Students Questions 5 - what grades do I need to get into psychology?

In this series, I respond to questions that I was asked as part of "I'm a Researcher, get me out of here". See my earlier post on the event for more detail on the event as a whole. Students in secondary schools asked questions about my research, experiences, and researcher life. There was much less time and space to talk about these questions / issues than needed to give a full picture. So, this series has more of my thoughts and reflections on those questions. I'll keep the editing to a minimum, so that this is a more organic process, maybe I'll even get a podcast or two recorded on this topic. Comment or contact me directly to pose new questions, and I'll aim to answer them!

Today's question;

What subjects/grades do I need to get into Psychology?

These kinds of questions were asked regularly during the I'm a Researcher live chats. So, to procrastinate from writing my thesis, I thought I'd share a few thoughts on what subjects and grades you need to get into psychology. I'll assume that by asking one of these kinds of questions that you are the sort of student that a) turns up to lessons, b) cares at least a little bit about grades, and c) maybe wants to go to university. I have no idea how other systems work in terms of getting to university, so I wont speculate on ones outside of the UK. But, if you do know more, leave a comment because I'd love to know what is different and where.

The Living Library Librarian (Hint: not me)

My story

A few folk at the Living Library event (I got to be a book and talk about my research in quick-fire chats to loads of people. God my throat was sore afterwards) were surprised that I didn't follow a direct route into studying psychology at university. I think that it's expected that to work / research in a particular area that you must have done that subject at GCSE, A levels and so on. But, that's not always the case. So, here's my quick story. 

GCSEs: We didn't get too much choice in subjects for GCSE, so I just went with the flow and got relatively decent grades (mostly Bs). That was back when my memory was better, and I benefited from managing to get a lessons work done quickly and well enough that I could doss about for the remainder of the lesson (at least I'm being honest here, I guess). Note, I did get the work done, so I learned and remembered enough for the exams. Back then I had zero exam anxiety as well, which helped. During my degree it got worse, mainly because there was more riding on each grade. 

A levels: I took Maths, Further Maths, Philosophy for A level, as well as an AS (1st year of A levels) in Physics, and blagged my way to an A level in general studies (whatever that means).

BSc in Psychology: I needed three Cs to get in to my Psychology/Philosophy course at the University of Stirling (beautiful place, worth a visit even if you don't want to study there). So, I was confident that my conditional offer would go through without an issue based on grades. About a year and a half into my 4 year course (Scottish undergraduate degrees tend to be 4 years), I switched to study Psychology alone. 

There are people that took a whole other route as well. I met quite a few people during my MSc at Oxford Brookes that were taking the course in order to get the BPS accreditation (after I think a years course beforehand) so that they could pursue clinical psychology, for example. These routes take a bit longer overall, but give the opportunity to transfer between fields.

Honestly, it's OK to not have been studying psychology super early on

"We don't want to hear any more about you Sam, get to answering the question!". Fine, imaginary grumpy teenager (maybe the ghost of myself, who knows), I'll get to the point, geez. 

Which subjects?

You don't have to have to do the exact subject you might want to study at university in your GCSEs or A levels. For some subjects it may be a necessity, for me at the time it was not (but check, because I'd hate to be caught out on this). Psychology Undergrad degrees are so general and introductory that if you want a career in psychology, it's just the first step anyway. It will be easier if you've already studied something for awhile to continue studying it. But, don't kick yourself if your school doesn't offer Psychology, or the specific subject you want. I took further maths at A level because I was always in advanced maths classes and I was basically told that if I took that I'd get into University easily. Now I realise that was a complete over exaggeration, but it was well intended I suppose. If you can try the subject that you're interested in, that's great. It might light a fire in you to study further, or it might explode in your face and you hate it, but at least you tried it early. If you cant try it, then do some research into what it's like to do that subject. Hopefully this blog is useful, but there are many more that talk about similar issues across fields. Either way, it's possible to take a university course in your chosen subject. I'll discuss being able to stay working in that field in academia in a future post.

Quick aside. If you know that psychology is for you and it's your chosen path, try to take some statistics classes, and maybe some programming classes. They will really help. It's not necessary to get onto the course, but it will help a lot, even just to relieve some of the numbers anxiety that I see in some undergrad psych students.

What grades?

My guess is that this is the question that you are really interested in. It's also why I left it until the end, so I could trick you into reading the rest of my waffle, muwahahaha. Anyway, grades. You'll have a rough idea of what sort of student you are, on average. Whether you are a solid A student, or more of a CCC grade kind of person, or like me somewhere in the middle, there'll be a University for you. If your grades fall below that and you're keen on studying psychology for example, there will be conversion courses that you can take first to bridge the gap before an undergraduate degree.

