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Asked by anon-295759 to Nora, John, Anastasiia on 16 Jul 2021. This question was also asked by anon-295767.
Question: What's your favourite thing about being a psychologist?
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John J Shaw answered on 16 Jun 2021:
Within academia it’s a level of freedom to explore ideas that interest me personally and work on ideas/concepts that I can see being useful on a larger scale. I think working in science it’s important to ensure that anything you do isn’t just for the sake of doing it. It’s also quite self driven and lets me structure my working day around the problem rather than having set hours to do the work.
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Anastasia Kovalenko answered on 17 Jun 2021:
The ability to understand people better. Interpreting people’s behaviour, verbal and nonverbal cues, and thinking of how I can help them, or how I can make communication more effective. I also like the flexibility that academia offers – ability to get involved in many projects, develop my knowledge in other areas through collaboration.
Comments
Jennifer commented on :
I’ve always been fascinated by people, I love talking to people and finding out about them and what they think and feel. Psychology lets me do that for a job! I love that there is a certain amount of freedom, I find out what is important to people and then try and design a research study around that area. You get to be creative and you can (sometimes!) see a real world impact of your work
Megan commented on :
Psychology is the study of the human mind. As a human myself (just about!) studying psychology gives me an insight into the incredible things the human brain can do, but which we take for granted. For example, you will appreciate even the sight of paint drying, once you understand that photons bounced off the wall are activating incredibly sensitive rod and cone cells in the retina, which break apart in order to relay (in several separate neural pathways through the brain) information about the lights, shadows, contours, colour and texture of the wall; how the brain is seamlessly incorporating “higher-level” information (the words, “wall” or “paint”, for example, or even “affective” (emotional) information about the colour of the paint) into what you perceive. Probably so fast that you don’t even notice you are doing it. And all this from paint drying! I am currently studying attention in infants, and I get to see how everyday how even very young humans learn social communication from their parents and the world around them. This is what studying psychology has given me, and one of my favourite things about being a psychologist.
Sophie commented on :
I love the privilege of hearing about people’s lives and the stories that they share with me. Human beings are so complex and fascinating that no two days are ever the same! I am never bored in my job and am always learning new things, which keeps me motivated to go to work everyday.
Sammi commented on :
I love that I have the freedom to research topics that are interesting and important to me. I work in translational research, which means the work I do directly translates into a healthcare environment. I love that I get to see how my work makes a real difference to peoples’ lives.
Brittney Chere commented on :
On a personal note, I really like that by studying psychology I understand myself and other people better. The fact that what I do for work makes me a more empathetic and understanding person feels very unique. I also like that I get to share this knowledge with other people around me to help them in the same way that it’s helped me. In terms of the job itself, I love how you learn so much outside of just psychology. For instance, you travel to conferences and give talks, you learn about and how to use new technologies, you work individually and think about your research very in depth but then also collaborate with others and think about your research on a broader scale, and you get to share your findings with people that it could directly help. All of this makes it both very challenging but also very rewarding 🙂