Applicants may also wish to consider the Psychology, Philosophy & Linguistics courses.
Why study Experimental Psychology at St Hilda’s?
Psychology is fascinating, fun and challenging. Every day you will learn something amazing! Oxford has the best psychology department in Europe and St Hilda's college admits more psychology students than any other Oxford college. This provides an immediate group of like-minded people and we hold regular social events for all St Hilda's psychology students.
St Hilda's has two dedicated tutors covering a wide range of teaching, so you'll receive excellent academic and social support. Each term, there are individual progress review meetings for our students. There are weekly drop-in surgeries as well, where students are able to gain information or support on any academic or personal matter.
Psychology students at St. Hilda’s have a variety of social events available to them throughout each term. There are Psychology drinks and dinners, as well as punting during the summer.
After St Hilda's
Recent graduates have gone on to take a variety of paths. Please view these comments from recent graduates for more information.
St Hilda’s operates its own career networks of former students working in particular professional areas. These networks provide opportunities for meeting, sharing experiences, and mentoring and cover a wide range of professional areas.
Further information
There are no required courses to study Experimental Psychology. However, extra work on statistics or introductory psychology (see recommended reading from the Department of Experimental Psychology) is always useful. You will be sent an introductory reading list before arriving.
If you would like to know more about studying Experimental Psychology at St Hilda's College, please click on the following links:
The working life of a Psychology student: notes from the tutors
Tips from a first year Psychology student
Tips from a second year Psychology student
Tips from a third year Psychology student
Tips from a third year Psychology student: a second perspective
Reading-list of fun things to get into the subject
- Working life of a psychology student
-
The Working Life of a St Hilda’s Psychology Student: Tutors' Notes
The Experimental Psychology Department will also issue you with a student handbook for the course. You should read it and keep it safe and to hand at all times. It contains many important details about your course and, later on, your subject choices, as well as guidance on exam regulations, marking criteria and so on. It is especially useful for those reading PPP whose course trajectory tends to be more varied and therefore more complex. Almost all questions you are likely to have can be answered by looking in this handbook.
Communications
Tutors, college officers, faculty administration and other students all keep in contact through e-mail, though paper letters are still used in some circumstances. It is therefore essential that you check both your e-mail account and your pigeonholes in the Lodge regularly. With e-mail, we ask that you should check for new messages at least once a day in term time and once a week in vacations and that you should respond promptly to any messages received.
Tutorials
The number of tutorials you have in a week will vary, but it will usually be two or three. You will always be expected to have prepared some work for every tutorial you attend, although this will not always be an essay (for example it may be a presentation or some short notes).
Your tutor for any given subject may or may not be one of St Hilda’s tutors (although you can expect to be largely taught by College-based tutors for the first couple of terms). When you are to be given tuition with a tutor from outside of College, this will be arranged for you. Please do not approach outside tutors yourselves, or arrange for extra sessions without consulting your tutor first. Nevertheless, don’t feel shy to ask us if there is someone in particular with whom you would like to study a particular option: we can’t guarantee anything, but may in some cases be able to make your wish come true.
Essay writing
Many students take a little while to adjust to different styles of essay writing, so don’t worry if you feel uncertain about how to approach the task at first. Your tutors will always offer feedback, either verbally or in written comments on your work. Don’t be shy about asking for more feedback if you feel you need it. Try to ask specific questions and you will get specific answers. Many tutors do not put marks on tutorial essays (although some do). This is because the marking system used at Oxford is geared towards work produced either in exam conditions or for the lengthy project and sometimes dissertation (in the third year). Furthermore, we want you to be adventurous in your term work and try out new ideas without the fear of ‘losing marks’. You will receive marks for your Collections (formal tests of progress taken in college) at the start of every term, which will give you some sense of your current level of attainment.
Computers and Hand-writing
While there are valuable skills attached to word-processing written work, there are also strong arguments for hand-writing – our (many) exams are hand-written and require a lot of writing stamina; moreover, writing essays by hand imposes a very helpful discipline in forcing us to select material, think about structure and plan an argument before we write. You will find that tutors both in College and around the University may express a preference for word-processed or hand-written essays, and you need to be prepared to use either method. In psychology, many tutors prefer word-processed essays.
