Psychology Degree?

[phantomtek]

Does anybody on here have one?

The reason is that I quite enjoy learning about Psychology and I would like a career based around it. I just finished my AS so I'm doing it at A2, which seems quite cool, I just thought I'd see if anyone has any experience of the subject at University level.

Is it interesting? Hard? Useful?

Because I want to either be a Psychologist, or maybe go into the Police and I think that having the degree in Psychology might help me because you would be a better people person, negotiator, or maybe give me a boost into Dog Handling which is also what I might like to do. It's just this sort of medium that makes me want to do it for a living, after I talked to Greg and realised it's the enjoying what you do for a living not how much it pays.

So any experience or comments are very welcome.

[Irezumi aka Reuben]

Live a bit before getting a degree in pshychology. People who you treat will find it patronising that someone so young is doing it/helping them, however good you may be, and no-one who has just gone through education can have experienced lot's of different thing's that would help make someone a good pshychiatrist imo.

Not sure on the dog-handling part though.
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[Kam]

I took psychology for an AS level, hated it, it was absolutely shite in my opinion, was just about learning studies, approaches and what not. But it could, like you say, help u get into the police force
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[Amorphous]

I'm currently doing a psychology degree at St Andrews - I've been doing it for two years and am going into Honours this September (Scotland has a four-year degree system, not three years like England and Wales).

My thoughts in no real order, and at great length :

Firstly, psychology degrees come in two flavours - BA and BSc. There is absolutely no difference between the two and students will attend exactly the same lectures, labs, tutorials and seminars, it just reflects the definition of psychology being both a science and an art.

I find it interesting, but that's a very subjective thing. I also found it interesting at Higher (similar to AS/A2, I think) level if that's any help. You tend to end up liking certain parts of the topic more than others, for example most of my classmates (including myself) hate neuroscience but like social or abnormal psychology.

Whether or not it's hard is also a bit of a subjective thing, since some people seem more adept at remembering facts or at learning highly technical information and so on. Students in other subjects tend to claim that psychology is a 'bullshit degree' which can be done by absolutely anybody and that their own degree is much harder... until they actually try it, at whicn point Art students find it scary because its too technical for them and Science students find it scary because its not technical enough!
It is the kind of degree that needs steady work, I think, if you spend most of the year lazing around and then cram for exams your comprehension of the subject will not be nearly as good.

Bear in mind that any psychology degree you do WILL involve doing statistics. This is easily the most hated bit of the course and doing badly at has dragged a lot of my classmates' marks downwards, one of them so much that he's now not allowed to do Honours Psychology, so it helps if you have a head for numbers.

A word of warning about the idea of becoming a 'people person': it doesn't give you social skills (or hasn't with me so far, at any rate). At best I think it may have given me a better appreciation of how best to behave when entering a given social situation, but that's in a very limited sense and certainly not refined enough for steering a conversation or calming people down effortlessly. It does help you spot salesman/marketing tactics, though.

As for the animal handling thing, the area of behavioural psychology is probably relevant (to do with 'conditioning', how to get an animal to respond in a certain way to a certain stimulus) but the vast majority of psychology deals with humans e.g. how we remember, what causes schizophrenia, alruistic behaviour.


Probably the best resource you can check out is the British Psychological Society website - when I was thinking of doing psychology they had downloadable leaflets with slightly cheesy names like 'So You Want To Be A Psychologist' that give information on what kind of jobs might require a psychology degree, the different sorts of psychology-related jobs and so on. The website also allows you to see which universities have psychology degrees accredited by the BPS - if you graduate from an accredited course then this gives you the Graduate Basis for Registration, this GBR allows you to become a member of the BPS, and this in turn is (apparently) considered good because it makes you a chartered psychologist (should you become a psychologist, obviously) which means you're answerable to an independent body and so on. Could be the BPS blowing their own trumpet a bit, and to be honest you'll be hard pushed to find a psychology degree in Britain that's NOT accredited.


Hope that helps and wasn't too messed up to read, English doesn't really seem a strong suit at the moment!

[phantomtek]

[Black Knight]

Aimee did it for her degree, personally, I think its a load of shite.

She's working in a nuthouse now with some real crazy mo fo's.

Next time you're over ask her about it...or you could even give her a ring if you want. Let me know if you want the number.

