The Student Room Group

running a psychology society

hello, I’m in year 13 and with a friend of mine we have been asked to head up the schools psychology society (psychsoc) this year. I was wondering if anyone has any advice or ideas for things we can do? Thank you! We’re both not very confident public speakers and we want to make the environment relaxed as it will be a lunchtime club. some ideas i’ve had so far is around having articles and discussing them, revision sessions for the year 13’s (which can double as help for the year 12’s) thank you very much!
Psychology is deeply intertwined with volunteering. it will be a remarkable experience if you can speak to your lecturers about volunteering for a particular charity. In regards to activities, you can also conduct some interesting experiment about psychology, definitely not asking you to test out classical conditioning or something harmful, just easy stuff like problem-solving tasks, memory test, biases, etc. just don't make it too studious, it's not another psychology class!
Original post by Alice_posa
Psychology is deeply intertwined with volunteering. it will be a remarkable experience if you can speak to your lecturers about volunteering for a particular charity. In regards to activities, you can also conduct some interesting experiment about psychology, definitely not asking you to test out classical conditioning or something harmful, just easy stuff like problem-solving tasks, memory test, biases, etc. just don't make it too studious, it's not another psychology class!


Well I guess it depends on the type of volunteering, but I wouldn't call them intertwined.

Maybe get someone from your local uni to talk about a topic? Something we did at first year uni which I thought was great, was where we all had to pick a 3-4min youtube clip that represents something in psychology and talk about it. But the catch is the clip can't be something academic like a study. For example, I chose this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzoXQKumgCw) to talk about mental health
Original post by Noodlzzz
Well I guess it depends on the type of volunteering, but I wouldn't call them intertwined.

Maybe get someone from your local uni to talk about a topic? Something we did at first year uni which I thought was great, was where we all had to pick a 3-4min youtube clip that represents something in psychology and talk about it. But the catch is the clip can't be something academic like a study. For example, I chose this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzoXQKumgCw) to talk about mental health

thank you! that sounds fun - it’s a bit hard to get someone from a ‘local’ uni because there isn’t anywhere exactly local haha the closest is 45mins/an hour away from where our school is located (i will be applying to uni this year myself) but i like the idea of the clips, it’s a good way to get people to apply knowledge! thank you (:
Original post by Alice_posa
Psychology is deeply intertwined with volunteering. it will be a remarkable experience if you can speak to your lecturers about volunteering for a particular charity. In regards to activities, you can also conduct some interesting experiment about psychology, definitely not asking you to test out classical conditioning or something harmful, just easy stuff like problem-solving tasks, memory test, biases, etc. just don't make it too studious, it's not another psychology class!

volunteering isn’t something that would be possible for us, i’m in my final year of school (will be attending uni next year) we are full time students so it isn’t something we could do within school hours anyway, and we live in quite a rural area - i do get involved with volunteering as much as i can through the school in general though and it is a great suggestion for those it’s more accessible to. and the problem solving sounds fun! we played a game a lot last year on matching facts (e.g. number of participants or a result) with each study which tested your memory well and then you had to justify why you had put that there such as there was 13 which could pair up with more than one study so you had to explain your idea. thank you for the ideas!
Original post by Noodlzzz
Well I guess it depends on the type of volunteering, but I wouldn't call them intertwined.

Maybe get someone from your local uni to talk about a topic? Something we did at first year uni which I thought was great, was where we all had to pick a 3-4min youtube clip that represents something in psychology and talk about it. But the catch is the clip can't be something academic like a study. For example, I chose this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzoXQKumgCw) to talk about mental health


Trust me, it is.
Original post by Alice_posa
Trust me, it is.


Ok. Care to elaborate? My understanding of psychology is that it a scientific academic field not a vocational practice.
It's really great that secondary schools are in a position to have psychology societies. I would have loved to join one when I was at school, as I really didn't know anything at all about psychology until I started undergrad.

If you do run one, what you may want to find out is if any of the parents of the students at your school work are psychologists (clinical, educational, forensic, research etc) and invite them to give a talk about their work. They could talk about their typical day, what they do, or how they got to where they are. There may also be people who work in the wider psychology workforce, like SENCOs, IAPT workers or psychiatric nurses, who use psychological skills as part of their work.

The British Psychological Society website also may be a good resource for you in terms of getting materials, accessing events and conferences and such.
Original post by Noodlzzz
Ok. Care to elaborate? My understanding of psychology is that it a scientific academic field not a vocational practice.

how is it possible to understand the scientific aspect of human behavior if you are not in a situation whereby you experience practical examples. Volunteering is a very common path for people who are interested in psychology. don't let me list the benefits. I was a student research assistant, mentor, honorary assistant psychologist, emotional support provider; all of which are not paid position and contributed to my first class in psychology BSc.

like I said,
Trust me, it is :smile:
Original post by charlotteldavis
volunteering isn’t something that would be possible for us, i’m in my final year of school (will be attending uni next year) we are full time students so it isn’t something we could do within school hours anyway, and we live in quite a rural area - i do get involved with volunteering as much as i can through the school in general though and it is a great suggestion for those it’s more accessible to. and the problem solving sounds fun! we played a game a lot last year on matching facts (e.g. number of participants or a result) with each study which tested your memory well and then you had to justify why you had put that there such as there was 13 which could pair up with more than one study so you had to explain your idea. thank you for the ideas!

seems interesting!
What about inviting people who have left and gone on to study psychology back to talk about their areas of study/work?
Original post by Lord Asriel
It's really great that secondary schools are in a position to have psychology societies. I would have loved to join one when I was at school, as I really didn't know anything at all about psychology until I started undergrad.

If you do run one, what you may want to find out is if any of the parents of the students at your school work are psychologists (clinical, educational, forensic, research etc) and invite them to give a talk about their work. They could talk about their typical day, what they do, or how they got to where they are. There may also be people who work in the wider psychology workforce, like SENCOs, IAPT workers or psychiatric nurses, who use psychological skills as part of their work.

The British Psychological Society website also may be a good resource for you in terms of getting materials, accessing events and conferences and such.

thank you for your reply! the society is entirely student run, it barely ran last year because no one took it up until along with a friend of mine decided to start it towards the end of the year. we lack a lot of teacher support in it due to how busy they are but i’m hoping to speak to them about contacting any previous students who are now studying psychology to come in and chat about how they got to that point as well as finding psychologists to come in but that is a little difficult due to the fact the closest cities are all at least around an hour away and there just isn’t the facilities in the towns but we’re working on it! thank you again.
Original post by Magdatrix >_<
What about inviting people who have left and gone on to study psychology back to talk about their areas of study/work?

i am working on that, it is a little difficult to get into contact with people and having them take out that much time of their day (we’re an hour away from the closest uni when the traffics fine) but i’m going to speak to my psychology teachers about any previous students i could get into contact with and work from there! thank you for your ideas

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