Tests and insanities of a Psychology student

OP

Original post by Pwca

Ah so sounds like it covers a lot of the essential ground :smile:

What's your favourite part of psychology? I feel like I'd like the sound of biopsychology but would really struggle with the science of it. I've got a friend who's doing a psychology degree and she's got modules like 'cyberpsychology' and 'ecopsychology' which sound amazing but also :eek:

I feel like I'll enjoy most the Biopsychology module :smile:

I'll have a number of those weird psychology modules later in year 3!

Original post by Scotland Yard

I feel like I'll enjoy most the Biopsychology module :smile:

I'll have a number of those weird psychology modules later in year 3!

Looking forward to hearing how you find it once it starts!

Reply 23

OP

Freshers week (and a half... no lectures for most until today) has come and gone. It was great fun, met lots of new people, made friends, and overall, every day was crazier than the previous one! It was amazing. But now, time to work:

TO DO TODAY & TOMORROW:
-Watch the introductory videos for the modules
-Go over the slides of the lectures to have some clue what they're about

Erm... that's it for now. I feel bad, pretty much everyone else I know has something, ahem, a little more substantial than watching videos as their pre-lecture homework (hallwork?). But I'm told things will pick up from here

Original post by Scotland Yard

Freshers week (and a half... no lectures for most until today) has come and gone. It was great fun, met lots of new people, made friends, and overall, every day was crazier than the previous one! It was amazing. But now, time to work:

TO DO TODAY & TOMORROW:
-Watch the introductory videos for the modules
-Go over the slides of the lectures to have some clue what they're about

Erm... that's it for now. I feel bad, pretty much everyone else I know has something, ahem, a little more substantial than watching videos as their pre-lecture homework (hallwork?). But I'm told things will pick up from here

Sounds like you've had a really fun freshers week! And I wouldn't worry about starting off gently, it's a good way to get into the swing of everything. I'm sure you'll be busy soon enough!

Reply 25

OP

So far, things have been... slow. Yesterday's one and only lecture was titled "transition into university", which was really baffling because ever single lecture I've gone to so far has been about transitioning to university. No lectures today, tomorrow we have a guest speaker coming in for an optional seminar to talk to us about I don't even know what. The abstract is a bit confusing. I guess it'll become clearer once I actually attend the talk. I have my hopes that proper teaching will start this Thursday, which will actually be a pretty packed day - busy from 11 to 5, with only a small 30 minute lunch break. Then I have a whopping 4 hours of statistics on Friday :eek3:

So, here's the lowdown of what I have to do:

TO DO TODAY:
-Watch the videos of a lecturer who didn't cover everything she wanted to do on her introductory lecture
-Start jotting down some notes of the modules. We haven't actually started with content but we have been given a brief overview of what to expect and were given a brief history of Psychology, so I'll be making notes on the small useful bits we've seen so far
-Figure out how the library works in Queen Mary, and borrow two books

TO DO TOMORROW:
-Read that big chapter for the Exploring Psychology module and the small-ish chapter for Biopsychology, take notes
-See the slides for the Thursday lectures

Also going to the Pumphandle lecture this afternoon in the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine - a yearly talk on a current Medical topic, held in honour of Dr John Snow, who, despite popular belief that he knew nothing :wink:

actually knew a thing or two and actually is one of the founding fathers of epidemiology. I saw one of the lectures online live during Covid, when the guest speaker was Dr Fauci (the then-current medical advisor to the US government). Great stuff! Excited to finally go to one in person.

Reply 26

OP

Taking a bit of a slow day today, given that the weekend was ever so slightly... insane, and this morning was insane too, with the fire alarm going off in my building and having had to evacuate the building for a little bit. Nice chance to catch up with people though!

Went to the library to do some statistics reading before lunchtime. Being in a study space helped me a little get in the flow of things, except that I didn't realise there were "quiet study" and "silent study" areas and accidentally went to the quiet study area. Great place to be if you're studying or working with people and need to talk, but not so much if you're going solo. After that, went back to the flat and cooked what turned out to be an obscene amount of rice that has ended up using more than half my tupperware - not good! I'm relaxing now, going to go do some exercise for a little while and then I'll continue working, in my room this time. I'm sorting out my statistics notes at the moment. I'm doing them digitally at the moment, to make sure I have everything nicely arranged, and then I'll write them up on physical paper and expand them a little bit more. Keeping digital and physical notes is crazy, you say? But of course it is, why do you think I'm doing Psychology?

Also probably going to some societies this evening. I can have my pick, a lot of the societies I like annoyingly meet up on Monday evenings at the same time.

Reply 27

OP

I've been neglecting this thread for a bit.

