Show Notes for The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast Episode 105: The 5 things I am glad I knew as a psychology undergraduate

Thank you for listening to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast.

In our previous episode, I spoke about some of the things I wish I had known as a psychology graduate. In this episode of the Aspiring Psychologist podcast, I reflect on the 5 things that I was so glad I knew at that same life stage. Join us as I reflect on my university experience and its value in cultivating friendships, developing clinical skills whilst studying, and having an open mind whilst navigating the paths in psychology careers.

We hope you find it so useful.

I’d love any feedback you might have, and I’d love to know what your offers are and to be connected with you on socials so I can help you to celebrate your wins!

The Highlights:

• (00:00): Introduction
• (02:01): University teaches you a copious amount (and not just about psychology)
• (04:50): Reflecting on becoming a working woman whilst at university
• (06:35): The beauty of the journey into psychology and the many paths it can take you
• (07:52): Utilising university vacations to create structure
• (10:15): Teamwork makes the dream work
• (11:42): Summary and close

Links:

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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. Hope you'll find this useful, 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 way psychologist.

Welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. I am 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 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 and going to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast playlist or via scanning the QR code on screen now adding 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 plough on with first of the five things that I'm glad I knew as a psychology undergraduate. It might sound a little bit silly, but university is not just about studying. I learned so much from the people I met. I learned about having fun. I learned about 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 and vice versa. I learned a lot and about cooperation, about bill paying and sharing the bathroom with other adolescent females was interesting to wait your turn in for the bathroom, whereas that's not something I'd experienced where I grew up with just me and my brother. So that was unique and special and important, but also, I guess I was busy cultivating friendships. So maybe I always knew the people that I was spend time with in 1999 to 2002 would go on to become my lifelong friend, not just friends for a season, not just friends for undergrad, but that in 2023 and beyond, we'd still be setting aside time now together to make new memories and to reflect upon the old ones and that our children would grow up knowing these people and spending time with them.

These are not necessarily just people for right now. These might well be certainly one of the girls that I met. There was my bridesmaid, my bridesmaid at university. 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 is the case. 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.

I did have 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, I'd help scribe in exams, how they read my own writing at that point, I dunno. But they did manage to do it, and that might be transient disabilities. Might someone broken arm or leg, I'd help them get to lectures and make sure they were okay and support them, or it might be more chronic disabilities for a variety of reasons that meant that they needed some extra support. So I learned a load of that and I really enjoyed it and also extra money in my pocket, which was great. Let's take a brief break here and I'll be back along with five

To become a psychologist. Let this new with lessons and experience that will help you get qualified to come. And it's right here in this book The, it's the

Thank you for listening. In the first half, we were looking at the first two things. 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 that myself. Permission to do a degree that interested me without necessarily knowing where that was going to take me. Just to make it quite an exploratory degree to allow the things 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 realised 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 gave myself that holistic experience of being an undergrad student. I think if I'd realised about clinical psychology before, I might have felt much more pressure and it might have felt much competitive and I might have burned myself out.

So I'm kind of pleased. I just took it all as it came and got my assignments done, had fun with my friends, and then 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. Did quite like shopping in top shop. And so when I was at university, it was nice to be able to have some money to afford noodles, food, the odd point of beer. Not really a very good beer drinker, but sometimes used to drink that. And lemonade and lime. What else? I used to drink martini. No, not martini. I can't think what else I used to drink. I have to my university friends I to, but I used to use my work, my summer vacation to work either as a home carer or to work in Boots chemists to earn some money to be able to pay off my overdraft to pay a chunk of my fees as well.

So yeah, I knew that and I'm glad because it gave structure, it meant that I didn't just use the whole of my summer vacations to just sleep. And I wouldn't have been able to go out and socialise 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. And working in Boots the Chemist meant that I learned a great deal about working with others and customer service and teamwork, helping make things harmonious. And that leads us nicely into point 5, really, which is what I've called teamwork, makes the dream work, and that's about that holistic experience of learning from others, watching them grow, watching ourselves grow, knowing that we're all in this together and that there's something very special about a cohort.

And watching that development across a cohort is really, really special. And we used to draw upon each other's strengths and skills to help us to understand things better. But also 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, attending is a bit easier if it's able to do it online. And probably lecture notes are all available as a download, 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 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 dream work. And yeah, just really fun, special memories of all the cohort that I trained with. So has this evoked any memory, thoughts, 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 and lemme know on the community.

Please do also consider joining the Aspiring Psychologist membership where we really help your abilities, skills, potential across a wide range of things, from formulation to research, to personal reflections, and across a wide range of different therapeutic orientation. It gets great reviews. We'd love to see you in there and to really continue that theme of teamwork, making the dream work, that really is what happens in the membership. I'll look forward to catching up with you for the next episode of the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast, which will be along for you from 6:00 AM on Monday. Thank you so much for being part of my world. I'll look forward to catching up with you very soon. Care.

If you're looking to become a psychologist, then let this podcast, you'll.