Sensible use of vacations
As you will notice, the psychology courses at Oxford are very intensive. It is unlikely that you will complete all the reading or fully grasp all the topics during the term. Going over the course lectures, completing the reading and revising your understanding of each topic should not be something left to the last minute: it is an essential part of getting a good degree, not an optional extra only for those wanting the best marks. Learning the material and checking your understanding of every topic is expected to be done during the vacations when you have the time to study intensively at your own pace. We understand that students often need to work for money out of term time, but we urge you all to set aside a good chunk of each vacation for academic work. Vacation study is an integral part of the degree course, which is far too full to be covered only by work in three eight-week terms.
Academic work
First year: In the first year ‘Prelims’ course you have no choices to make. You study Psychology, Neurophysiology and Statistics. If you are taking Philosophy then you study that instead of Neurophysiology. Each course runs for two terms and at the end of the second term (Hilary) you sit your ‘Prelims’ exams. You must pass these to progress to the second year (which actually starts in the third term of your first year!). There is no holiday to revise for the Prelims, you sit them immediately after lectures stop. This means you need to be sure to keep up and use your first Christmas vacation wisely (see above).
The Psychology Prelim is divided into Developmental Psychology, Perception, Psychobiology and Cognitive Psychology and is usually taught by your college tutors.
Neurophysiology looks at a range of topics from cell resting potential and action potentials to the details of muscle contraction and the role of the basal ganglia. It is taught by an expert in physiology from another college.
We are lucky to have a dedicated college position for the teaching of statistics. Prelims statistics teaches you the basics of how to analyse experimental data in preparation for later practical work, which starts once Prelims are over.
Second year: After prelims those studying Psychology follow a set course while those reading PPP choose which courses to take. PPP students can devote 50% to each subject (Psychology plus either physiology or philosophy) or can choose to major in one discipline, taking 5/8 of that subject and 3/8 of the other. Full details are given in the Department’s handbook. College tutors are always available for support and advice.
Third year: In the third year Psychology students choose three advanced options plus a research project. One advanced option may be replaced by a library dissertation if you wish. Those taking PPP do a smaller selection from these 4 ‘units’. The course handbook gives full details.
Working hours
Everyone works differently, and, when left to their own devices, at different times of the day or night. Therefore, we do not find it helpful to prescribe a set number of hours which you should spend studying every day. If you are to get the most out of your degree, however, you will need to devote a lot of time to your work: think of it as your ‘main job’, rather than an inconvenient interlude between trips to the pub and/or gym, and you won’t go too far wrong!
Residence
It is a requirement of the University and essential to qualifying for your degree that you are in residence in College for most nights of the term. If you wish to stay away overnight from Oxford during term time for any reason you should ask the permission of your tutors beforehand. One or two visits per term at weekends to go home or to see friends is perfectly normal, although you should always consult your tutors first. Any more than this would be exceptional. In the event of a personal or family emergency or similar circumstance, you should always speak immediately to your tutors for advice, help and support.
Three Golden Rules
As psychology tutors our main aim is to make sure you enjoy and get the most out of your course while you are here. Of course, we hope and expect things will go smoothly. To ensure that this happens there are three golden rules:
1) Hand in – make sure you hand in every piece of set work be it tutorial essays, practicals or collections.
2) Turn up – plan to attend every lecture, practical, tutorial and collection. These are not optional. Psychology events in college ARE optional, but you are recommended to go to as many as you can.
3) On time – when you ‘turn up’ and ‘hand in’ make sure you do it on time. Oxford can be a very relaxed place in many ways, but don’t be fooled into thinking that this means deadlines and appointments don’t matter.Of course, occasionally illness, or other reasons, may mean you miss things or are late. The golden rule then is to tell someone beforehand or as soon as you can (usually your college or subject tutor) and, if appropriate, apologise.
All students occasionally have trouble with writing a particular essay, whether because they don’t understand what is expected, are having problems knowing how to structure it, or cannot get hold of something on the reading list. It can be tempting to simply give up on the essay, but it’s important to resist this temptation, and instead contact the tutor who set you the essay as soon as possible. Often a very simple word of advice from the tutor, or a suggestion for alternative reading, will solve the problem.
Most problems stem from students not meeting one of these three expectations. It is important to be aware that college disciplinary procedures (‘Probation’) are triggered quite quickly if things start to slip. If you feel you are having academic or other problems, however trivial or however serious, please speak to one of us at an early stage so that we can help. Of course, we hope that you have no difficulties at all. However when they do occur we find that most can be solved and if you follow this simple common sense advice, you won’t go far wrong.
