Undergraduate Psychology @ The University of Birmingham

I shall be starting this course in September and am interested in hearing from anyone else also on this course.

Any news/gossip regarding the course/freshers etc

Hi, welcome to UoB!

I'm starting second year BSc Psychology this September so feel free to ask me about anything about the course, I'm a fountain of random knowledge too haha :P

Are you looking forward to it?

i was thinking about doing a BSc, i just wanted to know what kind of assessments do you do? exams? coursework/assignments? is it heavy work load? I'm currently doing it at A level-its fascinating. (maybe teach it at A level)

Hi, welcome to UoB!

I'm starting second year BSc Psychology this September so feel free to ask me about anything about the course, I'm a fountain of random knowledge too haha :P

Are you looking forward to it?

Hey, thanks for your reply!

I recently received a Welcome Week booklet through the post from the University of Birmingham. Something called "Freshers Fair" is stated to run on both the Monday and Tuesday (running from 10am-4pm). As I'm living from home, I need to be somewhat selective with what I attend as the train journey is lengthy. Do you know exactly what this is and whether it's necessary to attend both, or either for that matter?

In relation to the course, the only concern I have is hearing various people discrediting the value of a Psychology degree. Can you shed any light on it's actual credibility amongst employers?

Hi

In my experience, the 'freshers fair' is very similar on both days, so if you did decide to go one day, you wouldn't miss anything on the other day. It's pretty much just a big marquee with stands from various local businesses etc, if you decide not to go, you won't miss much (except perhaps a free slice of pizza) but personally I found that it's not very awesome...

The better fairs are the societies and volunteering (which happen on the Thursday and Friday) where you can actually sign up to do things!

As far as the value of the course, I tend not to pay a huge amount of attention to what people say...there always seems to be someone discrediting something or other! It is a science degree, and as long as you get a decent classification it should stand you in good stead. There again I guess it depends on what you decide to do career-wise, but it's a good subject, and in my opinion the main thing you should care about at this stage is doing a course that you will enjoy/have a strong interest in.

Yeah I am extremely interested in the course, but employability prospects is always a lingering concern.

Thanks for your reply to both questions.

I forgot to mention that there's careers advisors on (Wednesdays, I think) in the psychology common room, as well as occasional seminars (check the noticeboards regularly as they're sometimes posted on short notice!) about careers and employability.

I also made an SRL link to books for first year compulsory modules: http://www.studentreadinglists.com/rlm/

Yeah I saw your link to the reading list. Thanks for that.

With regards to lectures/seminars/exams, is their any advice you would give to excel in the first year?

Some people have said Statistics can be the hardest module, so concentrate on that?

Is the Statistics module particularly hard?

Also when did you start to revise for exams?

So many questions, sorry ^_^

The main thing I'd say about lectures is to attend them and pay attention...I know it sounds like a silly thing but it's so easy to get complacent about missing them as the lecture slides are posted on the internet for you to look at afterwards.

Although first year marks don't count toward final classification, try to work hard as it'll give you a good understanding of the basic areas, and place s=you in good stead when you have to choose modules later (modules are allocated based on first year grades)

Exams in semester 1 are in week 11, so it's best to go through things as you go along to make sure you understand the topics. Sem 2 exams are in summer term, so you get the 4 week easter break to revise.

As for essays etc, don't leave starting them too late!

Statistics isn't too bad (although I do have A-level maths) but keep a positive attutude toward it and it'll be fine (same with biology) a lot of people complain, but keep positive and work, and it'll be fine

Don't be sorry about asking questions, I'm happy to help

Thanks for all of this, it's really reassuring

What kind of material is covered in statistics? I've taken statistics in high school and college, but I want to brush up on everything before the start.

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Hi

In semester 1, the research methods/stats element is really basic things like mean/median/mode, standard deviation etc.

In semester 2, t-tests, ANOVA, spearman's rank, chi-squared type-things.