So that's that for my degree. All done. Dusted. A 2:1. Upper, of course. Realistically, I think I could have attained a First if I'd forgone every kind of human communication for two years, something I wasn't prepared to do. I'm not too disappointed anyway, 10 years ago I never even thought I'd ever be in possession of a degree, much less a 2:1 one.
My love affair with psychology has not ended, however. I plan to return in October to take a Masters degree in applied neuropsychology, a topic I received a First in for my undergraduate degree so I should be alright with it.
The everyman's idea of what psychology is or what it does is perhaps slightly distorted. It's a massive subject, covering many, many things. Some quackery, some scientific. Either way, unless you wade through the murk of a single honours undergraduate degree, its hard to explain just how murky it is.
Someone I know took a combined degree. English and psychology. Now, here's where I become unpopular. If you take a combined degree, I don't believe there's any chance you know more about either of those subjects than someone who took a single honours in either. This someone took English and ONE psychology module. Just the one. An easy one; counselling psychology. Their dissertation was taken in English, their exams weren't exams they were coursework....all except for counselling psychology.
All of this is fine.....except. When bragging on Facebook that they received a First in their degree, they stated that it was 'Psychology with English'. Errmmm, no. Its the other way around isn't it? Your degree is weighted in favour of English, not the other way around.
Why the need for this subterfuge? I believe it is due to the nature of psychology and how the layman might believe it is a more intellectual subject or....and this is common....that being knowledgeable about psychology means you are in some way privy to certain information regarding behaviour or subconscious thought in a Derren Brown style. I assure you, the second part is not true.
Psychology students are met with 'I bet you're analysing me right now' type discussions with strangers and its fun to play on them, but playing is all you're doing. You have no idea what's going through someone's mind, just as you have no idea if my idea of red is your idea of red. Your red may be my green, and vice versa, which - if we could see what each other was thinking - could get interesting at traffic lights. Reality is entirely subjective, and perched on a knife edge.
The desire to wear a subject as a badge of intelligence is an odd thing to do. I don't consider my degree to be worth more than someone who took a drama degree or a mathematics degree. I did my fair share of statistical analysis in my degree, and I certainly had a fair amount of drama in it too.
Just as we are all philosophers at one point or another, so too are we all psychologists. You read people without knowing it, you analyse them in conversations with your friends too.
Getting through a degree, either combined or single honours, is an incredibly difficult thing to do. As such, I believe any new graduate has the right to brag for a while, to be proud, and to shout it from the rooftops regardless of grade. However, enlisting the help of a subject to come across a certain way is slightly pathetic. You should be proud of the subject you favoured. I would struggle to do an English degree, just as I struggled through a psychology one. Taking a counselling module however, does not make you a psychologist. It makes you someone who's read a little about counselling. Taking a degree in psychology does not make you a psychologist, and god knows there's plenty of my colleagues who will gladly take a job or career in any other discipline. It does however, give you a very small insight into a huge and largely fascinating subject. An insight that, though small, is a damn sight bigger than a single module.
