Psychology

[bagandcoat]

If your dc did psychology al level, what aspect did the enjoy or dislike?

And if they studied psychology, what sort of profession did they go into?

A-Level

I taught Psychology and some students went on to study Psychology at university but others went on to study one of their other A level subjects. What they study at University had a bigger impact on their future career than what they study at A level.

My son did a btech in sport science at college and loved the sport psychology module. He went onto study psychology at degree level. He enjoyed it.

Going by the feedback on this thread it doesn't sound great. Not as academically rigorous at A-level and little carer opportunities after a degree. Dd is trying to chose between English Lit and Psychology. She isn't really interest in counselling or mental health but in the workings of the human mind.

My daughter did psychology A level and a psychology degree.

Originally she was interested in the psychology of criminals and was hoping to work in a prison. While at university she volunteered as a tutor at a local secondary school (GCSE English) and really enjoyed it. During lockdown she also joined another voluntary tutoring scheme and tutored psychology remotely to A level students.

That led her to decide to train as a teacher and she now teaches A level psychology and sociology at a large comprehensive. She is also a head of year and has a role in relation to safeguarding.

She is interested in mental health and wellbeing, but her psychology background is also helpful in helping her understand how children learn and how memory works, and the stats/research methods elements of her studies mean that she is comfortable with interrogating and interpreting data on eg performance and attendance.

She wouldn’t agree with your suggestion that psychology isn’t academically rigorous. She says when students don’t enjoy the subject it is usually because they were hoping for something “touchy feely” and are disappointed that it is “drier” than they expected, with a lot of content to learn, and a need to study statistics.

My DD didn’t do psychology at A level but chose to do it at University. From her friends at uni they have chosen very varied professions : Clinical psychology, educational psychology, neuropsychology and people science. The last one is data interpretation in regards to business.

For A levels I would suggest to pick the subject on which one is likely to achieve the highest result.

From what I have observed, a lot of people assume psychology is mainly discussion-based, but there was quite a bit of research, evaluation and exam technique involved.
As for careers, psychology seems to lead to a huge range of options. I've known people go on to clinical psychology, counselling, teaching, HR, marketing, social work and even completely unrelated fields. It seems to be quite a versatile subject rather than one that locks you into a specific profession.