What is the workload like for psychology at Oxford?

Hi, I hope somebody can help me out here I’ve been struggling a lot lately deciding whether to apply to Oxford or not. I’m predicted A*A*A* in Psychology, English Literature, and Business. There are things that are drawing me to Oxford but I don’t know whether it will be suited to me because I think I may get overwhelmed with the fast pace/high stress environment; I really struggled to cope during exam season of GCSEs. I haven’t started practicing for the entrance exam which is in a month or written my personal statement yet so I feel pretty pressured to figure out where I want to go immediately. I’m finding it difficult to find ANY information on the workload for psychology at Oxford compared to other unis so does anyone know because personally I don’t think I could handle writing two 2000 word essays a week which I’ve heard one of the languages Oxford courses does lol

Hello

Thanks for the tag, @artful_lounger !

I don't know much about the Experimental Psychology degree at Oxford and haven't kept in touch with anyone who did it to ask them! But I did find this information on the Oxford website:

A typical week

Terms 1-3: about six lectures, two or three tutorials or one practical class.
Terms 4-9: usually six lectures, one-two tutorials and one practical class. You will also undertake independent research and be given the opportunity to write a dissertation.
Terms 10-12 (MSci): almost exclusive focus on an extended research or translational project with complementary advanced and critical skills training.


So in the first year, it looks like you could potentially have 2-3 tutorials a week (if you're not having a practical class). This is similar to the music degree that I did (where 3 tutorials a week was standard. I did have one horrendous week where I had 5 tutorials in one week though ). For tutorials you'll have to prepare some kinda work (either an essay or a problem sheet). How many words that essay would be, I can't say, but you're probs looking at at least 2000 word-essays (Theology seemed to ask for 3,000 which would have been the end of me, tbh. Though I can't imagine Experimental Psychology essays being as long as that!).

So if you have 2-3 tutorials a week some weeks/terms, you're looking at a new essay or problem sheet roughly every 2 days or so. This means you'll have to work hard and fast. It's a very steep learning curve, and no half-decent tutor will expect much of you the first term or two They're there to help you learn to adapt, and you will learn to write well and fast quite quickly. It's a good skill to take with you into the world of work afterwards!

That said, if you struggled with GCSE exam period (I'm not sure if you're alluding to any mental health issues, or 'just' more generalised stress?), it's worth carefully considering whether this is the right environment for you. Most people do swim rather than sink but Oxford terms really don't wait around for anyone. And once you fall behind it can become hard to catch up

Finally, remember that applying during a gap year is fine and always an option, if trying to pull everything together for this Oct feels too much

Thank you SOO much!!!! That’s very helpful. Do you know how that contrasts to the workload of ‘typical’ unis? I’m considering other top unis that aren’t Oxbridge like Durham, Bristol, Liverpool, Bath, Edinburgh, etc.

Hi, I hope somebody can help me out here I’ve been struggling a lot lately deciding whether to apply to Oxford or not. I’m predicted A*A*A* in Psychology, English Literature, and Business. There are things that are drawing me to Oxford but I don’t know whether it will be suited to me because I think I may get overwhelmed with the fast pace/high stress environment; I really struggled to cope during exam season of GCSEs. I haven’t started practicing for the entrance exam which is in a month or written my personal statement yet so I feel pretty pressured to figure out where I want to go immediately. I’m finding it difficult to find ANY information on the workload for psychology at Oxford compared to other unis so does anyone know because personally I don’t think I could handle writing two 2000 word essays a week which I’ve heard one of the languages Oxford courses does lol

I did Psychology at Oxford - I just graduated and they have since changed the course from a 3 year BA to a 4 year integrated masters so it will probably be a little different to my experience for you! From what I can tell from the website it looks like the content is now more spread out than it was in the old 3 year course so I would assume it might be slightly less intense.

The week-to-week workload is fairly hefty but not as bad as a lot of other Oxford subjects. For Prelims (first year) I had a 1000ish word Psychology essay and a Statistics problem sheet that took about an hour or two every week, and some weeks I also had a Neurophysiology essay although these were usually short. I had three tutorials per week and a variable number of lectures - usually a couple of Psychology, one Stats and a few Neurophys lectures. The weekly workload sounds like a lot but I could get it done with about 3 days of work - the hard part was revising for the exams since they started literally 3 days after we finished the content, but from the looks of the new course structure that might not be a problem anymore. People at my college who were less comfortable with the more hardcore biology involved in Neurophys also had an extra tutorial each week but I didn't go to those, I don't think there was any extra work for them though. Neurophys can be a lot of work to understand if you don't have a background in Biology and to some extent Chemistry but people almost never fail it so everyone gets there in the end.

