New Psychology Students' Q & A thread!

whats it like?
contact hours?
Teachers?
Work load?
Does anyone have any course work question examples?
whats the first year like for students without a science, maths and psychology background- does it create a good foundation?

Thank you for responding
THE BOOK list is very long and costly, i checked out a couple of them on amazon and they were like 30 pounds each :O i CANT afford that tbh....I mean do you really need all of them ? are there any copies in the library?
Whats a research method paper? I've heard people talk about it on a few occasions but never really understood, is it possible for you to send me an example?
Hows the feedback like from your tutors? I mean to they advise you on how you can improve?
When your set a piece of coursework how do you know what angle to take on it? are you given guidelines/ a mark scheme?

How easy is it to progress to a Msci course from BA psychology? For example Psychology and Psychological practice?

What are you planing on doing after uni?

how do I get the reading list? I don't think i've been emailed one!

Hi I'm not sure if/when you will be emailed a list, but assuming that you have your bham log in details, you can access the module outlines, which each have a section mentioning the booklist here: http://cis67.bham.ac.uk:7782/webhandbooks/WebHandbooks-control-servlet?Action=getModuleList&pgProgId=0231&pgProgArea=0231-01&pgProgDept=B.Sc.%20Psychology&pgProgText=%20%20%%3E

Let me know whether you can access that yet

For the Research Methods modules, I definitely recommend buying Elmes's Research Methods book and the Statistics without maths for psychology book - but the others aren't as useful

Did it help doing biology at A-level?

thank you, thats very useful!
did you buy every single book mentioned? or should I just get a few and judge which others I'll need when i'm on the course?

I think it helps in places, to the extent that sometimes you're just revising a concept rather than learning it from scratch.

Tip for those who HAVE done Biology before: don't get too complacent in psychobiology - just because something's familiar, doesn't mean you fully understand it and can remember it! (I learnt this one the hard way!)

Tip for those who HAVE NOT done Biology before: don't fret about it - things will be explained, and you can ask questions if you get stuck. It may mean a little more study from time to time, but don't think that you can't do psychobiology without having done Biology! (Partly because you CAN, and partly because continuously hearing people say this is annoying - same goes for statistics haha)

I don't think that A-level Biology gives any advantage, really. Any increased psychobiology scores for those who have done Biology before are probably due to their interest in Biology as opposed to their previous study!

What subjects did you do/did you take Biology?

I did AQA biology, so i did Genetics and DNA technology, ecology, Synaptic transfer and lots of other topics

I did buy A LOT off amazon before I moved to uni - perhaps not the best decision ever, because a plastic box of books is incredibly heavy to carry from the car and up sets of stairs to the flat!!

Best advice is probably to look mainly at the ones for Semester 1 and buy the ones that you think will be most interesting if you want to do a bit of early-reading. Research Methods is very handy, as is Intro to Learning (coincidentally both of them are smaller and lighter!) but ones like Cognitive Psychology and Physiology of Behaviour and the Statistics book will come in useful across several modules.

As for the semester 2 books, if you're going to order them, it might be easier to wait and then have them delivered to your uni residence once you're there...also you can buy books from students in year 2 and 3 - I'm sure you'll all get a tonne of annoying FB/email adverts from us lot selling stuff at the start of term!

I didn't even think of the heavy lifting! haha, yeah that seems like a good idea, there aren't that many for semester one either so It probably won't cost me as much, thanks again!

In your opinion, how hard/easy is it to get a 1st?
Do grades from the first year count towards the whole degree at the end of the 3 year course? If yes, what part of your whole degree is based on your performance during the first year?

First year marks don't count towards your final classification, but you do have to pass (40%) at least, and it's best to still work hard as you'll gain more knowledge, and because later module-choice allocations are given according to the rank that they give you based on first year grades.

Second year marks count 25% and third year counts for 75% of the final classification.

I think how hard/easy it is to get a first is very subjective - depends where your strengths are and which topics you find most interesting. For me, especially in second year, my summer exam marks were mostly lower than my grades for essays/reports/december exams, but my overall average managed to stay in the range where I wanted it! :P I think that if you give everything your best shot, you get rewarded with generally good marks...and pay attention to what each assessment requires and how the different modules work

p.s. I really like your avatar!

Do you have any idea what books I should definitely buy for the first semester? Thinking of buying those first then maybe the rest from 2nd/3rd year students


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