Welcome to our Psychology community at St Hilda’s!
- Tips from a first-year psychology student
-
The Working Life of a First Year Psychology Student
Introduction
Hi, I’m Sarah, a first year psychologist at Hildas. I have written a short review of the working life I experienced in my first year in order to provide you with some helpful tips of what to expect, how to go about term-time work and holiday work and what to do when you need help.
Timetable
So firstly, your weekly timetable. For the first two terms, you will have about five or six lectures and three tutorials a week. You will be expected to write two essays and do a set of statistics questions each week. Although this seems like a lot you will quickly after the first couple of weeks settle into a routine of the days you devote to reading and writing to make your deadlines.
For the first two terms working towards your prelims (first-year exams) reading for essays is not as extensive as for part one (second-year exams). Prelim reading is mainly textbook-based and most of the time you only need to read two- to three chapters per essay.
Books
Your tutors will provide you with reading lists but for neurophysiology, the book ‘Neuroscience Exploring the Brain.’ by Mark F. Bear et al (2001) is essential reading prior to writing any essay. It gives you a rough outline of the topic in its simplist form. This is especially useful for anyone who did not do Biology A level. However, you have to be careful as it doesn’t always include all the necessary details. In general, though, the main points to cover are in the lecture slides so using your lecture notes as a guideline to what you reading should expand on always makes sure you don’t stray too far off the topic.For developmental psychology, I found the book ‘Understanding Children’s Development by Peter K. Smith, Helen Cowie, and Mark Blades (1998)’ particularly helpful, and for perception ‘Fundamentals of Sensation and Perception by Levine (2000)’ is just about essential reading for every topic you cover.
Most of these books can be obtained in St Hilda’s Library, but if not the Radcliffe Science Library has a large collection of psychology books along with the psychology departmental library. Most of the books in the departmental library however are only overnight loans, so it’s better to use this as a last-minute resort. If you can’t find a book if you email your college tutors they will purchase another copy for the St Hilda’s library.
Note-taking
So what additional tips can I give you about work? The first tip is to write up the notes you take in your tutorial straight after the tute. Although it may seem at the time like your writing perfect sense, reading your notes following the tute is always slightly interesting and you’re much more likely to understand what you were trying to say straight after the tute. Also, it is sometimes useful straight after a tute to type up your revision notes on that topic by including bits from your essay (which will have come from the relevant reading you did), the lecture and your tutorial notes. You could also add ideas from additional reading you didn’t manage to look at before the tute after the tutorial or if you don’t have time during term in the holiday. This is a particularly good idea in the second term in the build-up to prelims. You will only have very limited revision time so it’s helpful to have all your revision notes ready from the previous term so you can get straight down to revision.
Stress
Another tip is not to get too stressed, especially in the first few weeks of term. It takes everyone a while to settle in, get into a new routine and get used to the new teaching style. The important thing is to talk to your friends, tutors and your college sisters (or brothers now!) if you have any worries but to realise that no-one finds the change from school to university easy. If you’re struggling with work email the tutor who set the work, preferrably in enough time to ammend your work before the deadline i.e. after you’ve read around the topic before you write your essay. If you ask specific questions, you will get specific answers back which is far more useful than simply emailing them telling them you are struggling. Also, remember that no essay is going to be perfect, any errors made will be picked up by the tutor and discussed in a tutorial so don’t worry too much if you find a topic hard just write to the best of your ability.
If you have any problems whether work-related or about Oxford in general college tutors are very approachable and will help you with any problems you encounter. The easiest way to get in touch with them is by email but you can also phone them if you have an immediate query. Their exact contact details will be given to you at the beginning of term.
Exams
At the beginning of every term, you will also have collections, in college tests (these are taken quite seriously). I found it was particularly helpful when I came to prelims that I had made organised revision notes in preparation for collections. It not only saves you time directly by not having to write your revision notes but it also means that when you come to revising these topics again they are much quicker to learn the second time round. Much of the work you do in vacations thus should be: reading over the topics and making sure you understand everything, doing additional reading on anything you are unsure about/ didn’t have time to cover during term time that you would maybe write an essay on in the exam, followed by making revision notes and then revising for collections. It is also a good idea to look at past exam papers to see which topics come up most and how the questions are worded. Looking at the short notes papers is especially important in the build-up to prelims as the same short notes come up time and time.
