• Question: is there anything you wish you knew before going into this field of psychology? and why did you go into this specific field?

    Asked by anon-284120 to Christina on 4 Mar 2021.
    • Photo: Christina Brown

      Christina Brown answered on 4 Mar 2021:

      I wish I knew going to academic research was an option when I was at school. It wasn’t until I went to university that I found out you could have a career doing your own experiments in a lab for your entire life. I only used to think of jobs for psychologists that involved people…and I didn’t want to work with people all day, every day. I started off doing psychology in university but moved to neuroscience (biology) and I wished I learned more about molecular biology (DNA, RNA, viruses etc) because it’s incredibly important in what I work on now.

      I went into neuroscience because I was fascinated with how the brain works, but I wanted to study specifically how brain cells send information to each other in regards to forming memories, which we can’t really do in humans. I record from single brain cells in mice and study how they transfer information to other parts of the brain involved in regulating emotions. I’m way more interested in the biological processes occurring but it is still important to know because we can then predict if the same things might be happening in humans.

Comments

  • laurenmcgale commented on :

    I agree with Christina, I had no idea this kind of job existed in psychology, so I am glad you all get opportunities like this to find out – we didn’t have things like this back when I was at school (I’m showing my age here, I’m very old!).

    I also wish I knew how much maths and science was included in psychology, that has been challenging, but I managed it OK in the end. I thought it would be more focused on mental health and counselling, but in a way I am glad it has so much more variety as it keeps it interesting and I now get to research something I didn’t even know was possible!