Is Psychology the right degree for me

The people on my course said the level 1 DE100 module was super boring.

Do u already have a degree? Are u able to do a conversion MSc?

I have a computer science degree so not much applicable to psychology

I've only just (quite literally - I submitted my EMA an hour ago) finished the 'Introducing Social Sciences' Level 1 module that starts all the Psychology degrees with the OU, and I've already had enough.

I signed up to do Forensic Psychology, but this first module was nothing like I expected, and definitely not anything I want to pursue. My tutor was lovely, and I had swift help any time I needed it, but I found the the written material very heavy going, so unbelievably dull that I just couldn't get into it. With the benefit of that hindsight, I've looked very carefully at the remaining modules I'm supposed to take, and it does indeed look like more of the same - heavily weighted towards social science. Not what I wanted at all.

The Tutor-Marked Assessments are all essays (six of them including the EMA), with just one iCMA comprising ten multiple-choice questions calculating information pulled from three or four different graphs, which I could have done with my eyes shut (and I didn't pass GCSE maths until I was 50). I somehow got pretty good marks for all the TMAs, but I suspect that's mainly because I have a good standard of written English (passed O-Level English Language a year early, a very long time ago!) and got my head around referencing without any trouble. The highest mark of all was for an essay where I'm sure I completely missed the point, but hey ho ... I wish now I'd stuck to my original plan, which was to do either Earth or Natural Sciences, so I'm going to let this one go, switch to an Open degree, and just take modules I'm actually interested in. I'm 14 years into an admin job I love, and I hope to be here till they kick me out at retirement, so I was doing it out of interest, not necessity, but it's only made my mind up for me.

Hello, I'm thinking about enrolling in the psychology degree the OU offers but was kinda disheartened when I looked at how the degree is structured and what modules it offers. I briefly read through Investigating Psychology 1 and 2 as well as the social introductory ones and while not completely daunting and boring they were more on the dull spectrum for me. This is strange as I did already a lot of modules at my local university the Karl Franzens University in Graz and they were awesome and finished all Exams I did straight with a First/A when I was guest student(Could count towards a later degree but I don't have the necessary A Level etc. that's why OU). And also read through a lot of books like sensation and perception, Biopsychology, Statistics for Social Science, etc...

I also fear that the OU Degree is too much essay based and as a non-native speaker I have a real disadvantage getting a 2:1 or first which I usually need to continue with a Master's at Brick and Mortar University.

Generally, it looks like I fall more into the Math, Statistics, and Biology(I work as a Data Scientist so not surprising) side of interest, and this degree looks more like the social science side of psychology am I wrong?

One thing I will say is don't let that one module put you off! I HATED that module - it was so boring! I found the rest of my degree course (Psychology with Counselling) a lot more interesting, though.

Any BPS-accredited Psychology degree is going to cover very similar topics. They have to in order to get that accreditation. This means a focus on diferent topics including biological, social, cognitive and developmental psychology, research methods and statistics. So all of those things will be in there to a certain extent. Taking a joint/ dual degree like I did could be a way to get more of what interests you in there. Alternatively, taking an Open Degree allows you to pick any modules you like, but in terms of psychology careers, you wouldn't get that BPS accreditation you need to be eligible for these. If you already have an undergraduate degree, doing an MSc Psychology Conversion course may be a better option, as this fits the knowledge required for a BPS-accredited degree into one year.

if i was to do a joint degree would i still get BPS accreditation? and is it too late to do a joint degree (i am going into 2nd year)

One thing I will say is don't let that one module put you off! I HATED that module - it was so boring! I found the rest of my degree course (Psychology with Counselling) a lot more interesting, though.

Hi Nerol - to be perfectly fair, I did take a second bite at the cherry, went ahead and did DE100 ... I'm 2/3 of the way through it, and it's really only confirmed what I felt previously - Psychology isn't for me. I had no intention of using the degree to further or change my career anyway, it was purely for my own interests, but all it's done is stress me out when I've already got enough on my plate with a full-time job I love (and will not be leaving), a business that's taken off massively since Covid and all the usual family stuff going on (trust me, it doesn't get any easier as they leave the teen years behind!).

I'm going to take the next year off (at least), and have a good think about where (or whether) I want to go on with this. DE100 has only now (20 weeks in) started looking at the biological side of psychology, and I'm more convinced than ever that I should just have stuck with my original plan of doing something specifically biology-related, or at least sciencey.

I will take some time out and gather my wits, then switch to an Open degree, or maybe start again from scratch, I don't know. I can't keep this up, I already have high blood pressure!