A brief overview of uni so far: I've been religiously going to all the lectures, and I mean that quite literally for one of them. We have an "Exploring Psychology" module and the lecturer is something else. Her lectures are really fun and passionate and probably the only lecture in which you can count for the whole cohort to show up because it's honestly amazing. This lecture could probably be 4 hours long and we'd still want more! The other modules are alright, although we had a rough start with Biopsychology and the lecturer (all sorted out now though!) and at this point, I must say that having 4 hours of Statistics in a row on Friday is not fun :nah:

Last Friday in particular we were introduced to this little piece of software known as SPSS, which was made by Satan himself and has become the bane of my existance. But oh well. You take the rough with the smooth, and despite SPSS, university has been thoroughly enjoyable!

Today is a busy day because I let too many things slip for a while, so I need to do a variety of things:
-The weekly shopping
-Laundry
-Buying birthday card for a friend whose birthday incidentally happens to be today as well
-Watch the videos set by Dr X
-Catch up on Research Methods notes
-Review SPSS. Much as I hate it, I now have a test every other week for statistics which will require me to use SPSS, so I kind of need to master it soon.
-Cook pasta in industrial quantities so I don't have to do it again for a while, and
-Prepare for a debate which I, somehow, got roped into doing... for Law...

Reply 28

OP

Boy do I like going AWOL on this thread.

So uni has been going well. Took part on an experiment this Thursday - turns out people don't really like being used for psychological research so us psychology students are required to be psychological guinea pigs in a number of experiments if we wish to pass our research methods module.

It was also reading week this week, so I naturally didn't do any work this week :tongue:

I'm only (half) kidding. Needed a bit of a break, and needed to recharge my batteries in order to go back to uni with a fresh mind and ace things until our Christmas break. I have plenty of time to do work anyway, but I'm committing it to a list here so I actually do it:

-Revise Exploring Psychology
-Revise SPSS (Sadistic Programme for Satanic Statistics)
-Write a News & Views piece
-Finish the first draft of the lab report

Re: the lab report: so we were all made to do an online experiment in which we had to play cyberball, a game used to do some research on social exclusion. We're meant to write an intro and the methodology of this experiment. I have a very rough intro and no methodology, but we're not expected to start on methodology until this Wednesday, which is when we'll be given guidance on how to do it on a tutorial

Reply 29

OP

If you're reading this, spare a moment and think of us uni students who are approaching the end of term and have deadlines and work left, right and centre :s-smilie:

If you're a fellow uni student - you're not alone :broken:

Definitely felt the heat turn up in the last couple of days. Coming up on Thursday is my first exam of the academic year! Wish me luck :colondollar:

Reply 30

OP

Not that anybody reads this but posting anyways to force me to do this.

I aced my previous exam but I have another one tomorrow which I'm not so sure about. Will go right to the library after I post this to revise. I will also dedicate my entire Friday to finish my lab report and I can have a worry-free last week of term.

Original post by Scotland Yard

Not that anybody reads this but posting anyways to force me to do this.

I aced my previous exam but I have another one tomorrow which I'm not so sure about. Will go right to the library after I post this to revise. I will also dedicate my entire Friday to finish my lab report and I can have a worry-free last week of term.

I should say I read your blog, I just don’t always reply.

Sounds like an excellent plan. Good luck. 😁

Reply 32

OP

Test and insanities of a psychology student is what I decided to name this, being blissfully unaware that, actually, we wouldn't have that many tests! That being said, I got my first written work back, which I was pleased to have achieved a very high 2:1, almost touching the 1st. Still, there's room for improvement and I'm trying to get some comment on why I got some marks subtracted for my referencing because I don't know why - I included the references in APA format, unless I broke the guidelines in some subtle way and I'm too silly to see it. It doesn't help that the feedback doesn't say so much as a peep about referencing :iiam:

The last weeks of the semester were nice. A bit hectic but in hindsight, not too much, finishing up a big essay and doing a somewhat misnamed "midterm" for my biopsychology module... which took place on the 11th week of a 12-week semester... stretching the definition of midterm exam to its very breaking point :tongue:

Of course attendance dropped massively too so the lectures were emptier too... the last lecture in particular was quite a sight as only 9 people showed up :eek3:

Fun times were had, goodbyes were said, colds disrupted some final fun farewell activities which was sad but oh well, we rock on.

Returned home for the winter break and haven't been doing much. I have been sporadically looking at my notes but I really need to sit down and revise - for the first time I properly honour the name of this blog by having a test, 10 days from now, for which I have committed the insanity of not revising properly other than my sporadic note reading. In my defence, 'tis another Biopsychology exam, for the end of semester, except that we actually haven't had new content taught since the week before the mistitled midterm so actually, I have already recently revised the content and I aced that exam... still need to revise and will be spending a considerable chunk of my remaining holiday time studying. But I've also got other endeavours:

1.

