What have your kids done with their psychology degree

[whathappenedtosummer23]

DD planning on studying psychology. She thinks she wants to go on to become a clinical psychologist but is also playing with the option of law and has some good work experience lined up.

Predicted grades should be at least 3A’s but she’ll go for a couple of unis with lower grades too. I want her to keep her options open so Bristol is aspiration choice, Liverpool achievable and Sussex back up lower grades.

whilst I appreciate that in many careers uni isn’t important I know in reality if she goes down the law route - realistic places would be level below magic circle / big west end firms, in practice it probably will be, so I don’t want her to close doors.

Do these options sound realistic?

DSD currently studying for doctorate. Working as a psychologist.

I know someone who did a psychology degree and then did the law conversion GDL, got a first, and became a very successful solicitor 🙂

It’s insanely competitive and badly paid! I’m trying to persuade DS to have a back up plan 😄

Hi

I'm an Ed Psych. And I love it. It's a stressful job but also incredibly rewarding over time.

I thought about clinical but Ed suits me better. I did joint honours including a year abroad (which counted as a year's experience of working with children and in schools). I loved my two subjects and the other one actually helped me a lot with psychology.

It's highly competitive to get into post grad applied psychology but in my view it's been totally worth it. I'm in Scotland though, so a different system to the English one.

I also got my teaching qualification as a back up plan. Taught for a year which counted in my 2 years experience to get on the course. I also worked through uni with children with learning disabilities and in an adult dementia unit. These kind of things help get a leg up for research posts or applications for applied post grads.

Doctorates in Ed Psych and Clinical Psych are funded here. Ed Psych is a Masters but it's always been more SCQF tariff points than a Masters so decision has finally been taken to change the course to doctorate. The next cohort to start will come out with a Doctorate. It's already a doctorate in England.

My sister also did psychology then dentistry as a second degree. Think it's helped as specialises in complex patients who have experienced trauma, learning disability, dental phobia etc.

Similar to PP I did a degree then a health psychology masters and had several low paid roles. I would strongly recommend depending on motivation/interests that others go down the mental health nursing/social work/OT/SLT route and do an undergrad that gives you a profession and HCPC registration. I now have a second masters which was paid for by my employer but I am 36 and work with a 23 year old OT colleague and we are both band 6. I know what I wish I had done!

Thanks for your response. I applied for the Ed Psy doctorate and didn't get any interviews despite having an 'impressive c.v'. Was looking for someone to have a look at my application to advise where I've gone wrong

DD, prestigious university, got a first, went straight to post grad Med School and is now a surgeon.

If there are so many psych grads out there, why the hell are we so short of Ed Psychs in LAs? Is it cost of further training, lack of investment or budgetary cuts?
Given the waiting lists for diagnosis that are years why is the government not investing in you all/giving bursaries etc?

Ed psych here.

Love it.

I read psychology back in the day and went on to become an accountant then investment banker. A fair few of us ended up in the city....although one became England Rugby captain.......

Completely predictable. Had an ageing population and the profession was warning of a coming shortage. Then austerity, council budgets slashed, EPs pared back to the bone in many authorities which means the jobs are awful and no one wants to work there. Then they closed one of the very few courses available (less than 15 courses in the UK, very heavily weighted to London and the South).

Add to that the proliferation of academy chains with ridiculous rules and zero tolerance approaches, and the Gove curriculum designed to be extra full and extra hard creating a crisis of mental ill health in our children, so more need for E Ps than ever (though actually they need education reform rather than people to pick up the pieces of destroyed children).

There needs to be a great deal of investment to meet the burgeoning needs.

EPS are a traded service in my LA. Schools are given the budgets and they buy EP services. The LA doesn’t dole out the service. So if they want more, they pay for it. Many EPs do private work.As they make a lot of money I don’t see why their training should be subsidised.

EPs don't make a lot of money given the training trajectory.
Top of scale is less than 60k.

Also most EPs are either independent, or work for an LA. You don't get many EPs who do a bit of private on the side as far as I know. It would be a conflict of interest to do that within your local area if you are also employed by the LA.

I think this is a bit of a misunderstanding of traded services (not that I'm sticking up for them!). There is a SEN budget which the LA has, they can either top slice this and pay for the EP services directly through the LA or allow schools to have the money and 'buy in' services. It's the same pot of money but has implications for how the money gets allocated (do all schools get the same regardless of need etc.) and combined with the shortage of EPs it is a very imperfect model.

You can't do independent work for your own LA but it's not a conflict of interest to work privately for another LA and a lot of work is online so some EPs do locum work as well as their LA job.

I did psychology in the late 1990s. Couldn't get in a DClinPsch so moved to London and did a couple years of general dogsbody type jobs. Did a law conversion and then my LPC and I'm now a partner in a law firm.

I did psychology, I'm an occupational psychologist, it requires a master's degree and then 2-3 years of practicing to achieve chartered status. Practically it means working alongside HR designing assessments, career coaching, evaluating hr processes etc. You can work in inhouse occ psych teams, many government departments and large organizations have them, external consultancy, or many work as solo consultants.

Private EPs exist and they don’t work for LAs. They don’t have a salary scale. Loads of parents use their services and pay.

I know, and you seemed to be saying because EPs make loads of money they should not get funding to do their doctorate training. If you work for an LA you do have pay scales and you do not make ££££.

Actually most trainees are now employees as of year 2 of their training anyway, working as a trainee. So funding is only for first year.

However given that there is a huge shortage of EPs and that many EPs (such as me) do not work privately because they want to be able to work for any child regardless of whether their parent can afford them, it seems weird that you would also want to make it impossible for many people to actually train as EPs unless they are already wealthy enough to afford to be doing an unsubsidized doctorate. How would that help? Wouldn't it just force more EPs to go private to earn the £££ to pay off the massive debts you want them to incur?

Should clinical psychs also not be funded for their doctorates? They have better earnings potential than Ed psychs and also can go private if they like?

Student loans don’t have to be paid off. The old model was best. We had LAs sponsoring the training of EPs. They were all teachers first. People were queuing up to do it. There’s insufficient money everywhere. The minute the funding was distributed to schools, the LAs were short of money. I don’t think there’s an answer but it is a long training and obviously someone has to pay. A mix of employer and employee is reasonable.

I do know, since I am one. Taught for 8 years. Applied twice. People are still queuing up to do it. It's incredibly competitive to get on the courses.

I think a one year bursary and two years employed as a trainee is fair enough. You are working as an EP (under close supervision) for those 2 years, and earning very little.

I know two who eventually became consultant psychologists but it all took years (like about 20).

I know another working in IT.
All three had very good careers. I think the one working in IT earns most tho!

@DrRuthGalloway I think many careers start off as poorly paid when training but it’s a better job than teaching, I think.

DSD works in HR. DB completed masters then PhD in behavioural neuroscience. BF works in probation. All are psychology graduates.