Tuesday 8 October 2013

Back to the grindstone

My psychology MSc has started again, and I have mixed feelings about it. Here is a spectrum of my thoughts about it from a scale of 10-1, 10 being negative, one being positive (preparation for quantitative research!). 

10- I have no time. I'm working full-time, renovating a house and trying to study all at the same time. Something's got to give and I'm not sure if anything can! I think it's going to have to be weekends.

9- Will I get a good grade? I really struggled with the last assignment piece and didn't get the most fantastic grade. Maybe I'm just not very good at it!

8- The course is costing me a fortune! I have the money saved but we could really do with spending it on the house!

7- Other people on the course are irritating. A lot of them seem to be stay-at-home Mums with much more time and the ability to write on the discussion board about a minute after each task has been posted with a much better understanding that I have. It's frustrating and a bit annoying.

6- I need to put some time aside to go to the library and get used to finding journals. I generally dislike the library. Mostly because it's full of students, and partly because it's quite far from my house. Being away from home does help me to focus though so would be worthwhile spending a few hours there.

5- I don't know what I want to do with it. I originally wanted to be an Educational Psychologist but I'm still not sure this is exactly what I want to do. I would also like to teach Psychology. It's difficult to know where I'll go with the qualification.

4- I can improve my skills. Although I've struggled with elements of the course, I'm determined to improve my skills and to get better at writing research reports and critical reviews.

3- A sense of achievement. Knowing I've worked hard to gain a qualification rather than wasting time watching television means a lot to me and makes me proud of myself.

2- It will bring about new opportunities. There are lots of paths that will be opened up to me by having a qualification in Psychology. Just because I don't know which I want to go down yet doesn't mean it's not worthwhile.

1-I am learning. The main reason I took this qualification is because I was interested in Psychology. Although it's not as fun to learn as at A level (where it was more engaging and at a slower pace) I am still finding it interesting and enjoying learning things I never knew. I just need to work harder to find my best approach to learning by trying new things. I'm currently reading study notes, reading books and listening to podcasts. Any other ideas, let me know!

So there are my thoughts about the course. Now back to the books.


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