Psychology

Course summary

Psychology is the study of human behaviour; what makes us unique and similar, what might drive, influence or cause our behaviours. It offers both a scientific and a non-scientific approach to studying human beings and is generally defined as the study of mind, brain and behaviour. Psychology combines well with science subjects and also with a more essay-based subject profile. Psychology is the ideal bridging subject between arts and science subjects. Psychology trains humanities students to think scientifically and helps science students to communicate arguments within essays. It teaches a range of valuable skills, and provides a good combination with almost any other subject but more importantly, is a credible and interesting discipline in itself. You will cover aspects of some of the main topics within psychology; developmental, cognitive and social psychology along with psychopathology. Within these, you will also develop an understanding of the research methods behind psychology and critically analyse psychological knowledge and understanding. Human behaviour is not straightforward and the complex debates within understanding it are also considered. Students have enjoyed combining psychology with subjects as diverse as music, English literature, physics, economics and history. Previous students have gone on to study medicine, natural sciences, philosophy, sociology and more broad-based social science courses. Others have opted for pure psychology degrees. Career paths in psychology include clinical psychology, forensic psychology, health psychology, educational psychology and academic research.