• Question: How did you pick the specific area of psychology you wanted to go into? Did you always know?

    Asked by anon-284640 to Christina on 9 Mar 2021.
    • Photo: Christina Brown

      Christina Brown answered on 9 Mar 2021:

      Hi Victoria,
      I didn’t decide to go into neuroscience until my 2nd year of university. I didn’t realise how little biology was taught at the undergraduate psychology lectures at my university. Every university is different in how they teach but there was a clear separation between the neuroscience and psychology department for me. I didn’t really realise how much more interested in was in the biological processes of how a brain works until I listened to a lot of lectures on social psychology or personality psychology – I was wasn’t interested in it. I hadn’t realised until then that there was a wide gap in brain research and if I wanted to study brain cells specifically, and how they are damaged in diseases like Alzheimer’s disease – I’d need to go down the pure biology route. I love biology so it was fine but I know others were not impressed when they realised they’d have to learn how the heart or the kidneys worked in order to get a degree in Neuroscience.

Comments

  • Photo: Dennis

    Dennis commented on :

    My areas are in clinical psychology and positive psychology. I suppose I’ve always been drawn to listening to people’s stories and asking myself what I can do to improve their situations. I did a general psychology degree during my undergrad and then as part of my research project I looked into the coping skills of parents whose children have special needs. For my MSc, I looked into promoting body image through journalling. And now for my PhD, I’m looking into ways of enhancing resilience through blogging. What made me decide about my PhD project is a combination of personal passion and interest – resilience shaped me who I am today while blogging is a strong interst.