Here's my honest truth. You don't need to be a A+++ student to get into university, nor do I think its healthy for the government to continue making things extra stressful with more and harder exams and standards. I don't think that it is reasonable to expect that of people. You do need to work hard, you do need to get whatever grades your chosen university requires. But, it should not be at the expense of your own wellbeing. Also remember that the "best" university for you may not necessarily be the one that requires the highest grades. My secondary choice required higher grades than Stirling, but I knew from visiting there that it was where I wanted to be for the next few years. The point is that there are lots of routes and required standards to get onto a psychology degree. there is not a single or "right" path that you have to follow.

Thought this was funny and relevant enough to get away with including

Student's Questions 4 - What is imposter syndrome?

In this series, I respond to questions that I was asked as part of "I'm a Researcher, get me out of here". See my earlier post on the event for more detail on the event as a whole. Students in secondary schools asked questions about my research, experiences, and researcher life. There was much less time and space to talk about these questions / issues than needed to give a full picture. So, this series has more of my thoughts and reflections on those questions. I'll keep the editing to a minimum, so that this is a more organic process, maybe I'll even get a podcast or two recorded on this topic. Comment or contact me directly to pose new questions, and I'll aim to answer them!

Today's question;

What is imposter syndrome?

My plan was to write a longer post about imposter (or impostor apparently, depending on your persuasion) syndrome, and my own experiences of it. But, that will have to wait because I'm angry. I'm angry because I have just seen the kind of insensitive comment about imposter syndrome that helps only in making peoples imposter syndrome worse. I'll save the rants about where those kinds of people should shove things. What I'll do instead is cover what imposter syndrome is, for an early career researcher. 

These snippets are all part of my own experience these past few months, feel free to add yours in the comments. Perhaps then those looking down on people who have experienced imposter syndrome might begin to understand.

Imposter syndrome is...

Imposter syndrome is working for years to become an expert in your area, develop practical skills, and come on leaps and bounds in your quality of work; but, constantly feeling like you still ‘aren’t good enough’.

Imposter syndrome is knowing on a logical level that you are good at what you do, but psych yourself out of job applications because you do not feel good enough for that role, or, because you “know” that somebody more qualified / better will get the job anyway.

Imposter syndrome is judging yourself poorly every time a colleague posts that they have just published a new paper. Wondering why you cannot be as productive yourself. 

Imposter syndrome is getting rejection letters with no feedback and coming up with hundreds of reasons why you weren’t good enough for the job. Then realising that the reason is probably something simple like other people had more publications and would be higher on the list. Then feeling much worse because if that's the case then that is how every application is going to be received.

Imposter syndrome is kicking yourself for having such a long list of things you would like to learn. It's thinking that these are things that you have to learn to be of any worth to your research field. 

Imposter syndrome is having a super productive day/week, but as soon as you've congratulated yourself on doing the work, you assume that it's garbage.

Imposter syndrome is holding up a mask of "everything is/will be fine", because admitting that you're struggling is harder than shoveling it down deep. It's doing this so often that perhaps others assume that you are "so well-adjusted". 

Imposter syndrome gets worse when...

Imposter syndrome gets worse when you are not allowed to be included on a grant application (that you spent months writing) because you are “too junior”.

Imposter syndrome is propagated when asshats like @jim_bouldin say things like “if you’re obsessed with being an Imposter, then either get over it, or get out of it, one of the two… because maybe you shouldn’t be there in the first place”. Thanks for inspiring this post, I hope you get mauled by a ferret.

Imposter syndrome gets worse when we let people think that they need to be in the top 1% to be "successful" or on a more basic level to be employable. 

Imposter syndrome syndrome gets worse when keeping on the "I'm ok" mask becomes less of hiding your doubts, and more about trying to convince yourself that everything will work out.

Imposter syndrome gets better when...

When we receive congratulations on our hard work, and not deride them for not achieving enough, quickly enough, or for simply having doubts. (Thank you @t_awkr for praise() ).

When people like @StephEvz43 write "If you get imposter syndrome, you should ABSOLUTELY be doing what you’re doing because you CARE ENOUGH TO BE WORRIED ABOUT YOUR PERFORMANCE". These positive messages need to be shared more

Hopefully when experiences like this are shared. Knowing that so many people experience these kinds of feelings that it's nothing to be ashamed of. 

