In my opinion we are all psychologists; we observe people everywhere that we go based on our own perceptions and interpretations. I first became interested in psychology a few years ago, when my auntie – who works as an autistic support worker. invited me out with her and one of the autistic clients. This was the first time I had seen someone with autism as I was considerably young. I didn’t fully understand and I was curious but it fascinated me how people can be different. The more time I spent with these people with intellectual difficulties, the more I questioned why and how are people different.
To satisfy my curiosity, I read up and researched the subject trying to understand why people are different. Now I am more mature, I realize that it is the human mind that separates and differentiates us all. The one thing about psychology that fascinates me is the variety of perspectives and views of the human mind (expand more) and how the mind controls us on a daily basis (not sure about this bit).
Studying forensic applied science – which I am targeted a Merit – has enhanced my curiosity into how people’s minds work, especially when committing crimes. This makes me question ‘Do they not have morals embedded within their mind?’ This intrigued me to want to study psychology at degree level. I am looking forward to studying psychology on the sophisticated level of understanding the human mind and thought processes, and how our minds are so different, yet so similar. I achieved grade C, – currently resitting one unit – at AS sociology and understand how to apply research methods into context, as I got an A on the methods in context paper.
I believe I will be strongly suited to this course and I understand how scientific this course can be. I am also studying drama, which has helped me with my confidence issues and at times has put me out of my comfort zone. My ambition is to study psychology at degree level, then go on to do forensic psychology at postgraduate level, then hopefully pursue a career in criminology psychology, analyzing criminal minds.
Growing up I went through 3 stages of girl guiding, rainbows brownies and guides but due to family issues left shortly before receiving my 4th year badge. Within girl guiding they taught us how to be independent and fend for ourselves in the future. Another interesting thing which was more recent was the National Citizenship Service, which taught us again independence as well as team building, this is a nationally recognised project and I feel honoured to have participated in the amazing opportunity. My school had a project called ‘graduate programme’ which is a programme which allowed year 12 students to help out other staff in school, as part of my graduate programme I started off by doing paired reading, then I started helping out in a few sociology lessons to help gain me confidence and leadership skills.
Another great opportunity I took part in was the SND, spending dinner times once a week with students that needed support. I currently work at McDonald’s and have done since November 2014, this has taught me how to be independent and fend for myself which will be ideal as I am hoping to stay as near to the university as possible and will not be able to be dependent on family.
As well as this I have gained many skills such as what it is actually like in the working world, and how it has its ups and downs but it also has taught me massive confidence skills as, I am still improving my confidence each new day. As I regularly work on the tills or drive thru I have improved my communication skills, and my ability to adapt to different stressful, pressurising situations. During my job on a daily basis I interact with customers so I am able to analyse human behaviour every shift which I think will be essential in this course. I am hopeful to further my education at university and beginning my path to the career that I am hopeful to pursue and experience the university life. I feel that the course I have chosen will broaden my knowledge in to this field of study.
