Psychology Placements after Graduation

pedro3gb

My daughter should hopefully graduate this summer in psychology. She wants to follow a career in clinical psychology. To get on a PhD or MSc she must first gain work experience possibly as an Assistant Psychologist. Such jobs are few and far between and there are lots of applicants. Has anybody gone down this route recently who can offer advice on getting suitable work experience? Any help would be appreciated.

Many thanks

Ped

jane22

I don't have any tips to offer apart from that she will just need to stick at it - I know a few who have tried to do this and they have ALL managed it eventually but had to apply quite a few years in a row. The best advice I can offer is that she work as hard as she possibly can for her finals - good grades will get you a long way, it's definitely worth putting in the hard slog at this point, hopefully it'll mean less hard slog later down the line! Best of luck to her, it must be a very fulfilling job when you get there

melancholly

the best thing to do to start with is to get unpaid work in a university department. she can then prove that she is competent at research and it will help when applying for RA (research assistant) jobs. i would check whether an MSc will actually help her get on a clinical course - there are a lot of MSc's out there now and very few are that relevant to clinical psychology. she should instead be aiming to get onto a DClinPsy.

here's a useful page on the course:
http://www.iop.kcl.ac.uk/virtual/?path=/studying/research/what-is-a-dclinpsy-more/

only a few unis offer the course and they are very competitive so RA work is really important. it may be easier for her to apply for RA work where she did her undergrad degree because that way she will be known to the researchers. it's also worth asking around if anyone wants work over the summer as some people may keep her in mind incase they have any money going to run projects.

pedro3gb

Many thanks to both of you for the tips. I will not 'nag' her but gently encourage her to look for RA at one of the uni's. I don't think she has considered such work before.

I will also send her the link to the DClinPsy

Ped

newlife_starts_now

Hey

Jsut to let you know, i'm going down the same route at the moment.

I finished my undergrad degree over a year ago.

I havent been able to get a RA job as they seem to be looking for someone with a masters degree or experience.

I've decided to do my masters with the Open university, that way I can work and study at the same time, I would never be able to afford it other wise.

Any sort of voluntary experience is great and the more she can get at different places the better.

Its a long road but well worth it at the end.

just keep encouraging her, I know personally sometimes it can be very disheartning (SP?) when your working towards something that seems so hard and a long way away.

Wish her my luck.

lou.

ihatechoosingnames

I'm in the second year of my psychology degree and am aiming toward the doctorate...feel really scared as it's so so competitive and just having a first or 2:1 doesn't seem to be good enough anymore.

Like many other people, I've wanted to do this job for years and years now and just this year I've noticed quite a few people on my course who just want to do the job because it pays well :mad:. I wouldn't be annoyed so much but when you consider the amount of extra competition these people create for those of us who actually want the job itself (regardless of pay) I can't help but feel a bit grrrrr...

Thanks to all the people who posted in this thread by the way, it's quite encouraging