Having support, any support. Family and friends are gold dust here. My wife is always a source of strength and support, even when I don't admit that I'm worrying or hurting.

That was quite cathartic, even if I am somewhat uncertain and apprehensive about putting this 'out there'. Its the first time that I've gotten some of these feelings out of my head, in any format. I'm hoping that anybody that reads this that is experiencing imposter syndrome understands that you're not alone. I hope that somebody reading this that has a poorer opinion of imposter syndrome will themselves "get over it, or get fired from a cannon out". This isn't a tone thing, this is supporting other researchers, especially early career researchers to let them know that they are doing a good job. Imposter syndrome is almost a direct by-product of the misaligned incentive structures and high competition in academia. But, maybe we can help each other a bit?

Thanks for reading, please remember that you're awesome.

- SP

Student Questions pt 2 - How many hours do you work?

In this series, I respond to questions that I was asked as part of "I'm a Researcher, get me out of here". See my earlier post on the event for more detail on the event as a whole. Students in secondary schools asked questions about my research, experiences, and researcher life. There was much less time and space to talk about these questions / issues than needed to give a full picture. So, this series has more of my thoughts and reflections on those questions. I'll keep the editing to a minimum, so that this is a more organic process, maybe I'll even get a podcast or two recorded on this topic. Comment or contact me directly to pose new questions, and I'll aim to answer them!

Today's question;

How much time do you spend working on research in a typical week?

This came up pretty commonly during I'm a Researcher. I didn't feel too strongly to talk about it in more detail until this morning. The short answer is that I try to work roughly on a 9-5 Monday-Friday kind of schedule, to fit with family life. When there are deadlines or revisions that need to be completed, or when there are applications to get ready I'll of course put in weekend and evening hours to get things done. But, I try to draw the distinction between home and work life where I can.

That's the short answer specific to me. But, what I want to write (rant) about is the expectations in academia to work excessive hours. I came across the below tweet yesterday, which riled me up for the reasons that I'll explain next (and hopefully give some information about working life in academia as well). The tweet was a higher response to a Times Higher Education survey which asked academics how many hours they work each weekend. If its not immediately apparent why lots of people (myself included) chimed in with less than positive reactions, maybe the problem needs elaboration.

this annoys me less now, but still, c'mon dude

 First, I should say that I am completely fine with the idea that if you love your work and want to spend time on it that's great; whether weekend, evening, or whatever. Its also fair to say that sometimes in academia we just have to put in some weekend time, perhaps there's a grant application deadline upcoming, or you really want to get a paper finished, or the problem is playing on your mind anyway. On a positive note, if this post was only a passionate statement about how this person loves their research that that's literally all they want to do with their time, great. That passion is great and in many ways something to be appreciated.

There are loads of good reasons for putting extra time in outside of the standard 9-5 Monday to Friday. There are also a hoard of bad ones, which is why this particular tweeter hacked me off, because they managed to hit most of them. This kind of statement rings true with the joke that 'one of the best things about academia is that you get to pick the 60/80/100 hours you work each week'.

Most of my objection comes from the "real academics" phrase. This adds a judgement that I despise and my honest opinion is that throw away comments like this contribute towards junior researchers hardships, impostor syndrome, and perpetrates a harmful work/life balance.

Lets talk impostor syndrome. I'm pretty sure most of us have felt like this at some point, and it seems particularly common in academia. That feeling that, despite your own achievements, that everybody else is better qualified and able to do the job. That you will get found out for being a fraud and not being good enough to be where you are now. You can google impostor syndrome for a huge collection that suggests how pervasive this problem is. Part of the problem is that we intrinsically compare ourselves and our achievements to others, and this is magnified when we are in a competitive job market like academia. This part is not entirely unavoidable, but makes sense, and we can do things to combat it.

One thing that the opinion that more hours = better work or a better academic lead to is burnout. Trust me, burnout sucks. The feeling that you cant function and actually get things completed, the constant mental fatigue, and if we are frank high-functioning depression and anxiety, suck so hard. Nobody should expect that to be the norm in any field. What makes it worse is people like the tweeter above putting out there that we should expect people to do nothing, or have nothing else important, but work. Add this to impostor syndrome and job insecurities and you have a recipe for disaster.

