How to ace your Psychology degree: in a nutshell

My name is Tasnim Ojomu from London and I recently graduated in July 2020 in BSc Psychology. I'm an aspiring Clinical Psychologist and particularly have interests in Neuropsychology, Health Psychology and Social psychology. I also recently started an educational project called 'Psychedified' on Instagram and Twitter, which aims to help encourage and educate students and, general psychology enthusiasts about psychology in a fun way. It also aims to promote the importance of mental health. In my free time, I like to write, watch series on Netflix and I would call myself a fashion enthusiast who enjoys shopping.

Tasnim Ojomu

Firstly, it is important to remember that success is relative to you. You are in a race with yourself, so try your best not to compare your journey with others. You will have ups and downs but you still have to give your all. Here are 3 tips that helped me to excel in my Psychology degree and obtain first-class honors and may also help you:

1) Always be willing to take on board feedback

Do not beat yourself up if you start off by not achieving what you are aiming to achieve. There is always room for improvement! Do not stop striving and trying. Evaluate your work: what did you do right and what did you do wrong? I think the best way to reflect meaningfully on your work is to take on board all of your past feedback, for example, comments left by the marker on your essays. The markers may typically point out what you are doing well, so continue doing what you are doing correctly - note this down and keep on doing it! However, they are most likely to give pointers on what is not necessary to include or what elements may not be working - take special note of this too. Is it the structure, referencing, are you not using relevant terminology, and etc.

When you consistently keep track of what you are doing right and wrong, this helps you to ensure you do not repeat silly mistakes and pushes you to achieve more than the last time. I particularly emphasize that every piece of work should be written with past feedback taken into account.

Also, attend the office hours of lecturers and ask, ask, ask questions - do not be shy. This is an opportunity for you to gain more clarity on things you may not understand and get some guidance. In addition to this, you can ask for advice from past students or students in the further stages of your course who may be able to give you some valuable insight and wisdom.

2) Extra Reading: Read as widely as you can

I think an important part of excelling in your Psychology degree is to always continue broadening your knowledge. Sometimes to see different heights in your results, you have to do more and put in more effort. Broadening your knowledge beyond the scope of just the lecture alone allows you to make important connections across the different areas of psychology. This could give you the extra edge in your essays but also generally enhance your understanding. Be hungry for knowledge. This can help you apply better examples and better understand the context of questions in exams.

My advice is to make it a habit to read journal articles like brushing your teeth and also try to summarise sections of textbooks. You can also watch videos to help stimulate your mind further in a fun, more relaxed way and expand your knowledge.

3) Have long-term goals and short-term goals

To get to a destination, you need to know the directions, right? It is the same with your Psychology degree, to be most effective you need to know what you are trying to achieve at any point in time and how you plan to get there. For short-term goals, for example, during the week I found having to-do lists a very effective tool to layout visually what I desired to achieve.

For long-term goals, I constantly asked myself questions and assessed, why do I want this Psychology degree? Where do I want to go with this degree? How can I obtain the most out of this degree? What grades am I aiming for? I think when you assess what you want, you can make the best plan of action that is tailored to you. For example, maybe you need to be more disciplined and wake up earlier to conquer more tasks. Having an academic vision board helped me throughout my degree to constantly visualize my goals and my plan of action for where I personally wanted to get to.

I want to end by saying have a lot of fun during your degree, pick optional modules you are passionate about, enjoy the process, and university experience in general. When you enjoy the process, you are more likely to be productive and achieve. Work hard and live your best life or whatever the kids say, haha!