Time out
Despite the above, it is also important to relax in the holidays. Oxford at times can be quite intense, especially in your first term when everything is new. So try and have a good break and relax before you get back to the books!
Part 1 course
In the third term of your first year, you will start your Part 1 (second year) course. In EP this consists purely of psychology and some research methods and statistics, although some neurophysiology is embedded within the brain and behaviour module. Three main topics are studied: Social Psychology, Perception and Brain and Behavior. You have 16 lectures and four tutorials for each topic in the term. In general, tutors often ask you to write essays on two out of the four topics covered in tutorials and you may also be asked to prepare a presentation for the tutorials when you do not write an essay. Although this seems like a lot less work than in terms 1 and 2, in fact there is more work to cover. The reading list is a lot more diverse and includes many related articles which you find online via Oxlip and following the OU ejournals link. Few reading lists are textbook based except for maybe in perception. You’re required to do much more reading for each tutorial and essay, about 6-8 items on the reading list. The topics are also a little more demanding than what is previously encountered at prelims level. However, much of your work in Perception and Brain and Behavior builds on the work from your first two terms so again having organized notes from prelims can be useful. The style of tutorials also changes. They become more divergent with less emphasis on teaching and more emphasis on discussing interesting areas of the topics covered. In your third term, you also do core practicals every other week, two of which must be written up and count towards your finals. Information will be given telling you exactly how to write up such reports and although it is worth making sure you tick all the boxes and write the reports well, they are only worth a tiny percentage of your final degree so there is no point getting too stressed out over them.
Anyway, I think I’ve said enough and enjoy your first year at Oxford!
- Tips from a second-year psychology student
-
The Working Life of a Second-Year PPP Student
Introduction
I’m Emma, a second-year PPPist at St. Hilda’s from the beautiful city of Salisbury. I’m going to try and tell you a bit about what second year involves and the best ways of getting through it. The workload can seem a little daunting at times and there is definitely more work involved with part 1’s than there was for prelims, but the work is also far more in-depth and interesting. Also, second year teaches you invaluable time management skills; by the end of it, most of us had developed an almost magical ability to be in around five places at once!
Psychology Courses, Essays, and Tutorials
As a PPPist, my course is a little more flexible than the EP course. While EPists do all nine of the core psychology modules, PPPists choose five of these. If you want graduate basis for registration when you leave university then the choice of modules is a little more limited than if you don’t. Instead of just choosing any five of the nine modules, you instead have to choose at least one of the three Biological Bases of Behavior papers, one of the three Human Experimental Psychology papers, and one from Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, and Individual Differences. The five papers you choose must not include Psychological Disorders. All the papers I took were interesting and varied and were far more in-depth than the modules covered in prelims. For example, although Developmental Psychology is studied both for prelims and for part 1’s, the part 1 course covers a far broader range of topics and touches on developmental disorders as well as typical development.
Tutorials for PPPists are arranged in the same way as they are for EPists. You have four tutorials for each module which works out as a tutorial every two weeks for the term in which that module is taught. Tutorials are department-based rather than college-based, so you will be paired with people from other colleges and will not necessarily have tutorials with tutors from Hilda’s, although you would usually be taught by Hilda’s tutors for developmental psychology, psychological disorders, and individual differences. You complete an essay for every other tutorial, but other work, such as a presentation based on a particular research paper, is generally set for the other tutorials. The idea of giving a presentation can be a little daunting at first, but it’ll only be you, your tutor, and your tute partner in the room, so the whole thing is more like a discussion than a presentation.
Like EPists, PPPists also have to do psychology core practicals, although we do less of these than the EPists. Core practicals are three hours long and take up one afternoon per week. You have to write up a lab report after every second core practical. The first time you sit down to write one of these, there will be a moment of complete panic where you have no idea how to structure a lab report or set out anything. At this point, it is important to breathe. And possibly drink some strong coffee. Or take up yoga. The moment soon passes though –the structure of a lab report is quite simple and it is set out in detail in the yellow core practical handbook which you’ll be given in your first core practical class. Once you’ve written the first report, the others will seem a lot easier as they are all very, very similar. The best thing you can do is start the report early because it will probably take longer than you think! As well as this, make sure you include all references in the correct APA format, link your discussion to your introduction, and analyze your results before you do anything else so you know exactly what you’re writing about. Also, don’t be like me and spend about an hour thinking of the title!
