Are placement/sandwich courses a good idea?

[Sawadeekaka]

My DD wants to study psychology at uni with her career aspiration to be a clinical psychologist eventually.
She's attracted to the unis which offer 3rd year work placements as clinical psych postgrad courses require practical experience. Seems like a good enough idea to me but I wonder if anyone has any thoughts on these kind of courses? Pros and cons?

@titchy

Have you checked her fee status - presumably she'll pay overseas rates? Also check whether placements would be restricted because of that - I know students on tier 4 visas (or wherever they are now) can only work 20 hours a week but not sure whether this would include placements.

Possibly international fees (we're a borderline case) but she's UK national so no visa issues

Most nhs psychology placements are unpaid. Travel expenses in work are paid but usually not travel to work.
It can be good experience but he university still charge fees, albeit reduced I think.
Plus is good experience, minus can be getting out of synch with some of your year group.
Getting on a clinical psychology training course will need at least a good degree + good work experience, often people have masters too. It is extremely competitive and can take some years to get a place.

I did a psychology sandwich course and got on to clinical training two years after graduating on my first application. It was definitely worth it

I’d say definitely worth it. I’m a lecturer and the change students undergo on placement is often quite dramatic. They learn so much and they usually come back with a renewed energy for their final year and with a real drive to work hard. So as well as the benefits of the actual work experience, they often come out with a better degree.

Yes, most students have to find their own placement. But this is within a very well supported framework of advice on offer (although often students don’t take this up, yet still complain about having to find their own placement). Most departments ongoing unofficial relationships with placement providers too. It’s also good for the student, who is after all, an adult, for have to show the initiative and motivation here, rather than having it handed to them on a plate.

I can’t really think of many negatives. Even when placements haven’t lived up to all a student has hoped for, they have still been valuable experiences for the student. Actually - the one negative is that due to the unpaid nature of many placements it’s yet another thing that disproportionately advantages the already privileged students.

I can’t really think of many negatives. Even when placements haven’t lived up to all a student has hoped for, they have still been valuable experiences for the student.

I agree with @Flockameanie DD2's best friend from school had a placement which she really enjoyed and after graduation was offered a full-time job by the company (a well-known multi-national), which she is also enjoying.

DD2 didn't hate her placement but did realise that what her practical, vocational under-grad was leading to, wasn't really what she wanted to do long term. So she shifted direction a little via a highly academic Masters which involved conducting original research.

So two completely different experiences of placement, but both very valuable as part of the process of learning where their interests lie.

Let me get this right…they are expected to work full time for a year UNPAID….and pay a “reduced” tuition fee???? Wtf?

It depends on the uni. It’s often 30 hours a week in term time so not a whole year.

This is a disadvantage of a placement year as although they get student finance, it is more debt. They could volunteer and do bank work and then hope to get paid nhs work as an assistant psychologist. These posts are very competitive though.

I think there are something like 12000 psychology graduates a year. Obviously lots of them go on to do other things but that’s still a lot of people chasing the paid jobs.
So there’s a bottle neck after graduation to paid work experience and then another into the clinical training doctorate. It’s not for the faint hearted.

Well - define “work”! It’s learning. Apparently 1 grad in 24 studies psychology. Getting work as a psychologist is very hard. Most never make it.

@OnTheHillNotOverIt
Just reading a report into training psychologists, it says that 24,000 do a psychology degree each year, not 12,000. Obviously most of them don’t get near working as psychologists. Not sure what stats are correct.

You may well be right Tizer which would make it worse than I said.

But it's not a vocational degree so not so surprising.
How many history students become historians? Sociology students sociologists? Geography students geographers?
It's all a very small number.
We know clinical psychology is very competitive, I bang this into dd all the time. But it's not like there's 24000 people chasing a tiny number of jobs. Plenty of.psychology grads go into other jobs and have no intention of being a psychologist.

@Sawadeekaka
Your DD does want it to be vocational though. Hence the placement year. Many psychology grads do the 3 years and that’s that. Once you want a career in psychology you are using the degree as vocational because it’s necessary.

Not all law grads can become lawyers. A percentage do so essentially the degree is part of their training. Thank God in excess of 20,000 don’t want to be psychologists. The level of disappointment would be massive.

My Dd wants work experience. It doesn't make psychology a vocational degree. There's nothing hands on in the degree and the placement could be totally research based or in industry rather than working with people.
None of this takes away from the competitiveness of clinical psychology of course but psychology is super interesting and gives lots of transferable skills so it's a solid degree regardless of what happens later, it doesn't close you in to one career like teaching, nursing, medicine etc might do.

I didn’t say it did. I clearly said many want the : years and that’s that. I wonder how many clinical psychologists didn’t do psychology though? Are there lots of avenues into this job?

I work at a University and would recommend the placement courses. Generally, our courses offer a placement and it is optional, so you can still complete the same course but not do the placement year if you choose not to or are unable to get one come year 3. Also, generally, our placement students tend to achieve firsts and 2.1s as they're able to draw on professional and practical experience in their Level 6 studies after the placement. I can't see any cons of doing the placement year, hope this helps, all the best to your DD!

I wonder how many clinical psychologists didn’t do psychology though?

Not many but it is possible to do a conversion masters to gain eligibility for graduate entry to BPS (British Psychological Society).

www.exeter.ac.uk/postgraduate/courses/psychology/psychconversion/

So it’s a bit like law but with far fewer converting from other degrees? That makes sense. So if a students wishes a degree in psychology to be the first steps to being a clinical psychologist, it is the most obvious route to this vocation. Certainly the most direct route!