Psychology – a Career I Am Longing to Pursue

For me, there is nothing more intriguing than being able to discover the mind in its complex form and understand why people do certain things. As we grow up we are all involved in psychology indirectly, from subconsciously studying human behaviour in order to fit in with our society, however my deeper interest lies in understanding why and how people do this. Psychology is stretched across a wide field, consisting of the biological and social aspect that work together to provide us with truths about humans we did not know in the past. From these different halves a big debate in psychology developed, the nature nurture debate. This variety of approaches to psychology appeals to me as i have an enthusiasm for many different types of areas, which i know the course will provide more knowledge for. Through studying a level psychology, I have the opportunity to develop the questions i asked myself from a young age; why can the boy with autism not socialise the same as us? From studying cognitive psychology at a level and applying it to my interests i found that their visual working memory is low functioning, which is responsible for reading body language and social cues, so if the communication is nonverbal they may experience social difficulties.

My favourite thing about psychology is that it is always happening, everyday new topics arise that,as psychologists,we can study and unveil why it is has happened, a current example is obedience to authority within the grenfell tower tragedy: An issue looked at in social psychology within the a level course. Due to my extensive research and also being part of the psychology and sociology academy at my college, a fascination for specific areas of psychology has been established such as anomalistic psychology, approaches to autism, and human motivation. I currently study two other A levels: sociology and religious studies. Both of these A levels have aided the augmentation of the psychology experience, with sociology providing explanations and theories into social relationships and social groups allowing me to see how human mind may be influenced by social environment. And religious studies allowing me to better my debating skills, grow my confidence within my own beliefs, and be able to look at different approaches to a situation with respect. During my time at college I have widened my knowledge inside and outside of the classroom, including reading psychology Kahneman’s famous decision making book “Thinking fast and slow”,”An unquiet mind”, “One child”, “The man who mistook his wife for a hat” by oliver sacks, and “The curious incident of the dog in the night-time”. These books mainly consist of nonfiction and fictional accounts relating to clinical psychology, including manic depressive illness, autism and hallucinations.

Reading these books was surprising, how fragile the human mind actually is was shocking, and so i looked into how many people experience anything other than the ‘norm’, and it was found that 1 in 4 people suffer from some sort of mental illness. My research also consists of watching TED talks about psychology, in particular two talks stood out and interested me the most, these being ‘The origins of pleasure’ by Paul Bloom, and ‘What do babies think?’ By Alison Gopnik. Alison Gopnik introduced developmental psychology to me from this talk, by trying to investigate how babies learn to give people things that they like and want, this prompts many questions involving development within infancy which I am hoping to be able to answer when studying psychology in higher education. Recently I have done some volunteer work at a doggy day care, despite it being a lot of fun, I also learnt about the different behaviours shown by the animals and how they react to obedience. This volunteer work has enabled me to see what it is like to work with animals, allowing me to consider a future career in animal psychology. Other than acquiring the skills for psychology I also gained skills that I can use in wider life and university life such as time management, responsibility, and improved interpersonal skills. For the past year, I have maintained a part time job as a sales assistant.

In doing this I believe I have shown good time management as I have managed to commit to this job as well as being dedicated to achieving high in a levels and involving myself as much as i can in the departments at college through psychology and sociology academy. It provides me with vital skills in order to move forward in psychology: teamwork, communication skills and managing in pressured situations. Higher education would not only give me a unique life experience, but it would also allow me to venture into the world of psychology and open up doors to the career i have been longing to pursue.