Philosophy Courses, Essays, and Tutorials
There is a lot more choice built into the philosophy course which, depending on how indecisive you are, may or may not be a good thing! Basically, after prelims, you choose either three, four, or five philosophy papers depending on which proportion of psychology to philosophy you’re doing. These papers are taken in a term of your choosing before your finals. It’s a good idea to read the philosophy lecture list in the first week of each term and go to any relevant lectures as the lectures and tutorials for a particular paper may not always be in the same term. Going to lectures for a paper which you’re not having tutorials on yet may seem a little pointless, but you will honestly be glad of the notes when you do come to have tutorials.
Philosophy tutorials are chosen from a list of about thirty possible options. In general, you can take any combination of papers, but it is best to check the combination you’ve chosen with a tutor before you start going to lectures or organizing tutorials as, sometimes, there may be two papers which can’t be taken together – a friend of mine wanted to do a paper on Plato and a paper on Aristotle, but was told she wasn’t allowed to do two papers based around Ancient Greece.
Teaching in philosophy is generally college-based, although you may be sent to another college for some of the more obscure papers. I took Philosophy of Mind and History of Philosophy which were both taught at Hilda’s and Plato’s Republic which was taught at a different college. You have one tutorial a week during the term in which you are taking a particular paper and you write an essay for every tutorial. Sometimes, you have to read these aloud to your tutor and tute partner, so make sure you proofread! I generally forget and have to make sense of my own bad spelling on the spot…
Reading
Reading lists for both psychology part 1’s and philosophy can seem to be very long. With philosophy, it is important that you try and read everything on the reading list, even if some of it isn’t read very thoroughly! Philosophy essays will usually take a lot longer than psychology essays so you need to start the philosophy reading quite early. The philosophy section of Hilda’s library is generally very good. For some papers, such as History of Philosophy, it will have everything you need, but for others, such as Philosophy of Mind, many of the books are only in the philosophy faculty library on Merton Street. Most books from this library can be taken out for a week and they have multiple copies of everything, so it doesn’t matter if your tute partner gets there first!
The library at Hilda’s has most of the books you need for the psychology papers. A lot of the reading for psychology is in the form of online journals which can be accessed from anywhere. Psychology reading lists do tend to repeat themselves quite a bit as sometimes not all the articles listed will be available. This means that it is not essential to read everything on the reading, although it is useful to read as much as possible. The data for core practicals is analyzed using SPSS, so it is a really good idea to buy a basic SPSS textbook, such as ‘SPSS Made Simple’ as this will make writing core practical reports a lot easier.
Collections and Vacation Work
In general, collections are set at the beginning of the term following the term in which they were taught. This means that you will have an average of three psychology collections (including one short notes collection) and one philosophy collection every term. Collections are a really, really useful way of judging how much revision you need to do for part 1’s, so definitely spend some time over the vacation revising for them. I usually spread the revision out over most of the vacation by doing a couple of hours a day rather than panicking in the last week as this allows you to fit other activities in around revision. I find it easiest to revise from lecture notes rather than textbooks as these are more course specific. Lecture notes are also probably the best way of revising for the short notes paper where there is no choice of questions and questions are specific rather than general.
- Tips from a third-year psychology student #1
-
The Working Life of a Third Year Psychology Student
Introduction
I’ve tried to think of a few good tips and pieces of advice for those about to embark upon their final year of their Psychology course, particularly for those studying straight Experimental Psychology. I think that, compared to second year, your final year can be much more relaxed than second year, so long as you stay organised and work consistently throughout the year. There will probably be periods where you have nothing scheduled for weeks, and it’s easy to think you have nothing to do, but don’t think this way! You can always be reading and preparing for something, and if you work in this way you can have a really enjoyable and successful last year at Oxford. Stay calm in the run-up to exams; you will already have a significant proportion of your grade under your belt. Now you need to not only maintain a high standard but also try to push yourself that little bit further.
Communications
Your first point of contact is usually your college tutor. They are easily accessible by email and are always extremely helpful with any issues or queries you might have. If your query is more specific, for example, if you are completing an essay for a particular tutor and need to contact them, you could email them directly. The contact details of tutors are available on the Psychology Department’s website.