Need to find the local library here at home. Part of the reason I've only been looking at my notes every now and again is because I can't get any work done at home. I could write a book about how awful it is to get any sort of revision done when my family are around, but luckily for you, I won't. But I've had enough and I'll be going to the library to do my revision for the remainder of my time home.

2.

Got a job interview to go to tomorrow.

3.

Got to start packing my stuff and miscellaneous things I'll be bringing with me back to Queen Mary during the weekend.

4.

I really need to finish that online training for a mentoring charity I signed up to in December

5.

Apply to volunteer at Barts NHS trust. I was approved as a St John Ambulance hospital volunteer but I never got to volunteer with them because they are, simply put, an unbelievably bureaucratic organisation. I remember my interviewer warned me about it, said that it sometimes feels like St John doesn't want volunteers. I'm forced to wholeheartedly agree with him. Anyways, got to find some more hospital volunteering.

6.

Join some more Barts & the London societies and get in touch with my Barts connection so I know when to sneak into the Medicine lectures this upcoming semester.

7.

I need to partake in one more psychological experiment to obtain the full credits for my research methods module so I want to get that out of the way asap. Sad to stop with the experiments though, some were great fun.

And that's just things to do before teaching resumes on the 22nd!

Reply 33

OP

I moved back in today into my university accommodation. I love my family and all but it's good to be back! It's a ghost town though and something sad has happened:

In our building, as a bit of a joke during fresher's week, everyone put up in their kitchen windows some hello signs and puns relating to the flat number and ever since then we've been updating the puns and signs - we put Halloween decorations for example and during December we had a bit of a competition on who would have the most Christmasy window :giggle:

The university never was a big fan of this and we'd been told to take down the kitchen window stuff before, which nobody ever did. They escalated to the threat of forcibly removing and issuing us with a fine last week, and so now all the kitchen window decorations are gone :frown:

It really is a shame, we weren't hurting anybody and it was great fun and it really helped to foster a community spirit in the building. The building looks much more boring and bland without the jokes and decorations now :frown:

Reply 34

OP

Well well well
I got my second assignment, a lab report, back today and I got a whopping 80% :groovy:

Which was a total shock because, well, I didn't think it was that good but oh well, not complaining!

Also sat my biopsychology exam this morning, and I think that went well, other than the fact that there was a question which asked "What is the number 5 pointing to in the diagram?" and, well, the diagram didn't have a single number whatsoever. Welp. So much for quality control.

What else has been going on? I hadn't really spoken with anybody since Sunday because most people haven't come back and I only had one flatmate around, who has been out and about and not home. Briefly caught up with them before they left for a little holiday earlier today. I know have the flat to myself until the weekend, which is when everyone else will be coming back. I wasn't looking forward to this, I like having people around and socially interacting with people. With no one around I've been struggling a bit, what with campus being an absolute ghost town, but luckily I bumped with the party animals next door who I (somehow - don't ask me how) befriended. They just moved back today and we all had dinner together, which was very nice, and then we goofed around for a while. We're all in exam season this week so it's always nice to goof around to relax and unwind.

Reply 35

OP

Well, January exam season finished. Now for a well earnt weekend break before university starts earnest on Monday.

Reply 36

OP

Thought it'd be worth chronicling how my week goes:

Monday:

Woke up at 7.30AM (think of this as the university equivalent of waking up at 4.00AM), had breakfast, did some reading (Douglas Adam's Mostly Harmless, if you were asking) and then went for a cycle down the road to the Whitechapel campus and back.

11.00AM and we started off the semester with a statistics lecture. It wasn't horrible, largely a recap of semester one stats and then something new - introducing us to the different types of statistic tests we'll be learning this semester and how to know when to use each of them. This proved rather difficult as we were then given some research examples and we had to decide which statistics test we should use to analyse the results, and I made a complete pig's mess out of it. Statistics and I don't see eye to eye sometimes haha :redface:

It was nice returning to the lecture hall though, and catching up with people I hadn't seen during the holidays.

Lecture finished at 1.00PM and I promptly cycled back to the Whitechapel campus for an informal meeting at the new and renovated Griff Inn - the Barts & the London student pub. Well, it used to be a pub, and it felt like a pub. Now it's relocated to another building nearby and it has returned as a cafeteria more than anything else, which is in my opinion a considerable downgrade from the previous Griff Inn :frown:

After the meeting was done I quickly cycled back to Mile End campus and hung out with my friends before heading off to the next lecture.