But, statements like this, which basically amount to "to be a real academic, you need to work weekends" to early career researchers (like myself) is a bigger part of the problem. It places a stigma on those who have other aspects of their lives (i.e. most of us). Family are important, in case that was not immediately obvious. I'm not going to miss spending time with my wife on the weekend so that some jumped up "real" academic on his/her ivory tower can look at me more positively. Even worse, to say to people wanting to work in research that their work is their life now is a reprehensible contribution to the public discourse around academic work/life balance (super trying not to swear lots and screaming into pillows).

be excited - not knowing something is an opportunity to learn something new

The take home message

Before I get into full ranting mode, I want to swing this back to the students that asked this question. If you want to work in academia, you will probably need to put in hours outside of the 9-5 schedule that many people work in. In the same way as having homework and exams means that you have stuff to do in your own time; you might have access to the lab equipment only on a Saturday for awhile, or there might be a few big deadlines close together so you don't have too much free time for a few weeks.

In all honesty, it isn't predictable, and will affect some people more than others. But, if somebody tells you (for any job) that you aren't allowed a life outside of that job you need to do one of two things. First, tell that person where to get off. Second, consider whether that advice is accurate (probably not) and whether it is worth it to you. If you truly love the work great, but don't sacrifice the other things that are important to you.

This is the important bit. You do not need to work weekends to be a "real" academic. You do not need to work yourself until you burnout to be good at your job. You should not be made to feel like you are not working enough (obviously unless you're super lazy). If you need help to get work done in fewer hours and not work every weekend, then you should be able to ask for help. Academia is awesome and I want to work in research for a long time. So, ignore statements like this particular tweet, you do not deserve to feel like you do not deserve your place as a "real academic".

What are your thoughts? happy to answer comments :)

I'm a Researcher: Thoughts, reflections, and more questions

On Friday I became a runner-up in the Curiosity Carnival's "I'm a Researcher; Get me out of here" event (check out my profile page for this here). I'm a Researcher was a collection of interactions between Researchers from a range of areas and backgrounds and secondary school students in the Oxfordshire area. There were three kinds of interactions between the researchers, and the students. ASK questions, in which students were able to ask questions directly to one or more of the 22 researchers that were involved over a three week period. There were fast-paced live chats, where a small group of the researchers would be involved in a live chat with a full class of students. These 30 minute chats passed by in what felt like seconds with the speed that questions were posted and the wide scope of questions asked to each of us. Finally, on Friday we had the live final. I was super excited to have been voted in to the final, where five of the researchers got to speak a little about themselves and their work, and answer questions from the live audience. Congratulations to Priyanka Dhopade who took the win, and donated the winnings to a charity that works to get girls into STEM subjects. It was a well deserved win, and I love the charity of choice. I also love my lego runner-up prize!

My runner-up prize. I've named him gReg the R jester. He judges me on my R scripts. Look at that smug face, mocking me.

The range of questions (in each of the formats) was inspiring, ranging from simple "how long have you been a researcher?" or "what's your thesis about?", to the more difficult "What part of your research can improve mental health to make people happier?" or "what do you hope to achieve with your research?". The latter questions took some time for me to consider, and I do feel like some required a much more in-depth response. Sadly, in a chat room, writing a long post to fully address all angles of a question is somewhat challenging.

The whole event was an eye-opening experience, and now that I have had some time to process what started as 'just' a public engagement exercise for me. Now, I am fully convinced in the importance of these events as an additional avenue to interact with the next generation of researchers. They deserve to know more about what research and being a researcher entails. Also, for those of them considering university and research more broadly, they should know what they might be getting themselves in for.

"Umm, my name is Sam and I, er, try to do science..."

An example; "what is the best thing about being a researcher?". The answers cover so many aspects that make working in research an awesome thing to have as a career. But, by the nature of the question itself, it completely misses what are the bad things about being a researcher. 

So, are we giving potential future researchers an accurate picture of research life? I don't think so.

What I am planning to do therefore, is to take a selection of the questions that I have recorded and spend some more time answering them from my current perspective. These are questions from teenagers interested at the very least in a direct answer. But, at the most, these questions might come from someone who is interested in pursuing a career in psychological research. I'm not coming from any privileged perspective on what things are like for everyone, but I can give an honest account of my experiences.

Watch this space for blog posts and maybe a podcast or two (if I can figure out recording one and don't hate my voice too much). Feel free to comment with questions you wish you had an answer to before heading into research or University. Also, post them to my twitter so we can discuss them more broadly!

Writing a research grant application as a PhD

Last week, we submitted a grant application to a UK research council. It was an uphill struggle from the beginning, and the last week was a flurry of activity between my supervisor and I to make the revisions that were much needed to polish the application. Now, I have to wait with my fingers crossed that our efforts will not succumb to the ~90% likelihood that we will not receive funding.

