Street: Is psychology a hard major or an easy major? Brooke Tancer: You can make it an easy or a hard major. The way I'm doing it, it's hard. But you can do all 100-level classes if you want.
Street: Do you get to watch any experiments as a psychology major? BT: I've watched therapy sessions of drug addicts. That was kind of cool.
Street: Do you get to be in any experiments? BT: Oh, you have to! You're required to do experiments and not get paid for them. I was involved in one once where I had to touch a snake. Street: Do you ever diagnose yourself? BT: When people take Abnormal Psych, they're warned that they're going to think that they have everything. I tend to play therapist with my friends.
Street: Why is Freud everywhere but the psych department? BT: Psychodynamic interventions haven't been empirically tested. What Freud thought was that everything was about sex, and we've come to realize it's not.
Street: It's not? BT: Well, maybe everything is more about 'interpersonal difficulties.'
