The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - The 5 things I wish I'd known as a psychology undergraduate

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi there, it's Marianne here. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to quickly let you know about something exciting that's happening right now. If you've ever wondered how to create income that works for you, rather than constantly trading your time for money, then you'll love the Race to Recurring Revenue Challenge with my business mentor, Lisa Johnson. This challenge is designed to help you build sustainable income streams. And whether you're an aspiring psychologist, a mental health professional, or in a completely different field,

Starting point is 00:00:32 the principles can work for you. There are also wonderful prizes to be won directly by Lisa herself. And if you join the challenge by my link, you can be in with a chance of winning a one-to-one hours coaching with me, Dr. Marianne Trent. Do you want to know more? Of course you do. Head to my link tree, Dr. Marianne Trent, or check out my social media channels, or send me a quick DM and I'll get you all the details. Right, let's get on with today's episode. Coming up in today's episode, we are looking at what you might often hear as hindsight being 20-20 vision. And I'm asking myself the question about the five things that I wish I'd

Starting point is 00:01:18 known as an undergraduate psychology student. It's going to be a journey through personal and professional reflections and I hope it is one that you will find so useful. Stay tuned because it's coming up right now. If you're looking to become a psychologist, then let this be your guide. With this podcast at your side, you'll be on your way to being qualified. It's the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast with Dr. Marianne Trent Hello, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. I am Dr. Marianne Trent and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. So, what are we up to today? Well today we are going to be looking at the five things, five top things I wish I had known as a psychology undergraduate student. I think this is a really

Starting point is 00:02:39 interesting conversation to have and I hope that some of my reflections might well help you. Maybe if you're an earlier stage of your career, or even if you're a similar or maybe even a more advanced stage of your career. These are in no particular order. These are just my general musings. If you are watching on YouTube, please do take a moment to subscribe, like the video, maybe pop a comment in, share it with your friends. And yeah, with no further ado, let's crack on with number one. it is possible to do a sandwich course or a placement course, basically to get out there into the world and do some psychology before I was graduated. I think that would have been really, really useful for me in learning more about what psychology is, how it translates in the real world. And it probably would have fueled my fire to know more explicitly during my undergrad which direction

Starting point is 00:03:57 I wanted to go in. When I was working in the NHS, we would sometimes have people come in and do summer placements with us from their psychology degree, or we'd have master's level students coming in to do a clinical placement in sort of clinical applications of psychology. But I know that had I tried, or had I known to try, that I could have sorted out something myself, maybe even using one of the days that I wasn't in university so I know in my first and second year I have Wednesdays and Thursdays off I could technically one of those days to do like an honorary placement one day a week for a whole year and that would have paid me rich dividends as it was in my second and third year

Starting point is 00:04:46 and I did end up working in a clinically relevant setting but that's a story for another episode because I kind of wish I'd had something you know more explicitly psychology perhaps within a psychology team because that certainly wasn't what I had when I was doing my paid work. So point number two comes to me pretty regularly, I have to say. So in the work that I do talking to and supporting aspiring psychologists, I often get to learn of the research that people have done at undergraduate level. And I'm often blown away by how brilliant it sounds, by how, you know, clinically useful, clinically interesting, how robust it sounds like their research was, you know, using proper, proper methodology, proper research methods research methods you know maybe using granite

Starting point is 00:05:47 theory or ipa or you know getting your your spss crunching for something more quantitative um and it just makes me shudder a little bit to what me and my cohort sort of got away with university undergrad research I mean it was a it was an interesting concept um so my undergrad research was looking at um baby facedness of people and whether their smiling or unsmiling faces affected how people kind of saw them and rated them. And, you know, it is all right, you know, as a piece of social psychology, but when I compare it to what other people were doing, you know, it's poles apart. And I guess with that, you know, as part of point two, I would say, I wish I'd taken myself more seriously. You know, I wish I'd really had a think about myself as a psychology researcher, and ultimately as a psychology professional, that's going to have a

Starting point is 00:07:02 career beyond this three years in psychology because of course we can't know that when we're at university um but I wish I'd really known more about research before going on to create my own um you know so when I was at a level we'd start to do psychology tests and write them up as little research projects and that felt kind of cool but really I don't think my undergrad research really was much more advanced than that other than I had a slightly wider sample survey but even then my sample survey was just people that I met around the university campus so you know the population of my research was highly skewed because they were all hanging out on the campus really or were friends of friends living with people that I already knew so it was highly

Starting point is 00:08:01 skewed so I wish I'd taken myself more seriously immersed myself more in research and done something a little bit more robust at my undergraduate level. Point number three was something that only really came to me in about 2007 which was five years after I graduated. And it's something that I commonly introduce people to, maybe as part of my aspiring psychologist membership, or in any of my compassionate Q&A sessions that I run, that you have an interesting useful valid voice to be able to get things published before you qualify I think I had the idea that it's only professionally qualified psychologists who have anything interesting to say that I might want to read or you know other people might want to read but you know publications know, publications such as, you know, psychology magazines do need

Starting point is 00:09:07 content from people at a range of career expectations. And so I wish I'd cottoned on to that a little bit sooner. I will be back along with my two final points about the things I wish I'd known before I graduated. I'll be back very soon. So many tips and lessons to learn from. So many things that you can try. The Aspiring Psychologist Collective. The Aspiring Psychologist Collective. Lovely. Thank you for listening to that. Hope you like that little song. Yeah, do grab yourself a copy of the Clinical Psychologist Collective and for that matter, the Aspiring Psychologist Collective because they're rather good.

