What is Psychology?
Psychologists try to understand the human mind and behaviour by exploring the causes and reasons behind human behaviour, trying to understand why people obey orders even when they cause harm, explore impacts on memory and individual differences such as intelligence and understanding disorders. Psychology explores a vast array of theories, research and explanations as to what causes human behaviour. By the end of the two years you will have gained a deep insight into human experience and have explored a range of areas such as mental health, child development, biological explanations and criminal behaviour
Why study Psychology?
Psychology is fundamental to everyday life, if you have ever watched people and tried to reason how and why they act a certain why, if you have ever heard about famous criminals and considered why did they do this awful thing? If you have ever wondered what makes you who you are, why do some people have mental illness and others don’t? Psychology tries to answer all of these and more, developing a solid understanding of people. Psychology is key to any interaction with people.
You will develop critical thinking, analysis, report writing and practical research skills that will set you up for any degree or career you could imagine.
Is Psychology right for you?
This course is ideal for anyone curious about human behaviour and the human mind, if you like questioning what you think of as fact and can challenge existing beliefs then Psychology offers you an excellent opportunity to criticise and challenge existing research.
Do you want to know more about obedience, memory, intelligence, child development, criminal behaviour and mental health and causes and treatments, then psychology is for you!
What will you study?
- Research methods
How we conduct research, the pros and cons of experiments and questionnaires, and the statistical analysis of research data - Psychological themes through core studies
A range of core studies to explain behaviour across five key areas: social, cognitive, developmental, biological and individual differences, answering debates such as nature versus nurture - Issues in mental health
How mental illness is diagnosed, the characteristics of three key disorders, theories of what causes mental illness and how it can be treated - Criminal psychology
What causes criminal behaviour? Are we born or made into criminals? How do the characteristics of defendants affect jury decisions? What impact does prison have on individuals? - Child psychology
How the teenage brain is predisposed to risk, types of attachment between child and parent and their effect on future relationships, and the development of depth perception in the early years
What happens outside lessons?
Outside of class we have regular engagements with lecturers from Teesside University who come and speak to students about the life of a University Psychology student, giving talks on Memory, Counselling and Clinical Psychology and Psychopathology such as Psychosis. These talks give a valuable insight unto the boarder scope of psychology and future career paths.
We visit Teesside University for the annual British Psychological Society (BPS) conference which explores current research and developments across a range of areas for example exploring comparisons of morality between children and apes and the realities of forensic psychology
Where can Psychology take you?
Psychology is incredibly useful in a wide range of careers;
Forensic Psychology
Counselling or Clinical Psychology
Teaching
Police
Social work and much more
What subjects go well with Psychology?
Psychology is incredibly versatile and will pair well with any subject combination, offering valuable transferable skills.
Frequent combinations can be split into science or humanities;
Students with more of a science interest often pair with Biology and Chemistry or Applied science.
Students with more of a humanities interest often pair with Sociology, Criminology, Health and Social, Business or English
What are the entry requirements?
- General requirements: Five GCSEs at grade 4 or above.
- Subject specific: Grade 5 in GCSE English. Grade 5 in GCSE science. An average GCSE score of 5.5 or above.
- Maths requirement: Grade 5 in GCSE maths. If your GCSE maths is grade 5, you take Core Maths alongside this course.