In this interview, we speak with Steven Samuel, Programme Director of the MSc in Psychology Conversion.
Academic interests and expertise
Can you tell us about your academic and research background?
I'm a cognitive psychologist which means I study how we process information in the brain. It's a form of basic science, it's not particularly applied but I love it. For example, one of the things I look at is how good we are at taking other people's perspectives and avoiding our own egocentric biases when we do so.
What inspired you to specialise in your current field of study?
I was actually inspired to specialise in my current field by learning about bilingualism, because one of the things that I felt happened to me when I became more or less bilingual as an adult is a sense that I was a different kind of person when I was speaking one language compared to another. There is some research that suggests that bilinguals might be better at taking other people's perspectives possibly because they have two different ways of describing things in the world, so that was one of the reasons I got into this initially but I ended up accidentally becoming an expert in visual perspective taking! I try and drag bilingualism into it when I can but it's not always possible!
What do you enjoy most about teaching and mentoring students?
Before I became a lecturer and before I even did my PhD I was a teacher of English as a foreign language to adults for over a decade, so I've always enjoyed teaching. One of the clear differences between teaching and research in my current job is that research takes a long time and sometimes produces very little of interest, whereas teaching can produce immediate gratification and satisfaction. I also really love my field and love helping people up the ladder into it.
Why this course?
What makes this postgraduate programme unique within its field?
The principal difference between this Psychology Conversion MSc and others is the flipped learning style and the community that it builds. Many other programmes merge postgraduates with undergraduates, so postgraduates attend undergraduate lectures and so on.
Others do their courses entirely online. We do a mix of online and in-person teaching but when it's in-person you're only with your MSc conversion cohort, and that's one day a week, so you spend one day a week on campus with other people doing your programme who are very similar to you in terms of their goals and aspirations. The rest of the time you manage your time in whatever way you see fit going through the asynchronous online materials and lectures and activities. So, in this sense it's very flexible and you have the sense of community which helps you on your way through a pretty intensive programme.
What support is offered to help students transition from undergraduate to postgraduate study?
One of the things that we do is a bootcamp video week: before the programme starts, we release a number of informal videos made by lecturers, giving tips about psychology and scientific writing and other areas which conversion students might not necessarily have much knowledge about beforehand, to provide a kind of buffer. If you studied a science subject before, for example, the scientific writing style would not be much of a culture shock for you, but if you came from a humanities background (as I did) then suddenly writing reasonably dispassionately about your work can be quite a shift, so that will really help you.
The staff on this programme are acutely aware, because of the very nature of the programme, that people doing this masters have no strong experience (and in many cases no experience at all) of psychology and we teach it without any assumptions about prior knowledge.
Are there opportunities for students to tailor the programme based on their specific academic or career interests?
Our programme is accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS) and for that accreditation to be valid we need to teach the core components of psychology as laid out by the BPS. This is enough content already for a masters programme!
However, where you can personalise your degree to some extent is in your dissertation project. This is where you do a piece of original research supervised by a member of staff here in the department and you have choices over the research that you do, so you can tailor this insofar as it is possible to be consistent with your future career plan.
Career paths
What career paths have graduates from this programme typically followed?
This is the first year that this particular Masters programme has run here at City St George’s so we don't yet have any alumni. However, it's clear from my conversations with students that many are interested in a clinical or counselling career, possibly in the NHS or possibly not, in the future. Some are also looking at going back into business which is perhaps where they came from and bringing their psychological skills there. Others are considering research careers which is something that typically only happens about halfway through a programme where you start to really get a feel for the subject and your curiosity is really ignited.
Tips for offer holders
If you could highlight one thing that students should look forward to in this programme, what would it be?
I think conversion programmes are pretty unique because they bring together a really broad range of people from a variety of different backgrounds but they will share a common goal. The beauty of this particular programme is that you spend time with these people not just online but in person, so your experience will be shared. Add to that that you're learning about the most interesting subject in the world, which is basically other people, and you can't go wrong!