The Tutorial System
Oxbridge is renowned for its use of the tutorial system- and with good reason I think, as they are a potentially invaluable resource. The key thing to remember with tutorials is that you will get out of them what you put in. It’s the perfect opportunity for you to clarify any issues on a particular topic which you’re unclear about, expand upon the knowledge you have, and consider issues from others’ points of view.
In final year, tutorials can be especially useful as you delve deeper into your topics, much more so than you would have in the first two years. That’s why it’s essential that you understand your topics thoroughly. The material is much more dense and often more complicated, and your tutors are there to help you and guide you through this change. As an EPist, you’ll probably not have very many tutorials in your last year, which is all the more reason to take advantage of them when you do. Use them as a way of chatting to your tutor to make sure you have a grasp of the principles of a topic, ask their opinions. These kinds of things can really help improve your confidence, which is invaluable in the run-up to and taking of final exams.
Essays
Essays will also come to be extremely useful for your revision. It’s important to do as much reading as you can in the time given because when you come to do your revision you won’t have much time to read much new material.
By third year, you’ll probably be accustomed to reading for and writing essays quickly and efficiently, but in your third year, it’s a slightly different ball game. You need to understand the topic you’re studying in much greater depth than you did in Part I. Start by doing some background reading; ask your tutors to recommend some to you, or have a root around in Hilda’s library for some basic texts. Once you’ve got your head around the basics, think about which areas or aspects of the topic you’re going to focus on in the rest of your reading and choose texts appropriately. Try to construct your essays as clearly as possible, so that when you come to revise you’ll find it easier. Maybe you could write sub-headings throughout. When you do get feedback about your essays, try to make any necessary changes as soon as possible while it’s fresh in your mind- you’ll be glad you did this come revision time.
Vacations
The Oxford terms are short and sharp, so it’s important that you use the vacations as a way of catching up on sleep and relaxing a little. You may need to work part-time, although in your final year there probably won’t be too much free time to do this. It’s easy to fall into the habit of not working every day, but from the outset try to do a little bit of reading each day, even if it’s just an hour or so. Try to catch up on things you haven’t read from last term. It’s also a good idea to re-read everything you’ve done, to keep it all fresh in your mind and to prepare for any Collections that you may have. Don’t stress yourself out though, the most important thing is to be relaxed but also prepared for your next term.
The Working Week
You’ll find your timetables will probably change dramatically in your third year. If you’re an EPist, you’ll probably have several options, a research project and possibly a dissertation to do. There are fewer tutorials and lectures, and much more independent work is required of you. The key tip I could give here is to be very organized. If you fall behind with one topic’s work, this may have a knock-on effect on the rest of your work. Try your best to keep on top of things.
Another important tip is to start your research projects and dissertations as early as possible. Ideally, start to plan ahead in the summer holidays before third year so you can get straight into it come Michelmas term. If you can try to get all the testing done either immediately in Trinity of the second year or over the summer vacation. If possible, get some of the reading for both out of the way in the holidays, too. Once you actually start writing them up it’s not so bad, so just try to start as soon as you can, once you feel you’ve done enough reading.
A great way to stay organized is to create a plan and ensure you stick to it. Work out exactly what you need to have done and by when and then calculate how much
work you need to do each day. This way, you won’t get to Hilary term and have no idea how you’re going to get both your Project and Dissertation in by the end of term!
Careers
By now you’ll probably have come under the pressure from those around you that you need to have a job sorted for when you leave. Whilst it’s great to have an idea of your desired career path, it’s equally fine not to. Don’t think you have to spend your final year worrying about this and applying for anything and everything. Your priority should always be your work, don’t let this suffer. If you have some free time, do a bit of reading around the areas you’re interested in, or go to the Careers Service.
If you think you might be interested in a career in Psychology, there are lots of places to go to for advice. The careers service has a lot of useful information, as has the British Psychological Society (you may want to consider becoming a student member). Ann and Jenny are always helpful when it comes to careers advice too.
- Tips from a third-year psychology student #2
-
The Working Life of a Third Year Psychology Student
Introduction
This is aimed at psychology students at the end of their second year who would like some insight into what third year may be like and some advice relating to what the year entails. In my opinion, the third year is the year with the fewest periods of intense pressure, but in order to take advantage of this one must organize time well from the beginning. One’s organization is likely to be dependent on when Block Practicals and Part II options are held. It is best to start planning your time from the time you choose your Part II options so that you don’t have all your options at the end of the year along with dissertation and research project deadlines. It is also useful to sit down with tutors at the beginning of the year to think about how you will manage your time.
