• Question: I'd like to be a psychologist  when I'm older and I know that involves science. Though I'm not sure which , have you got any tips?:)

    Asked by josiek to Christine, Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Hi josiek 🙂

      I think the most useful science for you would probably be biology (and possibly chemistry, since drugs are used to treat psychological disorders and chemicals affect behaviour). Biology will involve studying the brain (neuroscience) which is important for understanding psychology.

      If I were you I would choose to study biology and chemistry at school (or psychology if it’s available?)- and that will let you apply for a psychology course at university.

    • Photo: Jessica Chu

      Jessica Chu answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      I think probably -Neuroscience – study of the brain and the nervous system. That might be helpful? because I think psychology is the study of behaviour and the processes in our brain that is responsible for it?

      Or like Zara have suggested – there are psychology courses at University. Biology and Chemistry will help!

      This is what my university requires to apply to do psychology.. can vary uni to uni but just to give you a rough idea:
      http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ugstudy/course.php?code=000192

    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      I work quite closely with people from our psychology department – some of them are also interested in animal behaviour, while I like to look at decision making and psychology in humans as well to try and get an insight on how animals may also make decisions.

      One of the biggest things that most psychology students don’t realise is how much maths is involved, and in particular statistics. You will have to do lots of data collection and analysis as this is how we are able to interpret the results of any psychological study.

      I’d say the 2 most important A-levels would be psychology and maths, then perhaps sociology and /or biology.

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