3.00PM. We go to our Brain and Behaviour lecture, which is a new module this semester and it's run by none other than Lars Chittka, who's famous (he has his own Wikipedia entry!) and a psychologist that, curiously, studies bees :bee:

This was a very interesting lecture on learning and memory. Also made a mental note to read Lars Chittka's book, The Mind of a Bee.

6.30PM and it's time to head off to the debating society, which was, as usual, great fun. Since it was the start of semester and we had new people joining us, we didn't do a British Parliamentary style debate but we had a bunch of great motions and pitted people in a 1v1 format. We wrap up the session a little bit late and we follow the time-honoured tradition of going down to the local spoons, were we stayed for a long long time until we realised that, crap, it's Monday! We have uni tomorrow! And so we all left to catch a good night's sleep :smile:

Tuesday:

Woke up at 8.30AM (the university equivalent of waking up at 6.00AM. Still very early but you start getting some people waking up at this time). Went for a walk around the Mile End campus. Had our first Emotions lecture at 11.00AM. The lecturer was very friendly and had a contagious passion about it. We learnt some basic definitions on emotions and the rough history on the study of emotions. After that it was time for our lunch break. Our usual hanging out spot was closed for examinations so we went to the flat of one of my friends and hung out there for just a bit. We made chicken for lunch in an air fryer. I have never used an air fryer in my life, and it was obvious that neither did my friends. So we're all hoping we did it right and we just didn't give ourselves salmonella!

We returned to campus in time for our 2.00PM lecture for the Essential Skills module. Same lecturer as last term, which is nice because she's very nice and friendly. Regrettably she didn't speak much today, instead we had two guest speakers. The first one was someone from the Queen Mary library who told us more or less the blindingly obvious on how to use assessment feedback. The second guest speaker was actually useful, it was someone from the careers service giving advice on how to write a CV and giving us a push to get some sort of work experience while still at university, giving us tips and advice on what we can do as students and how to market ourselves when applying for jobs.

After that I went to my flat. I bumped into one of my flatmates and we hung out for a bit, and then I proceeded to sort out my food situation by cooking a humongous amount of pasta al forno that should comfortably see me through a fortnight. I have been fooling around online and chatting online with friends and acquaintances, trying to rope them into any of the several ideas I always have on fun things to do, simply wanting to enjoy the time to do them while I still don't have that much to do in terms of uni work. I'll now do my rounds on TSR and then log off, and probably finish with my re-read of Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (in five parts) before going to bed :sleep:

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 37

OP

Wednesday:

Not much happened today in terms of uni work, as I had no scheduled activities and I have nothing to do yet. I allowed myself to sleep till 9.00AM, and had a bit of a lazy morning. Went with two friends to have a bit of a nosey around central London. We had a looksy around Oxford Street, tried to go into BBC Broadcasting House, as I remembered you could ages ago but we found some mean security guys stopping us. Wouldn't even let us take a picture with the TARDIS in the lobby :frown:

, then we went to see some guitars and finally we went to the main course of the day: going to the London Palladium to be part of the audience of Britain's Got Talent, which was great fun (would like to give more details but... spoilers!). I returned to Queen Mary, went to the First Aid society (first time going, potentially thinking of joining them on a more permanent basis) and then returned to my accommodation. I had a light dinner, cleaned my dishes and then realised I'm running desperately low on towels so I'm just doing laundry now. Going to pick up the laundry in a few minutes, will watch one or two Friends episodes and I'll call it a day. A very good day!

Original post by Scotland Yard

Wednesday:

Not much happened today in terms of uni work, as I had no scheduled activities and I have nothing to do yet. I allowed myself to sleep till 9.00AM, and had a bit of a lazy morning. Went with two friends to have a bit of a nosey around central London. We had a looksy around Oxford Street, tried to go into BBC Broadcasting House, as I remembered you could ages ago but we found some mean security guys stopping us. Wouldn't even let us take a picture with the TARDIS in the lobby :frown:

, then we went to see some guitars and finally we went to the main course of the day: going to the London Palladium to be part of the audience of Britain's Got Talent, which was great fun (would like to give more details but... spoilers!). I returned to Queen Mary, went to the First Aid society (first time going, potentially thinking of joining them on a more permanent basis) and then returned to my accommodation. I had a light dinner, cleaned my dishes and then realised I'm running desperately low on towels so I'm just doing laundry now. Going to pick up the laundry in a few minutes, will watch one or two Friends episodes and I'll call it a day. A very good day!

Things are going well it seems. Have an excellent rest of your week. :biggrin:

Reply 39

OP