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Pre-reading material, Psychology

Any advice?

Starting Psychology degree 08 entry, any advice on pre-reading material for summer? Or does no one really do this?

Reply 1

Ed.

17

Just use the summer to relax and party.

Reply 2

bowdeni

11

Yeah as above. I'd take it easy. I don't even do summer reading during summers during my degree.

Reply 3

louisedotcom

13

Yeah same as above, dont worry about it. Really not worth it unless you have absolutley no background knowledge of basic psychological concepts.

Reply 4

Muffinski

Carlson texbook on Psychology, I'll ref it later for you.

TBH don't stress and take the summer to relax.

Reply 5

gillipies

12

Yeah, same as above really - unless your uni sends you a list of stuff to read (not just buy - which I wouldn't do anyway until you've actually started and know which books you'll definitely want)

I didn't read anything and I was fine (having previously used my A level psychology knowledge about 2 years before I starting the degree!!)

Reply 6

mipmapped

13

William James's Principles of Psychology should keep you occupied until November-ish.

Reply 7

Lolly-88

13

As others have said don't do any reading....you'll have lots to do when the course starts

Reply 8

P_Ben21

OP

10

How have people found the work load? like how many essays a week? etc etc

Reply 9

mipmapped

13

How have people found the work load? like how many essays a week? etc etc

How many weeks per essay is probably the more appropriate question.

Reply 10

Basil Hallward

10

Take a well-deserved break over the summer holidays :smile:

Reply 11

yhal

One essay per semester here, which if you pick an interesting enough question you can get done in a few days. May depend on the person but Id always pick something you find interesting for an essay over something you think will be easy - might be harder but at least youre gonna enjoy gaining more knowledge on the subject and not be bored stupid.

And one practical report per semester which does take longer than an essay (ie 1/2 weeks instead of about 3/4 days...and they give you ages to do both essays and reports).

Reply 12

louisedotcom

13

P_Ben21

How have people found the work load? like how many essays a week? etc etc

Had 4 Essays and 3 lab reports in the first semester (October- December)
and 4 essays 4 practical reports in second semester (February- March)
On top of which we also had seminar tasks but they were never more than 500words, and a presentation at the end of each semester. Also we had to do 8hours/24credits worth of EPR, which is basically being a participant in 3rd year, MSc, PHD and lecturers experiments.

Second semester was pretty non stop with atleast 1 thing due in a week, but thats so we didnt have any coursework to do this semester and can concentrate on revision and stuff.

Reply 13

La Trampa

18

Take it easy,the lecturers..in fact no one expects you to do any pre-reading.
As for the first year workload, at my uni it was:
- an essay per module (2 a semester if i'm correct)
- 5 labs in the first semester (1 took 2 weeks) and then 3 in the last (the last 2 took four weeks, getting people ready for second year labs, longer lab reports and projects)
- there were tutorials fortnightly just to jog people's memories.
- exams at the end of the year

wasn't too bad actually :smile:

Reply 14

welshprincess

1

I agree with what everyone else is saying, use the summer to relax =] The amount you'll be expected to read once you start your degree will make you glad you relaxed all summer!

As for the workload, i'm doing a joint degree so i only got half the workload but i had:
*3 reports to write up about experiments
*I had to participate in atleast 3 hours worth of other peoples research and then put together a research folder with a reflective essay and 3 article reviews
*4 essays and 1 seminar folder
*2 tests throughout the year and i've got 1 exam this week

Its spread out quite a bit so its not as bad as it sounds and the reports are actually quite fun to do =] Every university is different though and the workload will be more if youre doing just psychology obviously.

Reply 15

IAmBetterThanYou

I found this website extremely useful and it set me up well for when I graduated also.

A Guide to the Menu at Starbucks

Reply 16

PsychNick

8

As above really - I'd say don't worry too much as you'll do enough work when you're there. However, I DID actually do pre-reading but that was because I took a gap year and so was at some points bored out of my mind lol. Even saying that though, I only read a bit.

If you really want to do pre-reading, the best ideas I think are:
i) If you did A-level Psychology, specifically AQA-A, check out all 15 Unit 4 options. You'll have probably done 3 at the time but knowing a bit about them all gives a great broad knowledge for PSYCH101 classes.
ii) If you want to see what you'll be learning, the best textbook for your entire first year IMO is the Eysenck book "Psychology: An International Perspective". Don't have it on the night stand though, it isn't for front to back reading, just general perusing - its like over 1000 pages and could probably kill if dropped from a small height. It is awesome though for essay work, has loadsss of reference leads you can follow up on.

But seriously, if you've just finished your A-levels this year... enjoy the freedom now while you can!

Reply 17

P_Ben21

OP

10

I finished my Alevels 07, i went back to do biology and chemistry...So i might do a little bit :biggrin:

thanks for your help all!

Reply 18

Melana

14

Depends what you're bad/good at. I wish I'd read up on stats because I'm rubbish at them, and now I feel like I'm quite behind :s because I couldn't keep up. But if you've got half a maths brain I'm sure you'll be fine.