BSc (Hons) Psychology

Hi, my name is Lauren, and I am currently a second year BSc Psychology student at the University of Hertfordshire 👋

In this blog, I am going to give you an overview of a day in the life studying psychology.

I have really enjoyed the course so far and I am looking forward to being able to tailor my course even more in the third year, when we get to choose modules in areas of psychology that we are interested in: for example Clinical Psychology.

I currently live on campus, so in the morning I walk over to my lectures which take place on College Lane campus. The walk from the accommodation to the lectures takes between 5-10 minutes. The lectures tend to last two hours each with a 10-minute break in the middle. For our research methods lab, we are in the ILab (pictured) which is a room with Mac computers that has all the software we need for the course - for example SPSS. If I have lectures in the afternoon as well, my friends and I tend to have lunch at the local shopping centre in Hatfield called the Galleria.

After our lecture in the afternoon, I tend to go to the LRC on College Lane to complete any reading that I need to do, seminar questions as well as completing assignments and revising for exams.

In the evening, I like to attend an Active Students session, for example boxfit. These sessions are free for all students. I then finish off any work that I needed to complete that day ready for the next day.

I hope this gives you a better understanding into the day of a life of a student studying BSc Psychology! If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me on Unibuddy 😀

Having graduated from Herts with an undergraduate and postgraduate degree in Psychology, I am now working in the sector as a senior research assistant psychologist. For anybody looking to study psychology, I want to offer you four key pieces of advice and tips to help get you started!

1. Don’t feel like you need to go into the course (or finish it!) with your career plans mapped out

Finding your feet after university can be daunting – I won’t sugar-coat it. Psychology, particularly the clinical field, can be a competitive area of work to get into, and it’s often not a quick, linear, or easy pathway into a career. So if you don’t have your life roadmap paved out for the next decade - or even the next year – don’t sweat it (easy said than done though, I know). Had you asked me what I wanted to do three years ago, as I came towards the end of my undergraduate degree, you would have been met with a nervous laugh and a face of complete panic.

My decision to continue into postgraduate education was largely the result of uncertainty about what direction I wanted to go in with my career. As my undergraduate degree was coming to an end, I knew clinical psychology was an area of particular interest to me, which prompted my decision to study for an MSc in Research in Clinical Psychology. Essentially, this was a course targeted at people who want to get onto the clinical doctorate training, and those who want to pursue a research career in the clinical field. Ironically, I began the degree as the former, and finished it as the latter.

Working in a secure mental health setting has also confirmed to me that clinical doctorate training isn’t the route that I want to take, and it’s research that I really love. So I’d definitely say to keep your mind open, and try to avoid that tunnel vision thinking of "this is what I want and I need to get there as soon as possible". There’s no timeline to your career and people often get caught up in thinking about the end goal without enjoying the parts in between.

2. Take advantage of opportunities during the degree… your post-grad self will thank you for it!

That’s perhaps quite hypocritical for me to say as I certainly wasn’t one for doing this. There’s a balance to be struck between focusing on your academic attainment and getting valuable experience along the way, and I definitely put my time and effort into getting good grades. A first class degree will undoubtedly open doors for you, but there’s also lots to be said for a replete ‘experience’ section on your CV.

Whilst I didn’t do a placement year, I often work with students who are on a clinical placement at St. Andrew’s, and I can definitely see the benefits of taking one. The experience they are gaining and the skills and knowledge that they are learning will undoubtedly prepare them well for both their final year studies and beyond this, in their journey into a career.

Getting involved in research can also be a really helpful thing to do. As well as updating your knowledge within an area and developing lots of useful skills, it can offer you an advantage when it comes to applying for training programmes, and is one way to stand out in a very large crowd.

3. Do your research on all the different pathways a psychology degree can take you

For many people, getting onto clinical doctorate training is the motivation underlying their decision to study for a degree in psychology. However, this is by no means the only pathway into a career within the field. As my postgraduate degree was coming to an end, and the delight of never-ending job applications began, my eyes were opened to a whole range of alternative roles and routes; at the time that I got my first research assistant job, I was also offered a training post as an education mental health practitioner – a role which I hadn’t heard about until five weeks prior. Also, there are a whole host of options available to psychology graduates which extend far beyond the area of psychology itself.

4. Celebrate your successes

Lastly, but by no means least, allow yourself to celebrate your own accomplishments and successes along the way. A degree isn’t meant to be handed to you on a plate, and it does unquestionably demand hard work, commitment, and lots of perseverance. But it also brings growth, personal and academic development, and exceeding beliefs about your own capabilities. Whilst it can be easy to get caught up in grades, studying for a degree will bring success in many other ways too. Expect the challenges that come with earning a degree, but allow yourself to revel in all the triumphs along the way – big or small!

Hi! My name is Noah and I’m a third year psychology student here at the University of Hertfordshire 👋

Today I’ll be sharing what a typical day looks like for me:

5:30–7:30am: For me, I am definitely an early bird. On days when I have an early morning lecture, I’ll wake up at about half-past five, and spend around forty minutes getting ready for the day. After that, I will start block scheduling a general plan of my day on my calendar.

7:30-8:00am: Just before I arrive at University, I like to quickly stop to grab myself coffee (gingerbread latte with oat milk, if anyone is curious) – caffeine is a must!

8:00-9:30am: Once I arrive at Uni, I head straight to one of the many individual study spaces at the Learning Resource Centre (LRC) to begin some work. The LRC is open 24/7 and hosts thousands of books for every subject that the University teaches. The LRC is such a warm and wonderful environment for studying, with both group and individual study rooms, a café (The Retreat) on the lower-ground floor, as well as comfortable sofa, booths and chairs, allowing you to study in any way that suits you.

I prefer being in almost complete silence, by myself, with little to no distractions, so I absolutely love the individual study spaces.

9:30-10:30am: After my time in the LRC, I have a meeting with my project supervisor. All final year psychology students have to complete a ‘psychology project’, more often known as a ‘dissertation’, and each student chooses a supervisor for their project, often based on previous work.

During my meeting, I'm advised to make a few adjustments to my ethics and risk assessment forms, so I make a quick note to do so on my phone.

11:00-1pm: Straight after my supervision meeting, I have to attend my only lecture for the day. With psychology, there is a lot of independent research that you need to do, so I don’t really have that many lectures that I need to attend. The lecture that I was attending today was on the topic of counselling.

1-3pm: Once the lecture is finished, I make my way back home and have a little bit of a rest. During this time, I also make sure to eat some lunch!

3-5pm: After my break, I jump straight back into work. I begin with making the adjustments to my ethic and risk assessment forms, as I was told to do during my meeting earlier. Once completed, I then start studying for my Counselling module exams.

Once I have completed that, I am absolutely shattered! So I pack everything up and start to relax and unwind.

Thank you for reading my ‘Day in the Life’! This is an example of a very busy day for me, so it is vital to note that not every single day is as hectic as this 😀