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Experimental Psychology at Oxford Uni

I'm considering applying to do Experimental Psych at Oxford (my A levels are Psych, Geog and English Lit), however I am struggling to decide whether it's right for me due to a lack of detailed course info on the website. Can anyone shed some light on what kind of content is covered in the course and also what the workload is like (ie. essays, other forms of work, how often/how many)? Thanks

Reply 1

eeeli

I graduated from EP last year, hopefully can give some insight. The specific course structure has been revamped since I started so my experience won't line up completely with how the course is now, but a lot of it sounds broadly similar (the big difference is my course was a 3 year BA and it's now a 4 year integrated Master's).

The content is very broad but tends to focus on Psychology as an experimental science (as the name suggests). In the first year you get an introduction to Psychology, when I did the module we focused on key areas in social, developmental, cognitive and biological psychology, and perception. You also do a module on Neurophysiology which is very biology heavy and I think crossed over a bit with biomedical science/medicine lectures (at least when I did it). There's also a statistics module which had a strong focus on learning how to use statistical coding languages according to what I've heard from first years.

Later you cover the key BPS requirements for a Psychology degree, which for me included modules on Behavioural Neuroscience (including behavioural theory, systems neuroscience and neurochemistry), Cognition (including language processing, attention, memory, reasoning and problem solving), Individual Differences and Clinical Psychology (including personality, intelligence, and a focus on several psychological disorders and treatments), Developmental Psychology (including various developmental aspects of cognition and developmental disorders), Perception (including vision, colour, hearing, and multisensory integration), and Social Psychology (including group and individual processes, developmental social psychology, social neuroscience), as well as further statistical and experimental design training and lab projects to develop research skills.

And after that you can choose from a range of advanced optional modules - these vary year on year based on which academics in the department are offering options, I did options in Clinical Social Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognitive Neurology and Experimental Design for Developmental Psychology but there's loads to choose from. You also get to do independent research projects where you can choose from projects offered by staff or propose your own if a staff member is willing to supervise, I think you can do this in third year and in the master's year now.

It's very science and statistics heavy - most Psychology degrees are due to the requirements of the BPS but I would say Oxford perhaps is even more so than others. I liked this a lot because I was interested in a research career and the course gives excellent research training (I got a funded PhD place straight out of undergrad and I'd put that partly down to how much focus this course gives to experimental methods and statistics). The workload is high (but standard for Oxford), normally I'd have an essay every week or every other week, sometimes I'd have problem sheets for my statistics tutorials as well, several hours of lectures, a lab practical session and one or two tutorials every week. If you treat the degree like a full-time job type commitment it is very manageable but you won't have as much free time as at other unis.

If you have any specific questions feel free to ask, hope this helps!