To ask which of the two degrees you would personally do?

[curiousquestioner]

A psychology, social work or an operational department practitioner degree?

Social work you’ll walk into a post, it prepares you for HPC registration and includes placements

Psychology degree doesn’t qualify you to be a psychologist.youll need a Further 3yr post grad in clinical clinical requires direct work experience And a 2:1 is fierce to get on.lots of grads have a psychology degree it’s not a unique or distinctive degree. Most undergrad psychology degree have no placement and won’t prepare you for a specific job

operational department practitioner degree, didn’t actually know this was a degree. It’s a v limited scope. Would you consider train as nurse and specialise in theatre

ODP, Im a student nurse and have worked alongside them. All ODP's I spoke to loved their jobs and seemed genuinely happy.

Definitely ODP!
Social work hugely overstretched and underfunded, psychology jobs very very competitive. Admittedly both have scope for higher wages than ODP, but ODP always seem happy, straightforward expectations, less exposed to the pressures of the NHS than nursing. The ODPs are laughing when all the elective operations are cancelled because of winter pressures.

Can’t you do an ODP as a diploma over two years and still qualify and start at band 5?

Much quicker and cheaper than a degree 7nless I am missing something.

I wouldn’t do psychology personally and you have to really want to be a social worker to do social work. Well I would!

Psychology. You'll get to take home the left over McNuggets.

I would go with the one that will make you the most money

ODP, my ddil graduated in the summer, she had to turn down job offers and interviews, so it's a wanted profession. She also loves her job

I thought someone could qualify as PWP with 9months paid PG training after a single undergrad degree (no specific need for prior clinical experience). I may be misinformed. Band 4 to Band 5.

Which one do YOU think you will enjoy the most?

Psychology. You can always study for a professional qualification later.

Me personally, I'd choose psychology because I think I'd find it the most interesting and I'm not looking for a new career, so this could just be a fun break.

But I've no idea what your circumstances are and why you're looking to do a degree at all.

ODP
If you want to go further up the Bands 7 you could plan to do a PGCert in Teaching &Learning Clinical Practice soon as feasible after you qualify with the aim of getting Education Supervisor role.

Psychology - it is incredibly interesting. But it depends on why you are doing a degree. I did mine because I really enjoyed learning new things. I've since worked in two careers - one related and one unrelated.

Therapies Practitioners aren’t psychologists. It’s a different career path & training
PWP is a reasonably new role and can include the iapt role
But it can be career path for social science/ psychology grads

Social work; I have both a social work and psychology degree but after doing the psychology one I found that I needed more qualifications to walk into a job so did the social work one. I’m 6 years in and I love it

How's your stats? Had to do this and SPSS as part of my psych undergrad many moons ago. Hated it!!

I've got a psychology degree. It was damn hard. Also it's 50% statistics and for a non numbers person it was pretty awful. Be prepared for both arts type psychology (social psychology, organisational, child) but also the science stuff (neuropsychology, psychopharmacology, psychology of audio/visual). You'll need a first or a 2.1 from a good uni to get any kind of placement after that and then admission into the DClinPsych.

I was desperate to be a psychologist. Never got a placement despite a 2.1 and a research interest in a specialist area and20years later I'm now a lawyer!

Oh the statsCape!!

I'm on a psychology degree. It's tough, and specific psych roles will need further qualifications.

You learn so much though, although it is difficult.

Psychology seems like the only one that may have some value. If you chose modules carefully you may be able to go from there into some kind of consultancy or post grad studies or something.

Psychology is an interesting but v general degree that churns out huge amount of grads. The majority of whom will work in unrelated areas
Consultancy?in what?what would a psychology graduate consult on,compared to any other social science,arts or science grad
It doesn’t particularly lead to consultancy or post grad,it doesn’t confer a fast track status
If one wants to be a psychologist yes it’s required for post grad

I work with ODPs on occasion and they all love their job.
Would you consider a nursing degree and becoming a scrub nurse? Nursing degree would give you more options down the line.

Titiana I was totally unprepared for it! Also this was the days before computers were widely available so if you wanted to use SPSS you had to book it out days in advance! I remember having to do long form hand written t-tests and Chi2 on 20 sides of A4 to hand in!

My dissertation was 150 pages long. 100 pages were multi variable ANOVA's and Mann Whitney's. My god the horror!

OP google 'statistics in psychology' and see if it's something you would be comfortable with. It's not all interesting books about child psychology and Freudian concepts (in fact it's none of the latter!)

Definitely not psychology

I got an exemption in first year psychology then failed second year because of the statistics. I was good at maths, but stats just never sank in to my brain.