Talk about thrown in at the deep end…

Considering I thought second year was hectic, that’s nothing compared to how third year has been so far!!! I mean the majority of the 'hecticness' is down to me, as the modules themselves aren’t too bad at the moment as they’re mainly introductory lectures, what’s really hectic is my dissertation.  Both myself and my project supervisor thought it would be a good idea to get the data collection out of the way as soon as possible, which is a great idea in theory as it gives me longer to do the analysis and the write up, but in practice it’s very stressful!! I’ve managed to get about 100 participants so far, and just literally need a handful more before I can start attempting to sort out the data, which is a lot easier said than done, considering each participant has had to complete about 8 separate forms each!! It’ll definitely be a great relief once I get it out of the way and can focus on the assignments I have for my other courses!

One point which I can stress enough to any potential psychology students is to plan your project well ahead of when you actually need to!! So many of my friends have yet to do their ethical approval forms, and some haven’t even thought of an idea for their projects yet! This is going to put them at a major disadvantage when it comes to next year and they’re still desperately trying to get participants to take part in their project in time for the deadline!! It also helps to pick a topic in an area you’re most interested in as this motivates you to actually want to work on it and do well on it, rather than it feeling like something which you HAVE to do.

As I said before, the modules haven’t been too bad so far as they’re just easing us in at the moment. In the exceptional human experience course, my lecturer managed to successfully freak us out by picking my friend at random using a number game and proceeding to accurately describe her house…it did turn out that it was all a set up and he was actually using google maps to know what it looked like, but he was a good actor and certainly had me convinced for a bit that he had some supernatural powers or something!!

The other interesting thing we got to do was in my Social Psychology class, where we watched this German film called ‘The Wave’ or ‘Die Welle’. It’s all about in groups and out groups and relates to the social categorisation theory, as well as linking back to the Nazis from world war 2, and surprisingly it’s really engaging as although it’s not based on a true story, it depicts a very realistic scenario which could actually occur today, given the right situations.

Anyways, that’s it for now…Hopefully things will quieten down a bit sooon :)

xx