Why should I study Psychology?

Psychology degrees develop many transferable skills such as: communication; numeracy; critical thinking; information technology (IT); and independent learning. All of these are highly valued by employers. In addition, the strong emphasis on research methodology and statistics in psychology means graduates are well placed to move into research or numeracy-based careers such as market research, academia and accounting. Learning statistics will help develop your IT skills through specific software packages such as SPSS. These are suitable for use in any career.

If you want to move onto work as a chartered psychologist, it is vital to undertake as much work experience as possible whilst on your undergraduate degree. Placements in clinical psychology can be notoriously difficult to access but any relevant paid or voluntary work will help.

I like it.

Simple as.

Personally I don't think it'll be worth it. The % of people who come out of University and get a psychology degree is minimal. The subject field itself is hard to get into. You need at least a 1st or 2:1. Then again it's like that with any degree nowadays. Tbh though I just find it interesting. I would love to have a job in clinical or educational after Uni but if I don't, it's not the end of the world.

I'm confused ....alot of people do psychology degree's don't they?Do you mean that alot of people fail or get poor degrees?

I think he means postgraduate wise Lolly in terms of an actual Psychology career - which is fair comment, I believe its something like less than 12% of Psychology bachelors graduates continue Psych in postgrad or other higher education course (so really not that much at all). I used to think I'd do Counselling Psych but now I'm getting drawn towards Occupational Psych and stuff. I would like to do postgrad, but I think I wanna do my degree before firmly deciding my whole career.

That 12% isn't necessarily out of 100% who tried to get a job though, I think a lot of people do a psychology degree because it's quite good for going into a lot of jobs, and I guess a lot of people didn't actually want to be psychologists.

I agree with that. Most people at my college opted to do a psychology degree purely because they had a last minute panic about what to study and just thought a psych degree would be a good idea because of the versatility. However none of them like the idea of becoming a psychologist...one of my friends even wants to be an police officer afterwards.

you shouldn't

i think that one of the reasons you dont need psych A level is that, until recently, not all colleges offered psychology as an A level subject. And from what I've heard the first year of a degree basically covers everything that was covered in A level psychology but in more depth. In the end I don't think it matters whether you have A level or not, the uni's intention is to get everyone at the same level by the end of the first year.

You also need to do volunteer work.

What kind of volunteering work do you need to do? Would volunteering with children at a summer club or at a nursing home count?

You don't need to do A level psychology because it's so poorly taught university lecturers spend the first semester trying to undo everything you learnt from it. It really is. Now I've come to Uni I've realised just how awful A level psychology is.