Psychology employability: Work experience reflections from our students. Blog 2, by Gabrielle Nieuwoudt

Reflecting on My PS2090 Journey

Reflecting on the past four PS2090 (‘Employability for Psychology’) workshops, I am amazed at my progress. I started by feeling very undecided, confused, and a little bit anxious, hence my enthusiasm to register for the course! But, after the first workshop, I already started to see a shift. I was asking myself important questions like, ‘What difficulties may I face as an international student trying to do a PhD in the UK?’ or ‘What do I see my career trajectory looking like?’ These were questions I hadn’t particularly considered in depth before, and were therefore contributing to my confusion.

In the first PS2090 workshop, we did an exercise where we assessed our values, and one of my top three values were, ‘You are involved in providing aid and assistance to people directly’. Although I knew this to some degree, I had to internalise it, and realise that perhaps the career I had imagined for myself in A Levels may not actually be what I want or be what is right for me. This was a hard pill to swallow, as you can imagine.

Cue months of a semi mid-life crisis, lots of late-night researching, working hard through Royal Holloway’s Micro-Placement scheme (another optional course that I highly recommend for all psychology students), and reflection. I slowly began to realise, and still am, that my path is not and will not be linear. And I’m okay with that. This was further supported by the second workshop, where I was learning about transferable skills, like critical thinking and interpersonal skills, and began to read about live job specs and look at different LinkedIn profiles. I noticed many psychology graduates had taken different routes and different lengths of time to get to where they are now, and it was best not to put all this pressure on myself.

I decided to plan. What did I need to do to ensure I was exploring the field, while also honing in on my employability skills? I had four main goals: to get a volunteering role in the mental health sector, which I did (a Befriender position at an NHS Trust); to attend virtual open days for Masters courses to see if they’re for me; to secure an internship; and to work on my CV. Working on my CV was especially useful because it helped me identify the skills I needed to improve on and/or develop, like commercial awareness and confidence.

Alexander G. Bell said, ‘Before anything else, preparation is the key to success,’ and I really do believe that. My preparation and planning enabled me to think strategically and logically, while also finding clarity amidst all the information I had access to. It helped me realise that I do want to be in this field long-term, that I enjoy psychology, and that I do have the necessary employability skills – I just needed to take a step back to realise it. More importantly, my planning helped me feel more comfortable in where I was at, and helped me realise that I do have the power to reach my goals and ultimately succeed in this field.