The psychology course has attracted many students from the country in recent years. This is what data from the last decade show, highlighting the growth in demand for this degree throughout Brazil.
According to the survey, between the years 2010 and 2021, there was an almost two-fold increase in the number of enrollments for this course, from 136,000 to around 290,000 students. But what led to this increase in the number of enrollments?
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Psychology is one of the most sought after courses at the moment.
Psychology is an area that has gained a lot of space in society since the beginning of the century. Much has been said about the new problems faced by society, such as the explosion in the number of cases of depression and anxiety.
It is due to these and other issues, such as the new areas of activity, that psychology became popular in the country. Throughout the national territory, the increase in the number of enrollments is 41%, a surprising fact at a time when enrollments in higher education courses are falling as a whole.
At USP, psychology is second only to medicine as the most popular course
The University of São Paulo, the most competitive in the country, revealed data that showed psychology as the second most popular course in its entrance exam, the Fuvest.
Currently, the ratio between applicants and vacancies is 70 in the psychology course, that is, for every 1 vacancy in the course, there are 70 competitors. This number, which was once 45 candidates per vacancy, is surprising, second only to the medical course, which is 118 vacancies per candidate.
In an interview for Sheet, Ana Maria Loffredo, director of the Institute of Psychology at USP, says that the current scenario is entirely from the last century. She says that the psychology course began to occupy a “space of prominence” that did not exist before.
The professor explains that the high demand is related “to a very acute and diversified demand for psychic suffering in contemporary society”.
“Faced with all the issues related to mental health, training in psychology has come to occupy a symbolic place that other health professionals are unable to fill”, adds the professor.
Current situation of psychology in the country
Asked about the increase in demand, professor Flávia da Silva Asbahr, coordinator of the psychology course at UNESP, cites some reasons. For her, this high demand is linked to the expansion of the professional performance that the psychologist gained.
Nowadays, it is difficult to imagine a society without psychologists, destined to treat one of the biggest current public health problems, which are mental disorders. The professor says that: “In the 1990s, when I did my graduation, the only thing I thought about was clinical care”. But she points out:
“Today, professionals are open to new possibilities, for example, school psychology, sports psychology, emergency response, such as environmental tragedies or the pandemic itself.”