Do you think you might regret choosing psychology?

Original post by Kasad

I'm currently in the middle of a "is Psych for me?" meltdown.
Whilst I love the Biology, I am sometimes left wondering what use my degree is, as my career interests have changed from Criminal Psychology to thinking more along the lines of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins.

Really, I'm not sure where to go, but the Neuroscience/Biological Psychology fields are most appealing to me right now.

Christopher Hitchens? Eh? Are you saying you want to swap psychology for religion bashing, surely you can do that in your own time?

What year are you in at uni? I was considering swapping to second year biological anthropology after my first year, which is a rarely considered option but its really good if you like evolution (which is what im assuiming you meant when you referenced dawkins) and you like studying people.

Reply 64

skotch

16

Yeh I had a bit of a "Psych meltdown". Also in the second year of my degree. Was more to do with the lack of solid answers and the fact first year was the easiest thing ever and 2nd year is huge jump, and we don't have enough support so we don't exactly know how to improve or what we're supposed to do to do well.
I also really should have done a gap year... think it would have helped a lot.

Reply 65

I do Psychology and am looking to change my course to Economics. I hate social psychology and the abundance of conflicting answers and lack of objectivity in questions. I also hate all the girls who apply to be on the course wanting to be clinical psychologists and know F all about it. So many people seem to do Psychology.

I just feel like I'm cleverer than this and should be studying a more intellectual degree.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 66

Original post by RobertWhite

I do Psychology and am looking to change my course to Economics. I hate social psychology and the abundance of conflicting answers and lack of objectivity in questions. I also hate all the girls who apply to be on the course wanting to be clinical psychologists and know F all about it. So many people seem to do Psychology.

I just feel like I'm cleverer than this and should be studying a more intellectual degree.

How much social psychology do you have to do? I don't particularly like it either, but its not enough to make me want to quit (although next year it becomes a third of my couse :s-smilie:

). And please, economics is in no way a more "intellectual" degree...

Reply 67

*Hakz*

15

Original post by iammichealjackson

How much social psychology do you have to do? I don't particularly like it either, but its not enough to make me want to quit (although next year it becomes a third of my couse :s-smilie:

). And please, economics is in no way a more "intellectual" degree...

I would say it is. More academically rigorous too.
I honestly don't mean to put psychology down like this

Reply 68

GeneralOJB

Psychology is a stupid pseudo-science subject taken by mathematically illiterate women who find it "interesting". Oh well doesn't everyone.

They deserve it if they don't enjoy it.

Reply 69

dgeorge

12

I loved psychology. There are probably a lot of people saying they didn't like it because there's a lot of people doing it. Its a pretty popular course

Reply 70

L.O.V.E

13

I have a friend who is doing Psychology at Warwick and she loves it! I think it all depends on the person, I am doing psychology at AS and I'm not enjoying it as much as my other subjects so I definitely won't be doing it at uni.

Reply 71

Original post by *Hakz*

I would say it is. More academically rigorous too.
I honestly don't mean to put psychology down like this

Original post by iammichealjackson

How much social psychology do you have to do? I don't particularly like it either, but its not enough to make me want to quit (although next year it becomes a third of my couse :s-smilie:

). And please, economics is in no way a more "intellectual" degree...

Economics seems a more useful degree for me to have. I want to go into business and more recently, areas relating to finance. Economics is definitely the best degree to get me there and one I hopefully would find much more interesting. Economic graduates are some of the most sought after graduates.

Well, I'm hoping it's going to be more academically rigorous because that's what I'm looking for. Once again, Psychology is becoming more of a memory test for me than a challenge at the moment. I'm finding the statistics in it relatively easy when most of the people on my course are complaining about how difficult it is. I just find it annoying and wish I was with people more like me...

Reply 72

llacerta

Original post by iammichealjackson

How much social psychology do you have to do? I don't particularly like it either, but its not enough to make me want to quit (although next year it becomes a third of my couse :s-smilie:

). And please, economics is in no way a more "intellectual" degree...

A third of your course? May I ask where you study and which year you're going into?

It just seems like a really high proportion, but I guess it goes to show that the question of how "intellectual" a subject like psychology is might not always have a straight answer, firstly because it depends on how much of the course is biological or social or whatever, and secondly because it depends on the individual as to how difficult aspects of the course are- I know some people who find social very difficult. I'm not a fan of social myself, so I've chosen to do three biological modules next year (out of five and a dissertation), and no social at all, but once again, it does seem to depend on the structure of the course a lot, and hence where you study it has a massive impact.