Starting point is 00:10:24 And that's, you know, following on from that point that we did before the break, that is a way that aspiring psychologists did get publications before they became professionally qualified as well. So, yeah, thinking outside the box can pay rich dividends for you in terms of your CV and your expertise. So with no further ado, let's have a look at my fourth point for the things that I wish I'd known before I graduated. So I wish I'd really known and taken on board that it's a ask for help. You know, if things aren't coming naturally to me, or if I feel like I just need a little bit more consolidation a little bit more of a thorough understanding as I was learning or of the way to help that be translated in the essays I was writing and also that it's not geeky

Starting point is 00:11:19 a study you know so when I was at secondary school I was often called a boff it might not be a term that's used anymore a boffin um because I found learning relatively straightforward and I often knew the answers but because it was used as a criticism as an insult I guess it made me think it was not cool to be brainy, you know, that that was not an okay thing to do. And so when I found myself on the rare occasion that I was in the library studying, I didn't feel like that was cool, you know, at university. I felt like that was a really sad thing to do and that people thought I was sad. But of course, I was there to get an undergraduate degree. And of course, studying is quite important for doing that. And so I wish I'd just given myself permission to really lean into that and to, you know,

Starting point is 00:12:15 to play that psychology undergraduate schema to the max, really. I probably planned my time a little bit better use my diary better probably didn't even have a diary in those days um just to plan in my deadlines and to really think about maximizing my time so that I had a you know a better experience ultimately with higher grades but asking for that support and perhaps asking for some of that accountability so that perhaps maps on a little bit to to our most recent episode which was episode 103 where I was talking about the times I've failed in psychology in my life so if that resonates with you do check out that episode as well

Starting point is 00:13:05 so point four was a little bit of a double-handed point and point five is a little bit of a of a double as well but six or seven things I wish I'd known as an undergrad psychologist might not be quite as catchy as five so yeah I've sort of um I've cobbled two together, but, you know, I wish I'd known how transformational compassion focused therapy was going to be to me, both as an individual, but also as a professional. I wish I'd picked up some books about that sooner. And I will link in the show notes to the books I think have really, really helped me and helped my understanding, which in turn have helped shape my clients and their experience, but also has given me a much gentler journey on myself since I started embracing that. And of course, it's helped me have the name for the free compassionate Q&A series, which I run across my socials at psychology application form

Starting point is 00:14:10 and psychology interview stages as well. So if you feel like you could do a little bit more compassion, do consider coming across to my YouTube channel and watching some of those free Q&A series. Some of my advice has been collated as well into a free DeclinSci guide, which you can get by, if you're watching on YouTube, scanning the QR code, which is on screen now, and then following the link to download your free DeclinSci guide, which is all about, you know, top tips for your application form and i know that

Starting point is 00:14:46 this season has now passed for applications but it's never too early to start thinking about future applications and to think about just you know making sure that when it comes to interviews that you're going to be able to to talk about yourself and your experiences. And the Declan Sci Guide is great for that too. If you are not watching on YouTube, and so you cannot see the QR code, if you go to my website, www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk, and then head along to the tab that says free resources,

Starting point is 00:15:20 you will see it there. The second part of that is linked to my compassionate journey I wish I'd known that I won't get assistant psychologist jobs straight from graduation I know it's possible some people do and if you've had a placement year it's more likely that you will get that but I didn't. And of course, I found myself in a slightly weird position where I felt the pressure to apply for those, even though I didn't have the time to do a job if I got the job. So I found myself looking for and applying for assistant psychologist job roles when I was actually saving up to go traveling.

Starting point is 00:16:04 And so I don't know why I did that you know why didn't I just lean into my experiences of working as a home carer and as doing temping I think I just felt that pressure to to use my degree and to do something advanced to where I was going to go yeah ultimately but that wasn't what that stage of my career was about that stage of my career was about earning enough money so that I could go backpacking around the world for six months and that was enough you know um and I still think about those experiences of that time around the world as being really, really nourishing. I still draw on some of those memories. You know, I was talking about it in the episode where I was talking about driving recently.

Starting point is 00:16:53 My experience is being on Fraser Island, driving around on the sand island there. Really, really great experiences. You know, I've seen some beautiful sights. I've met some wonderful people, made wonderful memories. and that was what that stage of my career was about it wasn't about getting an assistant psychologist post I wish I'd given myself permission to just do what I was doing then without that need to do something relevant okay so we've reached the end of my five forward slash seven top things I wish I'd known as a psychology undergraduate. I'd love to know how this resonates with you, whether it's similar, whether it's different to what you wish you'd known, or maybe you're an

Starting point is 00:17:38 undergraduate psychologist right now. I'd love to know what you think maybe you're heading towards doing your psychology undergraduate soon um you know let me know come and connect with me on socials which you can do by scanning the qr code on your screen um or you can and or you can come along to my free facebook group the aspiring psychologist community with dr mar Marianne Trent. And do consider coming along and joining us in the Aspiring Psychologist membership too, because wonderful things happen in there. I hope you found this episode helpful. I will look forward to catching up with you for the next episode of the Aspiring Psychologist podcast, which will be along to you from 6am on Monday.

Starting point is 00:18:25 Thank you so much for being part of my world. See you soon. If you're looking to become a psychologist, then let this be your guide. With this podcast at your side, you'll be on your way to being qualified. It's the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. With Dr. Marianne Trent. my name's yana and i'm a trainee psychological well-being practitioner i read the clinical psychologist collective book i found it really interesting about all the different stories and how people got to become a clinical psychologist. It just amazed me how many different routes there are to get there and there's no perfect way to become one and this kind of filled me of confidence that no I'm not doing it wrong

Starting point is 00:19:42 and put less pressure on myself. So if you're feeling a bit uneasy about becoming a clinical psychologist I'd definitely recommend this just to put yourself at ease and everything will be okay. But trust me you will not put the book down once you start.

The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - The 5 things I wish I'd known as a psychology undergraduate

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