As with any long term project, I have had plenty of time to reflect on the experience. So, by way of release, here are some things that I have learned/experienced as a PhD student applying for a research grant. I plan to write a follow up post on the practicalities of writing the grant, resources that were useful, and depending on the success/failure of the application; what to do and what not to do.

Co-applicant or named researcher?

First, I would like to begin with what was, for me, the worst part of the experience. As background, I started a much more negative version of this post at the start of the year entitled "Co-applicant or named researcher - someone else decides". I am unsure if other universities have a similar policy, but what happens here is that the research committee must approve each researcher to have a JeS account of the correct type to submit research grant applications. Without this approval/support from the department, you simply cannot be a co-applicant. In short, I was denied the request to be a co-applicant on the grant application that I had written with my supervisor (note; this was at the time that we had decided on a rough plan together, and I had then worked solidly for about two months in creating the first draft of the complete application). The reason? I did not get one at first. I did receive an automated message from the JeS system to tell me that my request had been denied, but that was about it. After some prompting I was informed in essence that I was too junior (which again is a nice sting for someone hoping to stay in academia). My hope was that the fact that I had led the application across all stages might hold sway over my publication count, but sadly not. All in all, this part of the experience really stung.

The result was that by necessity, I needed to remove my name as co-applicant from each document and continue working on the application. Although I would not be receiving full credit - fully acknowledging the unlikeliness of receiving the funding in any case - I needed to continue to take the lead and work on the proposal. If I had allowed myself the opportunity to slow down for more than a brief period of venting frustrations then the application would not have gotten completed.

So, I learned several lessons pretty quickly;

• You may not get full credit for the work
• But, you must keep going regardless
• Be more experienced, I guess...

There will be setbacks and delays

For me, a setback was changing our targeted research council. Looking back it was certainly the right call, but at the time I had to do quite a bit of rethinking and restructuring - including the loss of two pages from the Case for Support (essentially the background and research plan). For others it might be illness, or changes of deadlines, receiving feedback, or co-applicants disagreements over the application, to name only a few. 

Given the time-course of a grant application, one should expect;

• There is likely to be at least one major delay, as there could be in any project. Plan for this working from the deadline
• You will likely lose a week or so before the end of the final deadline, as the application will have to be submitted to your research institution / department. To illustrate, our deadline was the 31st and we had to submit on the 24th. 

You will lose months of your PhD

The process will differ for everybody, but, writing a grant application will take months of dedicated work. I suspect that PhDs who acquired competitive funding for their doctoral research will have a stronger background in funding applications than I, but I doubt this would save them more than a few weeks. There are so many sections to the complete application, all of which take much longer than expected to polish. A 2,000 character summary of the project objectives sounds like easy going, but it is also essential that it is accurate and reflected in every other document, as well as being exciting, timely, and well written. 

• It will take months, and much longer than expected
• Seriously, take your high estimate for time commitment. Now, make that your 'best case scenario' in which you and any other co-applicants (or in my case - named researcher) work on the application solidly for, and aren't hindered by any delays.

Take help wherever you can

I was lucky enough to have a postdoc and another PhD in my lab read through and comment on the application. My wife also acted as a non-expert to offer some commentary on the documents. Each little bit of feedback is useful in some way. The comments that I found particularly helpful related to the flow of the application. Things that were clear to me were not clear in the writing. This is common. I feel, when you have spent so much time on a document that it blends into a single entity, rather than what should be a concise and flowing train of thought.

On a related note, the research councils have a ton of resources to use and the JeS has its own summaries of what is entailed in each section. What is extremely useful are other's applications, although whether they will be shared is another issue. Use these resources, they are vital in understanding what is expected in each section.

• Use any resource that you can

Writing a research grant application as a PhD

It's hard work. It is long, frustrating, and sometimes rage-inducingly tedious. In the back of your mind there will always be that niggling doubt, not just in yourself; is it the right project? am I writing this section correctly? is this enough information? how the hell can I fit this all into 6 pages? Worst, there is the understanding that it is months of work for only a small chance at gaining the funding. 

But, it is an essential skill to develop as an academic. Perhaps not as early as in your third year of a PhD, but I've always believed in developing skills early - ideally before they are actually needed. So, in way of a summary; It is draining work, with a low success rate. However, if it gets me a postdoc position in the lab I want to stay in, on a project of my own devising, then it is worth it. If not, then it is good experience (repeat to self several hundred times and you might believe it). I've grown fond of the saying (in my own words) "academia, and grant writing in particular is like a pie eating contest in which the prize is more pie". Please give me some more pie.