A GUIDE TO STUDYING PSYCHOLOGY AT UCT
What is psychology? How do I study psychology, or become a psychologist? What can I do with a degree in psychology?
These are all questions frequently asked by students considering psychology as a subject to study, or as a field of employment. The answers to these questions are complicated, because psychology today is a very diverse discipline, and the discipline is about a great many things besides abnormal psychology and how to make friends and influence people. It is not possible to give adequate answers to all these questions in this brief space, so what we are doing here is simply telling about STUDYING PSYCHOLOGY AT UCT. If you want to know more, the best strategy to follow before you come to university is to find an introductory textbook to psychology. There are many of them around, and university libraries will be full of them, or even academic bookshops. Here at UCT we use a book by Wayne Weiten, Psychology, themes and variations. You can also take a look at a South African textbook, by D.A. Louw and D. Edwards, An introduction to psychology. To be admitted to the Faculty of Humanities at UCT you have to obtain a certain number of points on the Faculty's scale, based on your matric results. In addition, all students applying for the Faculty of Humanities will be required to write special admission tests. Entrance to the first year of psychology would depend on how well you do on these tests. Because psychology is such a popular subject to study at university, its entrance requirements are higher than for other disciplines. Matric level mathematics is not a requirement but will be an advantage in preparing students for the Research Methods and Statistics courses in second and third year.
Using psychology to plan your career Broadly speaking there are two ways in which you can use psychology in planning your career.
The first and most common is to use psychology as a useful background subject in preparing for your chosen career. You then have decided not to become a psychologist as such, but may want to become a teacher, facilitator, researcher, trainer, nurse, social worker, human resources specialist, personnel officer, and so on. Psychology provides preparation for many such careers; in fact, for quite a few of them, such as social work, occupational therapy and speech therapy, it is a compulsory subject. The second way is to make psychology itself your career, and to become a psychologist. This takes quite a long time, a we show in this booklet. Further training is essential.
Fortunately, when you come to university, you do not have to worry too much about this decision at this stage. The three years of psychology that you will follow here at UCT, will prepare you for both these career directions: psychology as a general background subject, and psychology as a career in itself. If you are going to study to become a social worker, speech therapist, occupational therapist, or such occupations, the amount of psychology in your degree would in any event be specified.
Once you have your degree, with psychology as a major, then you have to decide:
Do you go on with psychology, or Do you want to follow a different career?
Again, you can do further studies in psychology, but still use it as general background to another career, or to become a psychologist. This is a very useful feature of psychology, because it leaves you with so many options, after your Bachelors degree, as well as after subsequent postgraduate degrees. A career in psychology itself Below we address ourselves simply to those people who want to work within a career in psychology. You will have two options: to become a registered counsellor, or to become a psychologist. To become a registered counsellor, you must complete four years of psychology, plus six months of supervised practical experience, approved by the Professional Board for Psychology. The four years typically would be either a B Psych degree or an Honours degree in psychology. If you complete all of this, you will write an examination set by the Professional Board, which will qualify you as a registered counsellor. There are numerous sub-fields you can train in, such as trauma counselling, primary mental health, sport counselling, and HIV/AIDS counselling. Here at UCT we do not offer a B Psych degree, but our Honours degree is approved for the training of registered counsellors, as long as students complete a six-months practicum, and write the Board examination. We provide training in the four areas mentioned above. To become a registered psychologist, you will have to complete a Master's degree, that typically will take a further two years to complete. (As you can see, it then takes a minimum of six years' training to become a professional psychologist; that is, someone registered with the Professional Board for Psychology). As we said in the beginning, the work that psychologists do varies a lot, and qualified psychologists are involved an amazing variety of jobs and activities. At present, and speaking very broadly, one can say the five primary areas of work are research, clinical psychology, counselling, organisational psychology, and educational psychology. For a full flavour of all these things, however, it is best that you have a look at a first year textbook. Alternatively, if you already know that you are going to study psychology, wait until your first year in the psychology class, where we will tell you about all these things. We must point out that there are proposals to extend the training of professional psychologists to a seven-year period. This will require a further three years of study after the initial four years, and the plan currently is to award a D Psych to such persons. However, since these plans have not been finalised, it is not possible to give further details here.
The undergraduate curriculum in psychology at UCT Year 1: The first year of psychology at UCT is a full-year course, coded as PSY101W. It is an introduction to the discipline, and will give a basic knowledge in a wide range of different areas of study within psychology, such as: PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH METHODS BIOLOGICAL BASES OF BEHAVIOUR PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING MEMORY SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY CHILD DEVELOPMENT PERSONALITY PSYCHOPATHOLOGY PSYCHOTHERAPY
Year 2: In the second year, the Department offers five semester courses that students may choose from: RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY I
DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND INTERGROUP RELATIONS LEARNING, LANGUAGE AND COGNITION PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
Year 3: Four semester courses are offered: HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGTY II CLINICAL AND COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY CRITICAL PSYCHOLOGY
In Honours (postgraduate): Students must do six semester courses, chosen from courses like: RESEARCH METHODS (compulsory) STATISTICS (compulsory) SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY PSYCHOLOGY AND LAW NEUROPSYCHOLOGY DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY