Psychology

Hello and welcome to this subject talk on the MSc and PG Dip Psychology programs. My name is Dr Gulcan Garip and I'm the program lead for these programs and I joined the University in 2015. I'm a health psychologist and my research interests involve looking at digital behaviour change interventions for self-management, online learning, how we can improve the online learning student experience for psychology students and beyond and I'm also a mixed methods researcher which means I'm happy to be involved in research that uses both qualitative and quantitative methods. Like most of the members of my team I'm part of several professional and regulatory bodies such as the British Psychological Society and the Health and Care Professions Council. My program co-lead Dr Natalie Zadurian joined the university in 2016. She also happens to be a health psychologist and her research looks at the experiences of chronic pain and what we can do to improve this for people. Her teaching primarily takes place on developmental psychology as well as research methods and statistics. At the University of Derby we have a renowned psychology course and it's not just the MSc and PG Dip psychology but we've also got a number of other BSc level as well as PhD level Psychology programs. We were established in 1994 and we've been one of the earliest courses to be accredited by the British Psychological Society. We've been running the revalidated version of the program since 2019 and we're just in the run-up of a new revalidation process. We also have a long-standing relationship with the British Psychological Society and we've been commended on our optional module choices that we provide for students. We've got a strong research ethos which means a lot of our staff are research active and our teaching is underpinned by staff research. We're also very supportive of students working towards being published in peer-reviewed journals. So if that's something of interest to you then that's something that you'll be able to talk about with staff.

There are particularly two areas that the University of Derby is known for and these are nature connectedness and contemplative psychology so as a student of the University you would have experience and opportunities to be involved in research on these areas.

For those of you unsure about what psychology entails it is the scientific study of the mind and its influence on behavior and as part of the MSc and PG Dip programs you'll be exposed to courses in the core areas of psychology that cover biological, psychology, social psychology, cognitive and developmental, individual differences, conceptual and historical issues and also a number of research methods classes.

There are several routes into becoming a psychologist, the key is especially if you're planning on becoming a psychologist within the UK, is to make sure that you've got your graduate basis for chartered membership, our BPS accredited programs upon successful completion of them will confer graduate basis for chartered membership, so you might choose an undergraduate route into achieving this or you might be interested in the MSc conversion routes. Once you've completed these programs you can then look at the specific career routes that you need to take in order to become a psychologist in the particular areas that you're interested in and this might also involve work at level eight which would be a PhD or a doctor of training program you might be curious to find out how long it takes to become psychologists, and here we've got three examples of the various types of routes that it might take to become either a chartered health psychologist, a clinical psychologist or an academic lecturer or researcher. So if I just take the example of becoming a chartered health psychologist one that is both perhaps research active and practising in a more kind of health services setting once you've completed your BSc or MSc conversion you would then be required to do an MSc which would satisfy the stage one requirements and then you'd also need to think about your stage two training and these timelines here are for full-time study and if you're doing this part-time it can take longer. So the BPS accreditation is really really important especially if you're looking to become a qualified psychologist within the UK and as I've mentioned before we do have a number of other courses that are BPS accredited. We've also got over 10 years of experience delivering BPS accredited online psychology courses as part of our offer to you as being a University of Derby student you'll be entitled to receive free student membership of the BPS for all the core courses and these include the undergraduate BSc honours in Psychology, the MSc psychology, PG Diploma in psychology as well as the MSc Health Psychology programs. Your student membership will include access to a wide range of specialist online journals. You'll also have access to fortnightly email digests which include all the latest research in Psychology and you'll be receiving an online magazine called The Psychologist. You'll also have access to online and face-to-face events and conferences which can be really excellent for developing networking opportunities. You'll also have the opportunity to join committees and contribute to publications and you can also join local branches if you are based in an area that has a BPS branch.

The course durations for our various programs differ. These are the standard rates of study but it is possible to study at an accelerated rate should you have more time and capacity to be able to commit to do those more intensive study routes. We've got three entry points being January, May and September so there's lots of different options for you to plan your studies with us.

I'd just like to spend a bit of time talking about the requirements of the MSc psychology program. As part of this program you'll need to study all the core modules listed here which start off with the Introduction to Perspectives in Psychology followed by Investigations and Analysis then you'll be able to choose between Social and Developmental Psychology, Individual Differences and Biological and Cognitive Approaches in Psychology. In terms of when you choose to study these, you will need to complete all of these modules as well as one optional module. You'll also need to complete your Master's Research Project which is a 60 credit module that runs over one year. For those of you who are looking at the PG Diploma program, you won't have the optional module to do and instead of a 60 credit research project module you'll have a 20 credit project module that runs over two trimesters.