Communications
Keeping up a dialogue with your tutors is obviously very useful, especially if you have an Option in Trinity term resulting in a large break between the course and the exam. E-mail is advantageous as it keeps an electronic record of your communication. You don’t need much contact with the Department but Sue King, the Academic Secretary, is very efficient at responding to e-mails and usually has all the administrative information you’ll need.
It is important to keep your college tutors up-to-date with how your tutorials, Block Practicals, Dissertation supervisions, and Research Project testing and supervisions are going. They are the people who are able to act on your behalf if things don’t go as you think they should or are comfortable with. This doesn’t mean contacting them all the time, but if you feel that you are not getting the attention you deserve it is better to bring this up earlier when you have more time rather than later when time feels much more pressured.
Options
Make sure you know what the key papers are for each topic and who the key authors are. These should provide you with the core of your reading and allow you to build up a solid understanding of the topic. Once these papers feel familiar then it is good to look at different papers on the reading list. I wouldn’t feel obliged to cover the whole reading list but to find articles that you find interesting. A citation search of the most interesting papers will then take you away from the reading list and develop your knowledge and argument. I mostly used electronic papers that I located with Google Scholar or from the journal websites.
Dissertation
The literature search is quite time-consuming and requires using databases/search engines that you are unlikely to have used before (such as PsychNet and Science Direct). Therefore, it is important to make sure you get instructions from your supervisor. The librarian is also helpful. It is useful to get advice on what the key papers are and use these as a guide for your search. My supervisor pointed out to me that the dissertation is the equivalent of one Option. Therefore, it should not take up more time than an Option in a term would. It is useful to think about it as ‘just a big essay’ so that it doesn’t sound so daunting.
Research Project
The reading required for your project will depend on what area you are investigating and how much literature there is. Again, your supervisor should advise you of the key papers, and from these, it is important to carry out citation searches and look at the references. The Project is also the equivalent of one Option; however, due to the nature of testing, it is likely to take up more time. Therefore, you should not allow the reading to dominate the time you assign to the project.
Block Practicals
The main difference between Core and Block Practicals is the level of involvement in the testing phase. You should NOT get bogged down with these – they are not a big deal and each one will make minimal difference to your degree. A couple of days of concentrated effort should be enough to read for and write up a practical.
Tutorials
Tutorials can be very different in the third year depending on the Options you take. This year I was part of one very popular Option in which the tutorial set-up was quite similar to the second year although I found them far more useful as I had prepared for them better. My second option was not very popular so there were only four of us taking it. As a result, we had a really intimate tutorial set-up. All four of us had a tutorial together for two hours every week. Every week two of us would give presentations on the key papers and then the other two would lead a discussion on the papers. This meant that the work I had to prepare for tutorials varied weekly and we were able to learn loads from each other. It is always useful to go to a tutorial with a couple of questions in mind that are not related to the essay you wrote.
Essays
Ideally, writing the essays should take less time than those in your second year as you become more practised. The reading should be more efficient, selecting articles that are more informative and interesting. In my third year, my tutors expected a much more critical style of essay that really tried to answer the question whilst using evidence to support the argument. Often it seemed as though I was repeating myself or pointing out the obvious when relating argument to evidence, but this is important for the clarity of the answer. Practising, including specific criticisms of experiments and suggestions for ways you would improve them, is always met with “good work” or something similar!
Vacations
I returned from my Summer vacation very anxious about having done no academic work. I found that, having completed an Option and a Practical in Trinity term, this was not too much of a problem as long as I was sensible for the rest of the year. As a result of my carefree Summer, I was resigned to having very little Winter vacation. This did not feel like much of a sacrifice as I was right in the middle of my Research Project and was ready to start thinking about my Dissertation again and produce a first draft. The vacation provided me with some valuable time to make good progress with both these assignments.
The Working Week
I found my weeks busiest when testing participants for my Project. This required testing from 9am to 6.30pm and then having to catch up on other work in the evenings. Although it was very unpleasant it only lasted a couple of weeks. The analysis of the data was excruciatingly slow as I didn’t feel confident with the software (SPSS) and it is forever going wrong. My supervisor was incredibly busy so I would have to wait days to meet and find out whether I was on the right track and what to do next. It is important to allow lots of time for the analysis for these reasons. The write-up itself is quick compared to the testing and analysis.
