The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - The 5 things I'm glad I knew 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, I am guiding you through the five things that I am super glad that I did know as a psychology undergraduate. I hope you'll find this useful

Starting point is 00:01:12 whatever stage of career you are at and it is coming up right now. So stay tuned. 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 and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. We recently did an episode about the five things that I wish I'd known as an undergraduate psychology student. And that got me thinking about the five things that I'm glad I

Starting point is 00:02:15 did know as a psychology undergraduate student. So this might well be the second half of that very recent episode, which you can watch by checking out my YouTube. I'm going to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast playlist or by scanning the QR code on screen now, heading to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast where you can listen to that yourself. Or you can come over to Apple podcasts or Spotify to listen to it directly from there or basically on my website. There's not many places that you can't stumble into either the podcast or the YouTube version of it. If you are watching on YouTube please do subscribe, like, comment, tell your friends. So let's plow on with first of the five things that I'm glad I knew as

Starting point is 00:03:07 a psychology undergraduate. It might sound a little bit silly, but university is not just about studying. You know, I learned so much from the people I met. I learned about having fun. I learned about, you know, managing my own household, cooking, cleaning, trying my best to live with people that weren't blood related to me and not having them want to kill me, you know, and vice versa. You know, I learned a lot and, you know, about cooperation, about, you know, bill paying and, you know, sharing the bathroom with other adolescent females was interesting. Having to wait your turn, book in for, you know, the bathroom, whereas that's not something I'd experienced, you know, where I grew up with just me and my brother. So that was unique and special and

Starting point is 00:04:07 important. But also, you know, I guess I was busy cultivating friendships. So maybe I always knew that the people that I would spend time with in 1999 to 2002 would go on to become my lifelong friends. Not just friends for a season, not just friends for undergrad, but that, you know, in 2023 and beyond, we'd still be setting aside time in our diaries to put those times together, to make new memories and to reflect upon the old ones and that our children would grow up knowing these people and, you know, spending time with them. These are not necessarily just people for right now. These might well be, you know, certainly one of the girls that I met there was my bridesmaid,

Starting point is 00:04:58 one of my bridesmaids at university. You know, really important people that we meet along the way in our psychology undergrad, although none of them were doing psychology undergrad. But the three friends that I was very close to when I was doing my psychology undergrad, we are still very close friends. And we've been through some real highs and lows together. So yeah, the people that I was hanging out with all the time are still in my life and I'm really pleased and really proud to say that that is the case. You know,

Starting point is 00:05:34 you're learning a lot. It's not just about going to university, going to the lectures, going to the seminars, getting your essays done. Of course it's about that, but there is so much more and I think I did know that at uni. Number two that I'm glad about is that I did have quite a lot of time off in my psychology undergrad and so I knew that I had some time to be able to work whilst studying. And so work is what I did. From my second year onwards I worked with disabled students helping them to be able to access a level playing field to be able to do their lectures, I'd help them take notes or I'd help scribe in interviews or I'd help scribe in exams.

Starting point is 00:06:20 How they read my own writing at that point I don't know but they did manage to do it. And that might be transient disabilities, might be someone's broken arm or a leg, I'd help them get the lectures and make sure they were okay and support them. Or it might be more chronic disabilities, you know, for a variety of reasons that meant that they needed some extra support. So I learned a load from that and I really enjoyed it. And it also put extra money in my pocket, which was great. Let's take a brief break here and I'll be back along with point three, point four and point five. Let this be your guide. Filled with lessons and experience that will help you get qualified.

Starting point is 00:07:09 So come and take a look. It's right here in this book. It's the Clinical Psychologist Collective. It's the Clinical Psychologist Collective. Thank you for listening. In the first half, we were looking at the first two things that I'm really glad that I did know when I was a psychology undergraduate student. Let's crack on with point number three. I'm sort of glad that I gave myself permission to do a degree that interested me without necessarily knowing where that was going to take me, you know, just to make it quite an exploratory degree,

Starting point is 00:08:06 to allow, you know, the things that I enjoyed about what I was learning to percolate through me. And then ultimately to come to me in the final weeks of term of my final year, that I thought I want to be a clinical psychologist. So if I'd realized that earlier, I might well have been able to do other things. But I think it's okay that I got there when I did and I kind of gave myself that holistic experience of being an undergrad student. I think if I'd realized about clinical psychology before, I might have felt much more pressure and it might have felt much more competitive and I might have burned myself out.

