My First Blog Post

Hello! Welcome to my first post on this blog! To introduce myself I'm Robyn and I'm a third (and final) year Psychology student studying the straight Psychology course (C800). This course is BPS accredited which is important if you wish to go on to further study or employment within Psychology after finishing your degree.

The undergraduate degree for the BSc Psychology course that I am taking is over three years, and consists of both assignment and exams over each year. In the first year your assignments and exams do not count towards your overall grade that you will get for your degree. In my experience this is a relief as studying for a degree is completely different to how I studied and was graded for my work at sixth form. In this way it gives you a chance to adapt to the different way of learning and still come out with the best grades possible in years two and three. In the second year the layout is very similar with exams and assignments, although there is a higher expectation within the assignments and exams as would be expected as you progress, and you need to spend more hours studying on your own. I am only my first semester into my third year and in this year it is very much the same apart from one big assignment that most student’s dread – the dissertation.

I think that people often hear about dissertation projects from word of mouth and so think them to be a mountainous challenge and I can promise you it is not as bad as it seems. In my third year, the research dissertation is just a module for the year (in which there are equal to four modules each year) and the dissertation itself is worth 80% of the module. Therefore my dissertation is less than 25% of the final year. Also it is actually quite fun, being able to choose what you want to study and learning how to do it – it’s quite exciting to be conducting your own research! Although it takes a lot of planning and work, I am not nearly as scared of it as I was when I was in first and second year and when I knew little about it.

I applied to study Psychology because since I was in my early teens and had to seriously start thinking about what I want from my life I have wanted a career in Psychology. It is something I have always found really interesting and been passionate about, and since it is the study of human behaviour it is always something you can relate to.

Three pieces of advice I would give to someone starting university would be:

• Start and try to complete work as soon as you can; it is the best way to keep on top of your work load. 
• If you struggle with assignments, don’t be scared to ask for help from lecturers, they are often very happy to help. 
• Manage your time and money properly.

I think that is all for this first blog post! Be sure to check back for my next blog post in a week! Please feel free to leave a comment or get in touch. Thank you for reading, see you next week! 

Robyn

University Of Bedfordshire - Psychology