Rick.
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Where does a turn end? 'Where you can do anything with the gas you want to, where you are brave again, where your attention is free from the turn, where you are sure you can do it better next time; that's the end' - Keith Code.

[Amorphous]

[Itchy]

Phanny , if you do , do it then don't let the power go to your head , if you've studied psychology you will defo have read about the case where there was a mock prison made in the US where one party were fake guards the other party was fake prisoners , and the power went to the heads of the guards and they started to abuse the 'prisoners'
and the experiment was stopped well short of the alloted time since they feared the 'guards' would start killing the prisoners.


Milgram or something (been a while since I studied psychology),


Added the the fact the mental health acts these days are so broad sectioning is wayy too powerful like to get rid of political enemies and stuff.


That said you are 17 , which will allow plenty of time for your idealism and altruism to fade and turn to hard bitter edged cynicism.
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Spain 2008France 2007Big one 2009 We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. In the end, your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it is worth watching.

[phantomtek]

[Amorphous]

That's only if you want to become a clinical psychologist, and only because the competition for posts is so high. Doing a psychology degree doesn't lock you into a psychology career, it can be a springboard for many things! As you said it may help with a police career. In any event some people tend to think that 'the university experience' is in itself good and that the type of degree doesn't matter.

Good luck either way, and I hope I haven't scared you too much.

[cagiva gezzer]

The only good thing about psychology was the number of girls doing it.

Personally, it's a waste of space. Friends have done it and do not use it at all. Some of it might be cool to know, but it's never going to be classed as a proper degree. Same with business degrees.

I've been out of uni for 12months now. Out of my friends its been:

Business degrees - temp work in offices, bar jobs.
Marine zoology - volunteer work with fish, about 2 months paid.
Zoology - Volunteer work with a temp job at M&S.
Biology - Full time (well paid) lab job within 6months.
Chemistry - Further study.
Environmental biology - Full time environmental job within 6 months.

Anything animal based is volunteer, anything chemically based needs further study to be useful.

The world is flooded with psychology graduates, we don't need anymore. Do something useful like a degree in street cleaning.
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"because one stroke isnt enough and four strokes waste two"

[phantomtek]

[phantomtek]

[cagiva gezzer]

Lectures are not lessons. You can't puke in lessons, or twiddle the girl next to you.
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"because one stroke isnt enough and four strokes waste two"

[Kam]

[phantomtek]

[cagiva gezzer]

The people who are 25 around here who did a psychology degree a few years ago are just in normal office jobs doing routine jobs that anyone with a CCSE in English and maths could do.

I don't see that it opens up many gateways when it comes to employment. I'm in favour of science BSC(Hons) degrees as that’s what I’ve got and people at work have.

If you’re doing a degree for the sake of doing one for the whole uni experience, do a broad one with BSC(Hons) or MEng (is that right?) as they’re more transferable and recognised by employers.

Talking to my MD after I got my job he was saying how hard it is to get decent people with further education. At one end of the scale you’ve got PHD’s who’ve been so far detached from reality for 6/7 years that they’re not too good in the real working world and too specialised (perfect if they’re going into that field though). . At the other end you’ve got all the graduates doing super soft degrees (plant studies or whatever), then in the middle you’ve got all the mainstream popular degrees which are hard to sort out.

In the end you need to do something that you’re interested in at a place that you like.

Look around and see what everyone offers. I wrote off most unis just by reading the first few pages of the prospectus.

Don’t do what degree we tell you to do. If you don’t like the way its going you can always transfer within the first few weeks or after the first year.

If you do AS psychology and a uni degree you WILL spend the first year going over every single bit of your AS syllabus. Same with all courses. Can you really cope with that? I could just, I drank every night so that I was hung over for lectures.

If you know any successful business owners around you ask them their opinion on the employability of certain degrees.

However, life isn’t about the job you get, it’s about having fun and making the most of it. No matter what degree you go for you’ll have a great learning experience and loads of fun. But, you might come out thinking you’ve wasted three years…..
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"because one stroke isnt enough and four strokes waste two"

[phantomtek]

Cagiva_gezzer that is good advice, cheers for that. I was dead against going to University like I say but I heard it's worth it for the life experience so I'll go but turn my emo laser to kill, not stun. I'll probably get some prospectuses soon, I had a load but threw them away because I didn't think I would be going anyway. I'll probably go to Leeds MET or Leeds University, or maybe even Sheffield because then I don't have to travel far, not that I'm limiting my options just yet I'm just trying to keep the costs down.

