advice on taking a gap year VS going to university?

I'm a psychology student... I'll try to not be too offended by your comment of it being a "less respected degree" I'm not mad, don't worry, although I feel your impression is (incredibly) wrong. Trying to address everything in your post roughly in order:

If you still want to become a clinical psychologist/researcher, then psychology is absolutely the degree for you. It is not a "less respected" degree, in fact, it is very much a respected degree that allows you to jump into a great deal of many other jobs and even other academic fields, so knock that idea out of your head! And don't think that your grades are wasted in psychology or in a university just because there are those with higher entry requirements. You need to do what makes you happy, even if your grades allow for different paths. Also note that any perceived reputation universities might have actually bear a negligible impact on your future prospects post-university, instead the degree classification you achieve is the biggest predictor of success post-university, so go to a university that you like, regardless of how well liked or disliked it is by the rankings! This is backed up by data (that I now seem unable to find... )

Getting a well paid job in psychology is hard and it takes time, but there's something to be said about chasing your dreams rather than the money. That being said, if you want to chase the money, psychology does allow you to go into other fields that will probably pay better and quicker.

But you should still ideally chase your dreams. But you should sort out what your dream is first. You've just rejected Medicine, and are reconsidering old options as well as new ones like dentistry. You need to do your research and give it some long, hard thought as to what you want to do. That will probably mean making a decision already into your gap year. So, tackling the issues you've raised:


I think you need to think what you want to do and come up with an answer, however long that takes. If it means that you want to do psychology at Bristol, then by all means accept that offer and go to uni. But if that's not what you want to do, or you're unsure, or you want to go elsewhere, you should absolutely take a gap year to buy yourself time to think about what you want to do and come up with the answer. Don't rush into a decision you'll regret.

McGinger has given you a few nice links of things you can do in your gap year that means you can move out during your gap year. Here's another one which also allows you to do something nice for the planet, if you're into that sort of stuff: https://wwoof.net/

I hope that this post was at least somewhat useful, and please don't hesitate to ask for more assistance in TSR if you feel like you're in need of it
SY

thank you so so much for such a detailed response !! i really appreciate your time in reading my post and helping me out ☺️ i’ve firmed the psychology offer & will take some more time to look into careers throughout the next few months !! it’s exciting to be looking into new options outside of medicine that i’d been pushing aside thinking medicine is the best option i had

and i definitely feel more reassured about psychology, tbh the negativity around the degree is what put me off in the first place but i absolutely love the subject + don’t mind doing extra degrees and training so i think my gut feeling is to go for it atm !!

PS. you said you sat the UCAT too, i’m just wondering if you were also planning on medicine before going into psychology , or was it for something different ?