can give out medication, the latter cannot.
3 - The latter focuses on treatment via emotional and social counseling, the former on medication and physical manipulation (e.g. chemicals and hormones via medication).

Pick whichever is right for you (whoever started this Post... too lazy to check).

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Meh.
For all people needing information about university, please refer to the following link first due to the excessively repetitive questions: University - Applications, Finances, Extracurriculars, etc. Please and Thank You.
Leaving the forum for good.

The intro course is probably a prereq for a number of upper courses, I would take that first

take nursing instead of psychology, psychology=unemployment

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I am in first year university and therefore may give amazing advice.

Chemical Engineering/Metallurgical Engineering

What you said regarding the field of psychology is true. The field of psychology will have more and more job openings in the future, which means the demand in this occupation is increasing. However, getting a graduate degree is competitive. I am exactly trapped in this kind of situation. Now, with a psych B.A. and applying to M.Ed. in 2 months. If I don't get accepted into grad school for the first time I'll re-apply the 2nd and even the 3rd time. But, after 3 times of failure, I'll just go with a B.A. Because I do have many years of academic research experience, I'd still be able to find a job in the academia (ie. research assistant position), but I can't be a counsellor/psychologist. This is the downside of a psych graduate degree, is competitive and no way out unless you don't mind end up doing something totally unrelated to psychology for the rest of your life.

Well, I don't regret choosing psychology as my major. If I have to choose my major again, I'd choose the same thing. In fact, I don't think I am interested in any other field other than psychology. Psychology B.A. is not completely useless. I believe people can jobs with any degrees, it just takes time.

Yes, I know textbooks are expensive and they change edition every single year, but since it is an intro course the basic materials are all the same. I don't know about used ones, but new ones typically a little bit over $100 at the UBC Bookstore. Actually, I found the study guide useful; I did all the questions and kept up with the materials and ended up with a decent mark in psyc 100.

If you want cheaper books 1) buy used one from the UBC Bookstore (but I doubt they have used ones because they change their edition almost every single year) 2) buy used ones from other people who used the same book 3) if you are living in Vancouver, you can go to UBC Village, there's the discount bookstore (near McDonald in the UBC Village) they sell brand new books but is cheaper than UBC Bookstore