Best place to study psychology BA online?

[Vexar]

Posting here for traffic. Would like to go to a 'good' uni if possible. Didn't get on with Open because my background is academic and I just found out too much like being spoonfed.

There's the option to do a conversion course but I'm worried it would rule me out for further study - are these highly regarded or not? Is the BA always required?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Btw the OU spoon feeds in the first year (two years if part time). Then tapers off. By the equivalent of final full time year you're far more independent. It's my second degree and I was a bit fed up of that aspect tbh, but in hindsight I could have studied the first and second year full time.

Also the OU is tighter than my former (red brick) uni in terms of sources for assignments in years 1 & 2. I think this is to maintain a certain academic standard from a distance and to limit the ability of students to cheat. As you don't have lectures with attendance recorded, they need to check you've done the work/got the information that the degree classification infers. Making students use OU sources as primary sources, really makes it hard to find someone else (not ChatGPT too) to write your assignments!

Point being, if you need to do a bachelors (in anything), don't write it off because of first year spoon feeding.

Oh and as someone who hadn't written an essay for years (but wrote non-academically for work), that spoon feeding was actually handy in remembering how to do it! 😂

Hmmm….. I’m not sure this for you, OP.

There may be other options in the field that are more suitable.

Thanks Denim, very insightful. I actually don't have a huge desire to be a counsellor and contrary to what my posts indicate I'm up for a challenge academically. Acutely aware of the statistics part of it and I haven't done statistics for years so yes, part of the follow up questioning is to ensure I can actually cope. Sometimes you're allowed into things but wouldn't be able to get a distinction. I'm suspicious of fast tracks. It does seem to be the case that the conversion degree would not be open to me at this point despite the content some of these replies which I still greatly appreciate. Add I'm open to finding out I'm wrong. I did come across a YouTuber who said he did the Graduate Certificate first and found those who hadn't really struggled.

I would like to do research that straddles English Lit and Psychology initially, then think about further training for clinical work.

Thank you for this. I suppose the questions I would ask are how you got enough credits for the conversion degree with English Lit and how you managed to get a high grade in statistics with no background to help you? It seems like an extraordinary achievement - kudos to you.

I did try ou and turned in an essay that I really thought was good. I should have had some idea if it was good because it wasn't a difficult subject, I got straight firsts in essays at MA level and had marked dozens of undergraduate papers. It scored a low 2:2 because it would not have been comprehensible to someone with no background in psychology. Apparently that is part of the OU marking criteria. Checked it with an expert friend and it was a strong undergraduate essay otherwise. I hadn't written it for someone with no background in psychology - I'd written it for the professor. Would have understood if it was mentioned in the essay question but it wasn't. I just couldn't face or succeed at three years of that.

Thank you!
Re credits, I chose a Masters conversion that didn’t require any psychology credits. I just did a super quick search and see that MMU do an online conversion, you need previous credits for the PGDip, but not if you do the full masters.

As for Stats, it was definitely my weakest point, but I studied hard and asked for help, and passed the stats module fine in the end.

I don't use stats much now on a day to day basis as an applied psychologist. My course-mates who went on to do academic research use it a lot more. You really need to be confident with stats to go into academia.

Thanks so much for this advice. It sounds like you have more confidence than I do - I need to leave a good semester for general panic about the statistics and probably a bit of slippage for child related drama! I think I might be better doing the certificate first. Do you think it would have made the experience less stressful/better for you in any way? It sounds like the conversion degrees requiring initial credits might be shorter, does that sound right?

Btw OP. I've always (as in since I was in high school 20 years ago) thought that there should be a defined pathway from English Lit to psychology. It actually seems insane to me that there isn't. The two are so linked. Fair enough there's a stats side that's missing, but that can be taught and there's a very strong analysis (of text and characters) side to English Lit that dovetails nicely with psychology.

I think if you are lacking in confidence it would be better to consider studying part time, thereby giving yourself more time for each assignment, rather than spending more time and money on doing another qualification first. Conversion courses are designed for people who have not studied psychology before :-)

Heartily agree with this! Literary theory puts you in a strong position for the philosophical side of research (words, concepts and nature of reality etc). I found it very helpful!

Sorry I didn’t answer your question about course length. Yes, PgDip will be shorter, generally though (as I understand it, I might be wrong) PG dip is the same as the masters but does not include the dissertation.
At my uni, the Masters I did was 12 months Sept - Aug, the PGdip was run simultaneously Sept-June, and was the same except no dissertation.

Some people started out intending to do the PGDip, and others started out doing the Masters but failed a module, so got a PGDip instead.

If you would like to give yourself the best chance of getting onto a psychology doctorate, I’d definitely go for the Masters, as the in depth research training is really important - especially for people like us with Arts degrees who have not done scientific research before. You are not likely to manage a doctoral research thesis when you have never done any research in the discipline before.

As I said before, my suggestion would be to do the Masters part time over 2 years if you are worried (or, start full time, and drip down to part time if you’re finding it too much).

If you want to do some studying before the masters, maybe read up on imposter syndrome, perfectionism, growth mindset, self esteem, self compassion etc.

I did try ou and turned in an essay that I really thought was good. I should have had some idea if it was good because it wasn't a difficult subject, I got straight firsts in essays at MA level and had marked dozens of undergraduate papers. It scored a low 2:2 because it would not have been comprehensible to someone with no background in psychology. Apparently that is part of the OU marking criteria. Checked it with an expert friend and it was a strong undergraduate essay otherwise. I hadn't written it for someone with no background in psychology - I'd written it for the professor. Would have understood if it was mentioned in the essay question but it wasn't. I just couldn't face or succeed at three years of that.

This was my experience when I retrained at a traditional uni. My background was English Lit & Lang BA & MA then I changed track to a registered health profession that required a 3 year BSc. I thought I'd have no problem with the essays as that was where I l had always excelled. But I got low 2:2s for most of first year because it was such different way of imparting knowledge. Every term had to be defined and referenced. A 1000 word essay or 10 minute presentation would have pages and pages of references and appendices. I got there in the end and did well but it was a huge mind-shift.

I'm only sharing my experience so you know that it's really, really normal to find the shift from an arts subject to writing for a science degree tricky. Don't lose heart over that side of things :)

Thank you for this. Strangely I began in biomedical sciences and did two years of that. It was so helpful to getting good marks in English because it teaches you to be rigorous. I'll make sure I get access to essays and journals beforehand in the right field so I get the right idea. I had hoped it was just an ou problem but perhaps it isn't.

Thank you so much for taking the time to advise me. It's really appreciated. I'll bear all this in mind.

No problem :-) I remember what it’s like to make a big change. I’m no academic powerhouse, if I can do it, I’m sure you can too! Good luck.

Yeah, it really helped me get to grips with a (to me) new style when I read and analysed journal articles. And, of course, our Eng Lit skills are hugely helpful with that!