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Confused of what degree I want to do/unsure of life ahead.

Hi everyone,

I am currently studying a foundation degree in applied and medical science, and after I complete it I was hoping to apply for the biomedical science degree with placement. For a while now I was set on going down the biomedical science route, but now I am unsure whether it would be a good choice or not. I think it’s because I have a lot of chemistry work in my current foundation degree and because I’m not great at it I feel like maybe this route is wrong for me, as I know that chemistry is also a big part of it. Either that or I’m slowly becoming uninterested. I usually like the biology side of things more too.

Now I have thought about different courses that I could apply for, and was thinking about psychology. I know I have been interested in it and how people behave etc... but never considered it until now. I enjoy learning about personality types too. The thing is I’m not sure I’d be great at being a counsellor etc.. as I have social anxiety, but maybe I could do a research career afterwards regarding mental health, as I’m better at English and have done a research module before in my double award A level health and social care, which I done well in and enjoyed.

So basically I’m unsure of what I should do after my current course... I almost feel like I don’t know what I am interested in anymore, but have ideas of different routes I’d like to take. I think it could be my depression/anxiety , or maybe I’m just at that age of uncertainty. Any advice about this/if psychology is a good choice would be helpful, thanks.
Hmm, ask widely!

The first choice of degree did sound like a good plan, but either you love rate equations and oxidative states, or you don’t!

Psychology itself is an attractive degree, in fact in USA it is almost the default Major for people who can’t quite work out what to do. It’s hard to get a job in UK in psychology, unless you’ve got postgraduate degrees and clinical practise, and a few years of life under your belt.

Are there any biophysics or bioengineering routes that you can take after getting onto ‘normal’ track, from foundation, or are you ‘stuck’ for a while?
Getting a psychology degree does not imply you would have to (or even would be able to) become a counsellor afterwards. I would also note that being a counsellor is not the same thing as being a clinical psychologist (and the training route for the latter is quite long and competitive). Generally speaking it is worth noting most graduates don't work in an area at all connected with what they studied. It's fairly common for graduates to go on to work in "generalist" roles, by pursuing grad schemes in e.g. business or media, the civil service, etc. Most roles just require a degree at some specified classification level (typically a 2:1 or above).

@RegisteredBMS might be able to advise on the chemistry content of biomedical science type courses (and how much that might come up working as a BMS professionally). @Noodlzzz might be able to offer some advice on whether psychology research as well?
I think you need to read up a bit more on what a psych degree involves. It's bit more than personality types and why people behave.

I currently do research in mental health if you have any specific questions.
If you're wanting to be a Biomedical Scientist then the course you want to apply for is "BSc Healthcare Science (Life Science)". Below is a list of providers. The relevant options are the ones that stage Infection, Blood or Cellular Science.

https://nshcs.hee.nhs.uk/services/accreditation/ptp-academic-programmes/

In regards to Chemistry, if you specialise into Biochemistry in the final year then there'll obviously be more chemistry, albeit it will be clinical. There's not a large amount of non-clinical chemistry. It's not very technical.

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