Options don’t have a huge workload: one essay a week.
Hilary termis one to watch out for as the Dissertation and Project deadlines are both at the end. Setting mini-deadlines for first drafts and completing sections of your write-up are useful to keep you on track. Ideally, you will pick Options so that you have little more than the Dissertation and Project to think about in Hilary term.
Choices
I would recommend choosing Options and Practicals so that they are spread out across the three terms. Having enthusiastic tutors and lecturers makes the courses more enjoyable. Choosing Practicals that are related to your Options will reduce the amount of reading required for the write-up and will help you to understand what is going on better. Talk to College Sisters/Brothers for advice on which Practicals are worth choosing/avoiding – there are some that are known to require much more work than others.
- Reading list of fun things to get into the subject
-
Reading List - Psychology
Fun (and useful) things to get you into the subject.
All of these can be found on Amazon and most are in Oxford libraries, many of them at St Hildas. You probably won’t have time to read all, but do try to read at least a few!
Non-fiction
- Baron-Cohen, Simon. Zero Degree of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty. Allen Lane, 2011.
- Fernyhough, Charles. The Baby in the Mirror: A Child’s World from Birth to Three. Granta, 2009.
- Fine, Cordelia: Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences. Icon, 2010.
- Frith, Chris. Making Up the Mind: How the Brain Creates Our Mental World. Blackwell, 2007.
- Gladwell, Malcolm: Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking. Allen Lane, 2005.
- Goldacre, Ben: Bad Science, Harper, 2008.
- Gopnik, Alison. The Philosophical Baby: What Children’s Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love and the Meaning of Life. Bodley Head, 2009.
- Greenfield, Susan. The Private Life of the Brain. Allen Lane, 2000.
- Hammond, Claudia. Emotional Roller Coaster. Fourth Estate, 2005.
- Hays, Natasha. A Toss of the Dice: Stories from a Paediatrician’s Practice. Jessica Kingsley, 2005.
- Hunnisett, Fran. The Little Class With the Big Personality: Experiences of Teaching a Class of Young Children With Autism. Jessica Kingsley, 2005.
- Nettle, Daniel. Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are. Oxford University Press, 2007.
- Pinker, Steven. How the Mind Works. Penguin, 1997.
- Pinker, Steven. The Language Instinct. Penguin, 1994.
- Slater, Lauren. Opening Skinner’s Box. Bloomsbury, 2005.
- Sacks, Oliver. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Picador, 1986.
- Sacks, Oliver. An Anthropologist on Mars. Pan, 1999.
- Sacks, Oliver. The Mind’s Eye. Picador, 2010.
- Ramachandran, V.S. and Blakeslee, Sandra. Phantoms in the Brain: Human Nature and the Architecture of the Mind. Fourth Estate, 1999.
- Rose, Steven. The 21st-Century Brain: Explaining, Mending and Manipulating the Mind. Vintage, 2006.
- Ward, Jamie. The Frog Who Croaked Blue, Routledge, 2008.
- Winston, Robert. The Human Mind and How to Make the Most of It. Bantam, 2003.
Fiction/ Autobiography relating to psychological disorders
- Frame, Janet: An Autobiography. Women’s Press, 1990.
- Jamison, Kay: An Unquiet Mind. Picador, 1996.
- Sutherland, Stuart. Breakdown: A Personal Crisis and a Medical Dilemma. Pinter& Merton.
- Wolpert, Lewis. Malignant Sadness: The Anatomy of Depression. Simon and Schuster, 1999.
- Frame, Janet: Faces at the Table. W. H. Allen, 1962.
- Plath, Sylvia: The Bell Jar; Heinemann, 1963.
- Jackson, Luke: Freaks, Geeks and Asperger Syndrome. Jessica Kingsley, 2002.
- Williams, Donna: Nobody Nowhere. Corgi, 1993.
- Williams, Donna: Somebody Somewhere. Jessica Kingsley, 1999.
- Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
- Joanne Limburg: The Woman Who Thought Too Much. Atlantic, 2010.
- Hustvedt, Siri. What I Loved. Sceptre, 2003
- Shriver, Lionel. We Need to Talk about Kevin. Serpent’s Tail, 2006.
Up to 6 places per year
Meet our Academics
You can read more about the course academics via their profiles which can be accessed below.
Psychology
