By the time this podcast episode goes out a lot of psychology students would be choosing their projects for their dissertation so they can graduate with Honours at the end of their degree, last than a year away. The vast majority of students might have no idea or not simply care what project they pick, but if you can find a project that you’re going to enjoy then it can seriously improve your final year. Therefore, in this episode, you’ll learn how choosing a dissertation project worked at my university, why it’s flat out critical that you pick one you’re going to enjoy and why choosing the right academic to work with is critical as well. If you enjoy learning about university, student life and what it’s like to be a university psychology student then this will be a great episode for you.
Today’s psychology podcast episode has been sponsored by Third Year Survival Guide: A Psychology Student’s Guide To The Final Year Of Their Undergraduate Degree. CGD Publishing. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.
Why Is Choosing The Right Psychology Dissertation Project Critical? (Extract From Third Year Survival Guide COPYRIGHT 2024 CONNOR WHITELEY)
Ask any university psychology student and they will tell you that the Final Year Project or dissertation, as it is called by some universities, is the most important part of your Final year at university. And as much as I want to say that it flat out isn’t, I can’t.
Your Final Year Project might not be as do-or-die as everyone makes out but it is critical and it will form a lot of your final grade for your Final Year.
Therefore, deciding on what Final Year Project you want to do is critical because your degree, your happiness and your ability to enjoy the next academic year basically depends on this single decision.
In addition, my Final Year Project was a cognitive psychology project (even though I hate cognitive psychology) studying transfer learning in retrieval-based learning tasks using EEG equipment so we could see the neuro-evidence involved in this type of learning for the first time.
How Do Students Go About Choosing A Final Year Project?
As a result in my experience, the way how choosing a Final Year Project works is that in May or June of your second year at university, you’re emailed a list of projects that you can sign up for. This list includes all the projects that the psychology academics at your university are offering.
You can look at this list and find out the project title, description, name and how many people can apply for the topic.
This is where my first insider tip comes from. If you have a particular academic in mind that you want to work with, definitely email them before this list is published and they might hold a space for you until you can officially apply through the list.
As whenever a person signs up through this list, the student’s information gets passed onto the academic so they can sort through the applications. This is why you normally have to email the academic as well so they can hear why you’re interested in the project and want to work with them.
Yes, at times choosing a Final Year Project really is like a job application.
Anyway, after you’ve looked at this list, you need to decide what project you want to apply for. You might want to apply for a couple in case one of them gets oversubscribed but just follow your own university’s advice about this part of the process.
However, when choosing your Final Year Project I cannot stress these factors enough when making your decision.
Why Is Choosing The Right Academic Important?
Every single year without fail I hear horror stories about students having a nightmare with their academic supervisor because of how busy and useless they are. The entire point of an academic supervisor is to help you, be there to answer questions and have meetings with you so you can do your best.
That all depends on the supervisor themselves.
This year I know a ton of students that were struggling with their Final Year Project because they couldn’t get a meeting with their supervisor, their supervisor was rubbish at answering questions and students just had one problem after another with their supervisor.
How do you solve this?
Obviously by choosing a good supervisor, but if you’re in your second year at university and you happen to run into some psychology third-years, definitely ask them about their supervisor and any horror stories they’ve heard.
You need this information so you can make an informed decision about what to do and who to pick as your supervisor.
Also, I want to mention that even the most boring-sounding project can be made brilliant by a great supervisor. For example, I have no interest at all in cognitive psychology and yet, I loved my Final Year Project because of the supervisor and his PhD student.
Your supervisor really can be the difference between a terrible Final Year Project and a great one. At least in terms of how much you enjoy it.
Finally, I should just say from what I’ve heard about supervisors from my friends this year. Avoid Heads of School because they always tend to be extremely busy and don’t have time for Final Year Project students and the questions they want to ask.
Even though they would call me a liar, my friends would agree with me.
Why The Project Itself Is So Important?
I really doubt this would be a major surprise to you but choosing the right Final Year Project itself is so critical.
Let me just explain why in a very scary sentence. You will be spending the next academic year of your life researching this topic. Do you really want to be researching something you hate for the next year?
Of course not. You would hate that, your happiness would die and you would just hate your life.
I don’t want that for you.
Therefore, you either need to choose a project that you naturally love, or you need to choose a project with a brilliant supervisor. That will make the next year so much better for you.
Personally, I decided on the latter because for my Final Year Project, I naturally would have loved a forensic or clinical psychology topic since these are the areas I love in psychology. Yet I don’t like change, I wanted to be more social and I knew my supervisor from my placement year was brilliant and he did socials.
That’s important for something I’ll talk about later on.
Therefore, I decided to ado a Final Year Project with my placement supervisor because I knew how great he was, there would be socials and I knew I would have a lot of fun.
Also, I really wanted to experiment with EEG equipment so I choose that Final Year Project so I could use a certain type of equipment.
Overall, whenever it comes to choosing a Final Year Project, only you know what will make you happy, make you passionate and make you look forward to the year ahead. That is what a Final Year Project is all about.
You will be researching your Project for the next year and if you choose a project without thinking about it and what would make you happy then you might regret it. I’ve heard a lot of stories this year about students that have hated their Final Year Projects.
I don’t want you to be one of them.
Therefore, please just think about your Final Year Project, consider what would make you happy and consider who you want your supervisor to be. All those factors are critical and might very well be the difference between a great Final Year and one that you hate.
I really hope you enjoyed today’s clinical psychology podcast episode.
If you want to learn more, please check out:
Third Year Survival Guide: A Psychology Student’s Guide To The Final Year Of Their Undergraduate Degree. CGD Publishing. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it. Also available as an AI-narrated audiobook from selected audiobook platforms and library systems. For example, Kobo, Spotify, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, Overdrive, Baker and Taylor and Bibliotheca.
Have a great day.
University Student Life Reference
Whiteley. C. (2024) Third Year Survival Guide: A Psychology Student’s Guide To The Final Year Of Their Undergraduate Degree. CGD Publishing. England.
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