In second year, I studied 2 modules per term, and had 6 tutorials per term for each (so usually 2 tutorials a week with not as much at the start/end of term). Each also set 3 essays around 1500 words (as this was the limit for the exam essays) so it was roughly an essay a week, but when there was no tutorial essay you were obviously expected to do the reading to be able to come to the tutorial ready to discuss, and usually do some kind of presentation on a topic or a paper. There were 6 Psychology lectures per week (3 for each module) and one stats lecture, an hour each. There was also a 3hr lab once a week, though usually they didn't take up the entire 3 hours timetabled unless you stuck around after the practical part finished to work on the assignment. Labs were associated with official assignments (as opposed to weekly essays which were just for tutorials and didn't count to your degree) - usually around 2000 word report, two per term. The number of lectures meant there was a MASSIVE amount of content to revise and the way one of the exams works means to do really well you need to have quite specific memory for literally all of it so revising for the Part 1 exams covering the second year content was a bit horrible and I worked for the whole vacation before the exams. But if you keep up with making revision material as you go it's not so bad! Exams were a mix of a multiple choice Psychology paper, a statistics paper and one exam essay per Psychology module.

In third year I did 3 advanced options and a research project, from the looks of the new course you would only do 2 plus the project, or just 3 AOs, so probably less work than my experience. My RP was very complicated and required a lot of lab time where I spent half my week for one term sat there supervising participants and unable to divide my attention and get anything else done. Not every RP is like that and a lot of people get data collection done in vacations so the RP workload varies and I think mine was probably a rather intense outlier! The advanced options have one lecture a week and 6 tutorials, and officially 6 essays per term but some of my tutors set fewer than that. There is a lot more reading though, the lecture is just a jumping off point and to fully understand things for essays and tutorials you have to do a lot more independent reading than other modules. The essays were around 1500-1800 words (again, this was the rough target for exam essays). There were also lab options which were 4 weekly 3 hour sessions per option and you had to take 4 - each was associated with a roughly 3000 word submission. I took one AO per term and one lab at a time so I had no overlap but some people took 2 AOs in one term or 2 labs at the same time so the workload can vary wildly - some people had a term where they were writing 2 essays a week followed by a term where they had nothing to do. I don't know if they would standardise this in the new course. All the third year modules were based on your choice of what you wanted to do and when the lecturer was available to teach it rather than everyone going to everything like in first and second year. When revising for exams I spent about 8 weeks revising 5-7 hours a day and having at least one day a week off, this was after my teaching ended and my RP was finished. The exam was 3 essays for each advanced option.

I cant say anything re the 4th year because I didn't have one!

In terms of how much I personally worked - I usually worked 5-8 hours a day on weekdays including teaching hours depending on how much I had to do and my other commitments. I usually had weekends off unless it was a very busy time or I had weekday commitments that meant I had to make up lost days at the weekend. It was intense because it is a lot of reading and essay writing to get done but I always found it manageable. Having exams each year meant they were more manageable rather than having everything at the end like a lot of other Oxford degrees do.

Apologies as this got a bit long, and obviously take with a pinch of salt regarding the specifics of timetables and exams since the course structure has changed somewhat, but I think the modules and content remain mostly the same from what I can tell and I don't think the workload will be wildly different. You will be busier than people at most other unis, but on the flip side terms are much shorter (8 weeks as opposed to 10-12 at other unis) and psychology never had too much vacation work unless there were exams coming up, so you get a good break in between each term.

wow this is very helpful as an applicant - can I ask about your personal statement? how much of it was supercurricular activities?

Pretty much all of it - i had a short paragraph talking about skills i developed from extracurriculars because some other unis like to see that, but i’d say 85% of the PS was about Psychology. I talked about my EPQ and some further reading I did inspired by that, some things i’d watched and read relating to developmental psychology, and my interest in biopsychology. Hope that helps - feel free to PM me if you have more questions!

thanks! yes i just messaged you a couple more questions if that's alright!

Hi! how are you feeling about your application?

hey! tsa didn't go as well as I would have liked - I haven't heard back yet but fingers crossed. I'm not too fixated on oxford as I've got offers from my safeties which I love and other reaches which I'm really hoping for!! are psych interview invites usually early dec? it says they're being held 11th onwards so I think I've got a while to wait still

I'm in the exact same position as you hahha! I've got offers from everywhere now other than Oxford but I would really like to get in ngl, it seems some subjects are sending interview invites out already which means we might hear next week

Hii did you get in??

Hii did you get in??

Yeah I did

Oh wow are you the Hilda's Psych guy

what do you mean?