Doing a Sociology undergrad followed by a Psychology postgrad?

Not unusual no but why not just go straight for the psychology at undergraduate if it's what you want to do eventually?

Fair enough!*

Its do-able. But remember that a Masters isnt 'an undergrad degree in 1 year' or 'a conversion course' and that actually it is designed to allow for more intensive work on topics that you have already studied for 3 years.

If you do a Masters in another subject you will be alongside folk who have done 3 years of intensive study and are therefore way ahead of you - you wont have a grasp of the concepts, jargon and terminology and will have to catch up fast on your own (thats the whole point of postgrad).

If you can find a course that has more overlap between the two subjects you will find that easier - look at areas like Childhood Studies (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/study/pg/2016/taught/4532/33149), Family Therapy (http://www.kcl.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/taught-courses/family-therapy-msc.aspx) or a course that is designed for 'overlap' studies :http://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/interdiscpsychology/

. Maybe I could study combined honours Sociology and Psychology at undergrad??

Also I've done so much reading about Psychology that I arguably know more about it than I do Sociology So the prospect of studying Sociology at undergrad is more interesting to me.

You can get a student loan to do a conversion master's degree so don't let that put you off.*

I would consider your options carefully though. If you want to do psychology because you want to do a professional doctorate like clinical, counselling or educational psychology, I would just hesitate first. Doing a psychology undergraduate degree just to do that is like doing your driving test with the aim of becoming a formula one driver. The professional doctorates are ridiculously competitive and I know people who've spent a lot of years chasing them and being underpaid in jobs to try and get in and still get nowhere. I know two people who've got into clinical psychology; one of them was a psychiatric nurse first and the other had been very well organised from the time she was in nappies about doing it.*
I generally tend to tell people if they want to get the job satisfaction of helping people with psychological health needs, go into psychiatric nursing, counselling, speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and so forth. The top rate of pay is not dissimilar and it's a good platform to move into any of the professional doctorates later if you still want to. It's a more direct route to getting the experience you need whilst not being unqualified to do much else if you don't get onto the doctorate, which you often are if you do the psychology undergraduate route.*

If, however, you're wanting to do research don't worry too much about your undergraduate degree for now. If you're interested in psychology by all means study it but bear in mind that the social sciences are a broad field. I know someone who did a philosophy degree at Cambridge and who found his way onto a neuroscience PhD. Granted, yes, it was from Cambridge but he's just someone I know. I also know that there are many people working at the top of their fields in neuroscience and psychology who don't actually have undergraduate degrees in the subject. They're there because of their research interests. The psychology course on my current degree was taught by someone without a degree in it, come to think of it. She was a medical doctor. I've read psychology papers written by people with degrees in sociology, education etc. or coauthored at the very least. The boundaries are quite flexible in the social and psychological sciences.*

And if you do decide you want to do a conversion course in psychology, a decent master's programme will give you the opportunity to research what you want and use that as a platform for a PhD anyway. On my psychology course there were people who didn't even need to convert but they wanted to study in that area. Decent courses like Manchester, Sussex, Glasgow and one or two more I'm forgetting are good master's degrees in their own right as well as conversion degrees. * Study your primary area of interest now, be that sociology or psychology. You've got options.*

Are you yet to start undergraduate? No matter how much reading you've done at high school level it doesn't compare to studying it at undergraduate level. You will learn lots of new things at a degree level.

You need to consider what job you want in the end. If you want to become an applied (educational, clinical, neuro, etc.) psychologist then you need an acredited degree. Whilst you could do a conversion psychology masters course, do you have the funds to pay for this (as you don't get a student loan for this).

You also need to question why you want to do a masters? It will be pretty useless for anything other than a PhD route. You may also want to consider that sociology may be seen (rightly or wrongly) as a weaker degree than other types, although this is more the fact that its got lower entry requirements, rather than it being inherently less academic.

If you do want to go into research, it is not unusual for people to do a research masters in something different to their undergraduate degree. Many people do research which overlaps into both disciplines, but it would be helpful to also do a statistics module in your sociology degree (if its offered). It sounds like you just want to do it because it sounds cool to move into a different degree discipline after your undergraduate, which i wouldn't really do it for this reason.

Its also worth noting that most research masters degrees are not that competitive as they are self-funded, so you wouldn't necessarily have any trouble getting on to one. Also because your often researching a narrow literature then your not necessarily disadvantaged as you won't need 80% of the knowledge from a regular psychology degree.

My personal recommendation would be to do a general social science degree (e.g. something like HSPS or PBS at cambridge or http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/undergraduate/degrees/social-sciences-bsc/ ) which combine other social sciences (e.g. economics, social anth, geography...) and give a much wider perspective on human behaviour then studying either one individually. These degrees may not be accredited but they look alot better on your CV and are more interesting!

I don't want to become an applied psychologist, no. If I did I'd definitely do an undergrad psychology degree.

'You also need to question why you want to do a masters? It will be pretty useless for anything other than a PhD route.'

My thinking is that if I wanted to go into research I would do a PhD. I didn't mention doing a PhD as I didn't want to get ahead of myself.

'Many people do research which overlaps into both disciplines, but it would be helpful to also do a statistics module in your sociology degree (if its offered).'

The degree I'm hoping to do seems to be pretty statistics-heavy

'My personal recommendation would be to do a general social science degree (e.g. something like HSPS or PBS at cambridge or http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-stu...-sciences-bsc/ ) which combine other social sciences (e.g. economics, social anth, geography...) and give a much wider perspective on human behaviour then studying either one individually.'

Hmm yeah that might be an idea. I guess my only concern about a degree like that is that at the end of the degree I'll feel like I've learned a bit about a variety of disciplines but lack the kind of specialist knowledge that is generally associated with a degree?