I will look into the whole malarky further, cheers for your advice.

[Visitor Q]

Do not be another one of the muggy cunts doing psychology.

Its the easiest degree i've ever seen, and ive developed a healthy hate of psychology students.

Its the whole;

The reason you do this, is because of the edipus complex. You do that cos of the edipus complex. Freud this, freud that.

The will NEVER concede the fact they are just bloody theorys.

It was when one of them goes to me, you're the youngest of three right... then i KNOW your siblings are 2 + 4 years older then you.

Which does happen to be true, but there is no way they should be saying with such confidence a bloody obvious theory. Its quite obvious it takes around a year after birth for people to even consider another child. Its bloody obvious.

But its still a fucking theory!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You seriously have no idea how stupid the vast majority of the idiots are too, and trust me, i go to Bangor uni, EVERY cunts a psychology student.
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From September 2014 to January/February 2015 I will not be using any English, nor reading any. As such, I won't be on here. PM at will, but I won't be checking/posting unless in emergencies. Certainly not for the first couple of months. Please berate me savagely if I break that rule...

[cagiva gezzer]

That’s my hate as well. They put a theory to everything. Everything you do they put a theory to. The "attractiveness” of your girlfriend, your family background.. Oh, the list is endless.
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"because one stroke isnt enough and four strokes waste two"

[Amorphous]

[Itchy]

go do something useful instead like engineering / construction / architecture lots of cash in that , and maybe I'm biased but I'd personally love to say look I designed and helped build that (pointing at a very high large building).


In all honesty I wish I did one of those creative degrees or computer assisted manufacturing , I always come up with silly inventions.
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Spain 2008France 2007Big one 2009 We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. In the end, your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it is worth watching.

[phantomtek]

My Dad used to say stuff like that all the time, I built that house, we put those fences up, stuff like that, might not be much to you lot but I think it was really cooll him being able to say that. I went on work experience with him at his work and thoroughly enjoyed it though it was really hard manual labour in all weather, it was brilliant. I would probably get into that business if it had any long term benefits and stuff because I enjoyed it, but the business isn't what it used to be.

I'm starting to go against the Psychology degree more and more, and lean more towards a Science degree but that will have to wait until the end of the year until I get my A2 results or at least until I've done more of this year's Biology, like I say I find it interesting but the lessons are infinitely boring.

We are also taught that Freud is largely descredited these days.

Anyway, Freud said that your hatred of Psychology students all boils down to the Oedipus complex anyway.

[Visitor Q]

The thing is, i took psychology at AS too, and by crimbo i wanted to stab every psychology teacher i had. They are the michael shcumachers of teaching.

And psychology, is best summed up as this.

I have a theory that people dont like pain... so im going to get a batch of monkeys and poke them in the eyes with sticks... and then see if they come to me happily.

*poking... monkeys screaming*

Aha, the monkeys did not come to me, thus i have proved my theory that pain is not liked.



No shit sherlock.

I mean psychology is just common sense and the ability to call a spade a spade.
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China traffic/travel bike vid - When I make a sweeping statement, please add the word 'statistically' in to the sentence before you bitch...
From September 2014 to January/February 2015 I will not be using any English, nor reading any. As such, I won't be on here. PM at will, but I won't be checking/posting unless in emergencies. Certainly not for the first couple of months. Please berate me savagely if I break that rule...

[feef]

the Best degree you can do is one that you Enjoy, you find interesting AND has the prospect of a decent career at the end of it, even if the career is unrelated to the subject you study.

Don't let people tell you what you should or shouldnt do.

I'd reccomend doing a psychology degree IF that's what you really want to do, and are confident you'll do well and enjoy it.

yes, there's probably a greater prospect of a good, well paid career with a science or engineering degree, but if you're not interested in it, or don't enjoy it, then you are more likely to fail.

I'd rather see someone with a good psychology degree than a engineering drop-out with nothing.

by all means look about and see what else you find intersting, don't just do what people say.

a
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