In this interview, we sit down with Julia Yates, Department of Psychology Co-Head, to learn more about our MSc in Organisational Psychology.
Academic interests and expertise
Can you tell us about your academic and research background?
I’ve been involved with the MSc in Organisational Psychology at City St George's for years. I did the course myself as a student back in 2001 and then worked as a career coach in the university sector for some time and spent about ten years helping students and graduates to make satisfying career choices. I then decided to move over to a teaching role, training career coaches, and alongside that I completed my PhD. I had kept in touch with the team at City St George's, since I graduated and had done a bit of guest lecturing for them over the years, so when a full-time role as an academic came up, I knew that I wanted to move back to become part of the permanent full-time team.
I’m one of the core academic staff on the programme and I teach on three modules: I will take you for the module on Career Development and Training, on Coaching Psychology and I teach Qualitative Research Methods. I supervise students doing their dissertations each year and I’m one of our personal tutors. I am also currently covering the job of Programme Director for my colleagues Dr Paul Flaxman who is on a sabbatical, focusing on his research at the moment, but he will be back at the helm in August. Paul has been involved in the programme for even longer than I have – he did the MSc himself as a student back in 1996, and apart from a brief stint at Goldsmiths in the early 2000s, has been with us since.
What inspired you to specialise in your current field of study?
I would say that I had two turning points that helped to get me here. First, I made a big mistake in my first job after university. I started working on a graduate training scheme at a large retail company, and although I was really pleased to get what I thought was a ‘good graduate job’, I was entirely ill-suited to the role and thoroughly miserable. I stuck it out for a year but after I finally admitted defeat, I decided that I wanted to help other people, just like me, to make better career decisions – to try and make sure that other people didn’t make the kind of mistake that I had. The second turning point was when I realised that I would be able to do my job a whole lot better if I adopted an evidence-based approach to my career coaching. I started reading some of the research in my field, and started to understand how important and fascinating research could be.
What do you enjoy most about teaching and mentoring students?
Working with students is definitely the best bit of my job and there is so much I love about it. On one level, I really enjoy sharing my knowledge and experience with them and seeing them grow professionally during the year they are with us. More than that, I think I love watching the relationships in the group developing. We are in the fortunate position of having quite a small cohort – we have about 45 students on the programme each year so we can all get to know each other really well and the professional networks and friendships that develop in the classroom last a lifetime.
Why this course?
What makes this postgraduate programme unique within its field?
I mentioned the size of the cohort at City St George's which is a real privilege for us all, and we invariably have a group of interesting, kind, thoughtful students who are eager to learn collaboratively. On top of that, I think I might mention our particular combination of modules. We align with the BPS curriculum – so you can be sure you are getting a solid education but beyond that we have a few modules that you might not see elsewhere. For example, I run a whole module on Coaching Psychology which will give you some really valuable skills, and we have a few colleagues who specialise in Mindfulness, which brings a unique and valuable angle to our Leadership module.
What support is offered to help students transition from undergraduate to postgraduate study?
We are very clear that our relationship with our MSc students starts before the beginning of the course and lasts well beyond the end of it. We always interview applicants and that makes sure that we can give you a good overview of what to expect, answer any questions and allay any fears. We then start the course with a very interactive induction day where we really get to know each other, and think about how we are all going to learn together, setting expectations and ensuring that you all know where to go to for support. Students do sometimes comment that we do expect them to take control of their own leaning, but they end up really appreciating the way that they can focus on the aspects of the course that they particularly enjoy.
Are there opportunities for networking with alumni or industry professionals during the course?
I have mentioned (several times I think…) about how much we love our students, and that our relationships with them don’t stop when the course ends. We have a thriving alumni community who are always keen to support the current cohort. We have a number of alumni events each year where the alumni come back to see each other and to meet the current students, and we ask a couple of them to talk about their current roles and how they are using their learning from their MSc in their work. Alumni also pop up here and there in every module, to share their expertise and experience with you all. We always bring a few of the previous year’s group to our induction day – you get to meet the students who have just left and they talk to you about what they wish they had known at the start of the course, and share tips and ideas with you. And we are all connected on LinkedIn and alumni are always happy to talk to current students about what it’s like to work in a particular field or organisation, and often get in touch with specific job or internship opportunities.
Career paths
How does the programme help students develop skills for their future careers, whether in academia or industry?
Ours is a very applied programme. We know that you are doing the course to help with your future career and so we make sure that everything is very practical. The lecturers are all (or have recently been) active practitioners in various fields of organisational psychology and are always keen to make sure that you learn not just the theory but how you can use it in practice.
What career paths have graduates from this programme typically followed?
Our graduates do all sorts of things. Some end up specialising in a particular area of organisational psychology, including selection and assessment, learning and development or DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion). Others end up starting off with broader roles, working with HR or Organisational Development. Some get jobs with consultancy firms – large or small, and others work in-house, helping organisations improve the working lives of their staff or developing strategies for designing more effective systems.
Tips for offer holders
If you could highlight one thing that students should look forward to in this programme, what would it be?
There are many things that the students enjoy about their year with us, but if I had to pick one highlight, it would probably be the relationships you will develop with each other. These relationships make your time at City St George’s more fun and more fulfilling, but more than that, the friendships endure far beyond the end of the course, and alumni continue to use their course WhatsApp groups to get advice, share job opportunities and arrange nights out for years.
What advice would you give offer holders as they prepare to join this course?
The joy is in the learning. You will get a highly prized and very useful qualification at the end of the programme, but the course can give you so much more. You will learn from the lectures, the lecturers, from the reading you do and from each other; and you will learn about people, employers, employees, leader and co-workers. But most of all you will learn about yourselves. As Silvia, one of our ex-students said recently at an alumni event, ‘The MSc in Organisational Psychology isn’t just a degree; it’s a way of thinking about the world’.