Starting point is 00:08:53 So I'm kind of pleased that I just took it all as it came and got my assignments done, had fun with my friends and then fell, you know, fell into, stumbled across clinical psychology when the time was right for me. Point number four, I'm actually really glad that I knew that actually for me, using my university vacations over the summer was a great idea to be able to work, to be able to gain some extra money. I did quite like shopping in Topshop at those times. And so when I was at university, it was nice to be able to have some money to afford noodles, food, you know, the odd pint of beer. I'm not really a very good beer drinker, but, you know, sometimes I used to drink that and

Starting point is 00:09:42 vodka, lemonade and lime. I can't think what else I used to drink. Martini. No, not martini. I can't think what else I used to drink. I have to ask my university friends on the next season what I used to drink. work either as a home carer or to work in boots chemist to earn some money to be able to pay off my overdraft you have to pay a chunk of my tuition fees as well so yeah I knew that and I'm glad because it gave me structure it meant that I didn't just use the whole of my summer vacations to just sleep you know and I wouldn't have been able to go out and socialize at all over my university holidays if I hadn't worked because of course I needed money have been able to go out and socialize at all over my university holidays if I hadn't worked because of course I needed money to be able to do those things as well. So for me, working was a really sensible thing to do. Working in Boots the Chemist meant that I learned a great deal about working with others

Starting point is 00:10:42 and customer service and teamwork, know, teamwork, you know, helping make things harmonious. And that leads us nicely into point five, really, which is what I've called teamwork makes the dream work. And that's about that holistic experience of learning from others, you know, watching them grow, watching ourselves grow, you know, knowing that we're all in this together and that there's something very special about a cohort and, you know, watching that development across a cohort is really, really special. You know, and we used to draw upon each other's strength

Starting point is 00:11:32 and skills to help us to understand things better. But also, you know, when it came to lectures, across the four of us, one of us would definitely be there. And so we would share lecture notes for any lectures that we hadn't been to. And I'm sure in modern day universities, you know, attending is a bit easier if you're able to do it online and probably lecture notes are all available as a download at the click of a button. But in my day when I was studying you had to go take actual pen and paper. There was probably only one person that had

Starting point is 00:12:05 a laptop in those days and they were seen as very fancy. They're one that you could take out with you and type in a lecture. So, yeah, teamwork most definitely made the green work and yeah, just really special memories of all the cohort that I trained with. So, has this evoked any memory sports reflections for you? Has it enabled you to reflect on where you're at right now in your career as an aspiring psychologist? I would love to know what you think. Come and let me know on the Aspiring Psychologist Community free Facebook group. Please do also consider joining the Inspiring Psychologist membership where we really help supercharge your abilities, your skills, your potential across a wide range of things from formulation to research to personal reflections and across a wide

Starting point is 00:13:01 range of different therapeutic orientations. It gets great reviews. We'd love to see you in there and to really continue that theme of teamwork and making the dream work that really is what happens in the membership. I will look forward to catching up with you for the next episode of the Aspiring Psychologist podcast, which will be along for you from 6am on Monday. Thank you so much for being part of my world. I will look forward to catching up with you very soon. Take care. If you're looking to become a psychologist, then let this be your guide.

Starting point is 00:13:48 With this podcast at your side, you'll be on your way to being qualified. It's the Aspiring a trainee psychological wellbeing 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 with confidence that no I'm not doing it wrong and put less pressure on myself. So if you're feeling a bit uneasy about becoming a clinical psychologist I'd definitely recommend

Starting point is 00:14:52 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'm glad I knew as a psychology undergraduate

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