As a student on the program you'll also hear from guest lecturers who come from industry, other higher education institutions and also from other applied settings. Past talks include presenters coming from educational psychology talking about their experience looking at a day in the life of a clinical psychologist and lots of examples of how psychology might be applied to other job roles that might not immediately come to mind as being psychology relevant careers.

Okay here I'd like to share a little example from what your study materials might look like and it's a combination of text based, video based and interactive learning materials which you'll be using during your studies with us.

The first step in becoming a psychologist is to make sure you have Graduate Basis for Chartered membership which is what the MSc or PG Dip psychology courses will afford you with. Once you've got that step achieved you'll be able to look at the careersbps.org.uk website to identify the specific routes you need to complete in order to become a psychologist in one of these key areas whether it be health, clinical, educational and academic route or occupational counselling or sport and exercise or forensic psychology at the University of Derby. You'll also have the opportunity to progress into other Masters such as health or forensic or even pursue a level 8 qualification at PhD.

You'll also be part of a global and growing student body. We've got students from all across the world and it makes for an excellent opportunity to meet others and learn from their experience as well as contributing your own background and growing your own personal and professional networks.

Based on the latest rankings we're really pleased to come in at the top 20 based on the Guardian University Guide and in terms of satisfaction with the course we've achieved fourth place which is a huge achievement that we're very proud of.

Our students also have lots of positive things to say about their time with us and I think this final quote here from Amanda really captures what we try to embody as academics on the program. So I'd just like to focus on that section for now. Amanda says what I've enjoyed most is how friendly and willing the tutors are to help you. I'm also fortunate to have an excellent tutor for my final research paper who is always willing to help and is a lovely human being to chat to. I'm really glad you feel that way Amanda.

So as part as being at the University of Derby you'll also have access to a number of University services in a virtual setting. These will include things like the library, career services as well as the well-being centre.

The online learning modality really is here designed to make it work for you you'll be able to focus at a time and place that is suitable to you. We do recommend that these tips here will make your studies more achievable and more enjoyable, starting off by creating a space for you to study and perhaps carving out a particular time of day in the week to make sure that you can protect 20 hours of study time per week. You'll have opportunities to regularly engage and interact with your peers and tutors and we also encourage you to stay up to date with the latest announcements and additional resources and you can access all of this through the university learning portal and it also goes without saying but it also helps not to leave assessments to the last minute.

As part of your online community you'll have a number of asynchronous and synchronous opportunities to engage. These will take the shape of discussion forums where you can chat with others and also get feedback on your contributions to activities. You'll also have an opportunity to take part in live virtual webinars and these will be intended to present you with content related information as well as sessions dedicated to help with assignments. We appreciate that having students all across the world means that it's very difficult to find a time that will work for everyone which is why we always make sure that these sessions are recorded so that you have an opportunity to catch back on them when you've got time. In addition to these we use the standard emailing and whole telephone and virtual meetings with you to make sure that we can support you with your studies.

As well as all the academic support that you'll be getting you'll also be assigned a personal academic tutor who's your main point of contact to see you through from start to end of your studies with us. Your personal academic tutor is your go-to person for any kind of issues that you might have that are related to your studies, they'll be there to support you and signpost you to the most relevant places. In addition to academic support you'll also be able to draw on the networks that you'll be developing with your fellow students and for non-academic support queries we have a dedicated online learning advisory team who are here to support you with things like study patterns and fees and payment plans. You'll also have access to the University services that I mentioned before in terms of student well-being, the library, the careers, as well as the Union of Students. All students of the University also get access to Microsoft Office 365 as well as one terabyte worth of cloud storage and the student portal and virtual learning environment is accessible to you as long as you've got internet and a power connection.

Our online library has access to lots of online resources. It has access to databases such as library plus as well as more subject-specific databases such as Psych Info and Psych Articles.

The library team also run a number of live sessions where you're able to develop skills and learn to navigate the online library in the most effective way for you. Just like the live sessions for your courses these sessions are also recorded so don't worry if the times that are presented there don't work well for you, each module that you're studying will have core and recommended reading and these will all be fully accessible through the e-library platform.

One of the most exciting times of the academic year is when we get to celebrate your success and you're invited to come onto campus to meet us and it's just a very enjoyable day where we get to celebrate all the fruits of your hard work and big achievements. So we hope to be able to do this with many of you.

For now though I suggest that your next steps might involve checking out our website to see where you stand against the entry criteria, so that you can check the fees for the programs and see what payment plans might work for you and take a look at our next intake. If the MSc or PG Dip psychology program is something that is meaningful and worthwhile for you to do. I look forward to welcoming you on the program thank you for listening.