(Sorry, I realise most of this post is in reply to RobertWhite as well, but it made more sense to quote you, haha.)

Reply 73

Original post by RobertWhite

Economics seems a more useful degree for me to have. I want to go into business and more recently, areas relating to finance. Economics is definitely the best degree to get me there and one I hopefully would find much more interesting. Economic graduates are some of the most sought after graduates.

Well, I'm hoping it's going to be more academically rigorous because that's what I'm looking for. Once again, Psychology is becoming more of a memory test for me than a challenge at the moment. I'm finding the statistics in it relatively easy when most of the people on my course are complaining about how difficult it is. I just find it annoying and wish I was with people more like me...

Original post by llacerta

A third of your course? May I ask where you study and which year you're going into?

It just seems like a really high proportion, but I guess it goes to show that the question of how "intellectual" a subject like psychology is might not always have a straight answer, firstly because it depends on how much of the course is biological or social or whatever, and secondly because it depends on the individual as to how difficult aspects of the course are- I know some people who find social very difficult. I'm not a fan of social myself, so I've chosen to do three biological modules next year (out of five and a dissertation), and no social at all, but once again, it does seem to depend on the structure of the course a lot, and hence where you study it has a massive impact.

(Sorry, I realise most of this post is in reply to RobertWhite as well, but it made more sense to quote you, haha.)

Hi sorry ill reply to all in one post. People often conflate unscientific (or social scientific) = lack of mathss = lack of rigour = useless which is just annoying. Of course, if you want to go into business economics is a better degree, but then that only applies to you. People cannot be studied objectively and scientifically in all respects, especially since culture makes up a huge amount of who and what we are, so you can't have such a myopic view of psychology. (Im not saying either approach is better, mind. I only really find experiments interesting and hate reading more social/ethnography stuff... but that is also because im too lazy too read books :P)

Anyway yeh im doing psychology through a course called politics, psychology and sociology, but in fact i swapped my politics module for a biological anthropology module and took an extra education (focusing on literacy) paper. There is a little bit more of a focus here on developmental and social psychology, i love the former though. Im going into my second year which is 1/3 bio&cog, 1/3 social, and a 1/3 research methods. Psychology doesn't have to be taught as a memory game, you just went into a **** course. I have basically 0 studies that I HAVE to remember, but we have to come up with good arguments to get a 2.1 ...

I think when psychology is taught well it can be a really good degree. It has aspects of sciences AND arts, in that you can come up with relatively original (or at least your own thoughts no matter if they aren't original) and construct an argument. If you do chemistry all you do is learn other people's ideas! They may be quite hard ideas to get your head round though.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 74

Original post by iammichealjackson

Hi sorry ill reply to all in one post. People often conflate unscientific (or social scientific) = lack of mathss = lack of rigour = useless which is just annoying. People cannot be studied objectively and scientifically in all respects, especially since culture makes up a huge amount of who and what we are, so you can't have such a myopic view of psychology.

Anyway yeh im doing psychology through a course called politics, psychology and sociology, but in fact i swapped my politics module for a biological anthropology module and took an extra education (focusing on literacy) paper. There is a little bit more of a focus here on developmental and social psychology, i love the former though. Im going into my second year which is 1/3 bio&cog, 1/3 social, and a 1/3 research methods. Psychology doesn't have to be taught as a memory game, you just went into a **** course. I have basically 0 studies that I HAVE to remember, but we have to come up with good arguments to get a 2.1 ...

I know that. Human behaviour is complex and cannot be studied under one paradigm or explained by one thing. But I don't like it. I like objectivity.

Reply 75

Original post by *Hakz*

I would say it is. More academically rigorous too.
I honestly don't mean to put psychology down like this

It really just depends how its taught. The ideas in physical/harder sciences tend to be more difficult to get your head around, and i would expect the maths to be relatively hard (although personally i like maths so it wouldnt be a problem). Define academically rigorous though? Psychology is a very good degree which involves a detailed knowledge of philosophy of science/biology/evolution/social science to varying extents. If its just taught to be a memory game then its useless because the ideas don't tend to be THAT hard to get your head round, but if your taught to question things and construct solid arguements then its good...

Reply 76

Original post by RobertWhite

I know that. Human behaviour is complex and cannot be studied under one paradigm or explained by one thing. But I don't like it. I like objectivity.

Good luck with economics then! Not exactly the most objective thing around surely! You can be relatively objective whilst studying social aspects of behaviour anyway? The social psychology i have done has been pretty much like that, although im only a first year...

Reply 77