Cryptozoology and Parapsychology Careers

*Originally published on 4/24/09



Watching shows on the History Channel, Discovery Channel or Science Channel, you'll notice that there are a lot of people who have careers studying things like Chupacabra, extra-terrestrials or ghosts. They have degrees as well as doctorates and make a living studying the supernatural.
Where was this when I was looking at colleges? I certainly never saw anything cool like "Cryptozoology" or "Parapsychology" in the list of available majors. Peter Venkman has a Ph. D in it, why can't we have one? I don't care if people dub it a "pseudoscience" it's a fascinating topic.

How cool would it be to write your thesis about ghosts? There's a ton of fodder to use, the thing practically writes itself. Not only that, but you could follow that up by becoming a ghost chaser. OK, so there are no proton packs or PKE meters but it really is the next best thing (unless somehow people come up with a way to make playing the upcoming Ghostbusters video game into a viable career like they did with Halo )

It really is a sweet gig, you get to write books (fiction or nonfiction), travel the world looking for these things, and even present lectures. You get a little bit of everything with this sort of career. If there had been a school with either of these two subjects as a major you can bet that that is what I would've signed on for.

With the economy the way it is, jobs have to be created one way or another. Why not allow some people to go into a career as a cryptozoologist or parapsychologist? You'd get not just the people who go out chasing these things, or people who write books, but professors who teach. It opens up jobs on several levels.

The more parapsychologists and cryptozoologists there are the better. They can join to form their own private corporation or organization. We may even be able to find Nessie or figure out what's on the other end of the dimensional rift that is the Bermuda triangle.

With majors like Philosophy and Sociology available (both interesting things, but not exactly subjects that offer viable careers short of teaching them later) there is no reason that Cryptozoology or Parapsychology can't be added to the list. I would love to be able to add Ph. D in Cryptozoology to my resume and business card..if I had a business card.