Overhearing 2 psychology students on the train yesterday (I assume they are psychology students with their knowledge of careers in psychology)…

“Did you know that a psychologist’s average pay in Singapore is only 4 to 5 thousand dollars a month?  But in overseas, a psychologist’s pay in a private sector is around 9 to 10 thousand dollars.  That’s almost like a professor’s pay in Singapore.  Four to 5 thousands dollars is like a nurse’s pay overseas.

The issue is that psychologists are not considered as prestigious as other professionals like doctors or lawyers.  Even teachers in schools seemed to be of quite a standard.

Maybe we should aim to become professors.  The main difference between professors and psychologists is that professors publish more papers.  Even if you are a psychologist in a private sector, you will only publish a few papers a year.  With more papers published, you get more fame and more pay too..”

I could hear no more, and plugged my earphones into my ears, and continue watching the movie I was watching on my phone. I did not really wished to correct them on the spot, though I had the urge, because they were somewhat correct.  So here I am writing about it, to release my urges, to correct whatever I felt was a mistake…

1)  Not all professors in Singapore get a pay of 10 thousand dollars. Some do get less.
2)  The reason for why the pay overseas are respectively higher is often because of their standard of living.  You do not pay for a plate of chicken rice or fried noodles overseas for $3 or $4.  Often, even in food-courts in Australia, the cheapest meal/main dish you can find is at least $7 to $8.  So a direct simple comparison of salary is quite a wrong way to compare.
3)  Being an academia is not an easy thing.
4)  Studying psychology is not only about getting the salary, the fame, or number of papers published.  There are often reasons why people remain as psychologists, than to go into academia. They probably have not read this post: Money vs Passion: Will being in this field get big bucks for me?

This might be a casual conversation between the two girls, with me overhearing just this part of the conversation, but this was the part I heard.  A final note to everyone studying psychology, if you are into psychology for the money, you are probably in the wrong field of work or studies..

Disclaimer: The conversation abstract may not be fully accurate as I am just iterating whatever I can remember that I heard. The conversation was mostly in Singlish, but I have written it to be more of a proper and correct English level.