Analogies: The Healthy Diet Pyramid

I have brought this analogy up in previous posts but it may not be obvious to how it also symbols the education and work specificity of people studying psychology. This is something we all learnt in primary and secondary schools in Singapore in health education. It is the Healthy Diet Pyramid.

This picture is from the Health Promotion Board of Singapore. For more details, please view here.

So how does this pyramid represent the educational levels and jobs in psychology?

As for educational levels, it can be seen with the bachelors degree holders being at the lowest level, and honours degree holders at the middle levels, and the postgraduate degree holders at the highest level. In here, the pyramid is based on the number of students who are doing the respective levels of studies. As you go up the pyramid, the path to becoming a psychologist gets tougher, as it gets more difficult to enrol into the programs after the undergraduate one. Here is the post that mentioned about this pyramid.

As for work specificity in psychology, the pyramid is similar to the previous one with the bachelors at the lowest level and the postgraduates at the top; the main difference is that the jobs get from being less specific to most specific towards the top. The below descriptions from this Jobs post explained it very clearly. 

Diplomas/Degree holders: A lot of jobs to choose from, however they tend to be more general and of a lower status level and pay.

Honours Degree Holders: Jobs may include those of the degree holders as well, but fewer jobs as they now become more specific such as research assistants.

Masters/Postgraduate Degree holders: Jobs now become very very specific and little. Common jobs include psychologists, lecturers and tutors. 

Studies and jobs, all within one simple pyramid.