What Studying Psychology Is Really Like

I recently went back to my old school to give a talk about further studies, and I found that quite a few of the younger students were already taking an early interest in psychology as a university subject (perhaps it's because people who study psychology are often imagined to possess a kind of stock-image talent for reading hearts, for reading someone's behaviour and thoughts in the moment like the back of their hand). And the recent string of social movements here in Hong Kong has made even more people curious about the professions tied to psychological therapy. The "Bachelor of Social Science (Honours) in Counselling and Psychology" (in short, "CounPsy") offered by Hong Kong Shue Yan University is the only four-year undergraduate degree in Hong Kong that combines "psychology" and "counselling". As someone who has been through it, I hope this article can help newcomers who are about to attend an interview for, or are about to enrol in, this programme to prepare better — and to think twice about whether the course broadly matches what you're hoping for.

What is Counselling and Psychology?

First, if you're holding on to the idea that studying psychology will teach you to "read minds" and see through other people's inner thoughts, then I'm sorry — the next four years will leave you thoroughly disappointed. To begin with, you need to understand that the stereotype above is, to a large degree, shaped by television programmes, and the people who make those programmes don't necessarily understand psychology, a social science, in any depth. In fact, you may later feel that much of the psychological theory you encounter in lectures is very "common sense" — almost like facts you'd have known without ever studying them, such as "children who grow up in a violent home environment tend to have more behavioural/emotional problems later on…", or "the better-looking someone is, the more likely they are to receive help from others…", and the like. Of course, what sets it apart from common sense is that psychologists will try to put forward a "theoretical explanation" for the relationship between the two — to "package" these seemingly common-sense pieces of knowledge. That said, some of the knowledge is more theoretical, for example the "information-processing model" in cognitive psychology (cognitive psychology), as well as the relationship between how different brain structures function and human behaviour/thinking studied in neuropsychology (neuropsychology) (if you're interested, I suggest you look it up on Google yourself).

If you think that conducting psychological research is something very cool (and in fact, all students who study CounPsy must complete a thesis exercise "research project" / capstone project under a supervisor's guidance before graduating), then I have to remind you: do not, under any circumstances, expect to produce a piece of work that stuns the field. The truth is that in any subject's thesis, the "literature review" is indispensable. In other words, your research direction must build on existing studies or theories to produce a deeper or differently-angled investigation, and under this "constraint" you (even today's university scholars) will find it extremely hard to break open an entirely new theory or field of research. My own university thesis topic was on the relationship between a competitive mindset and procrastination (I doubt anyone would call that a groundbreaking field of research). If readers aren't quite clear about this, then please cast your mind back to how you completed your "Independent Enquiry Study" in the Liberal Studies subject at secondary school.

In addition, in the process of writing up your final-year project, you'll need to spend an extremely long time poring over earlier literature/research, and the vast majority of that literature/research is written in English — so if you don't have good English reading comprehension, you'll find it very tough going. On top of that, when doing psychological research you'll very often need to apply different statistical methods to analyse the data you've collected (such as questionnaire or experimental data), so as to rigorously verify whether the research hypothesis you've put forward holds up. For this reason, a good grounding in mathematics will be a great help to your later studies. (Here I'd like to add one point: back when I sat the HKDSE I had studied Mathematics Extended Module 1 (Calculus & Statistics), and I found that the "Statistics" portions — content such as "z-score", "continuous probability distribution" and "confidence interval" — were a great help with the Year 1 university statistics/research methods courses.)

The next part is the "counselling" component of the course. In the past, a fair number of interviewees have said during their interview that they want to use the course to learn to become a "social worker", and from there to counsel or help people with problems in the community. If you say this in your interview, your chances of being admitted will drop by at least half.

Because (1) this course is not a social work programme, and graduates cannot become registered social workers. Saying this doesn't convey that you are noble / full of a sense of mission; rather, it highlights your ignorance of the distinction between the two professions and your inadequate preparation beforehand.

(2) The interviewer will think: since you want to be a social worker, why not just apply for a social work programme directly? Wouldn't that be the simpler, more economical and more practical option?

If you really do want to become a counsellor, and you believe that after completing this course you'll be able to go on to work in counselling-related fields (such as schools or social welfare organisations), then congratulations — that is possible. But I must caution you carefully: besides this course, other institutions in Hong Kong also offer master's programmes related to counselling, and quite a few of the master's students on those programmes already hold a professional qualification (the most common being teaching and social work qualifications, while some are themselves speech therapists / occupational therapists). Among all those counselling graduates, how exactly will you stand out and win an employer over? That is something you'll need to prepare for over your coming four years. Beyond competition just to get into the field, salaries within the field also reflect a great deal of the hardship counselling colleagues face. Take me as an example: when I started my job in September 2017 I only earned thirteen thousand dollars (it's worth noting that my title under the contract at the time was "Assistant School Guidance Personnel", and the nature of the work had nothing at all to do with counselling — for instance, I didn't have one-on-one talks with students. You can think of me as a teaching assistant for the guidance team, "Teaching Assistant, TA". And my situation was only the tip of the iceberg), so I only did it for a little over a month before switching to doing university research). The more fortunate graduates earn fifteen to sixteen thousand dollars when they first start out (with annual pay rises too), but I've also heard of older students who, after three years working at an organisation, were still earning only twelve thousand dollars. Unequal pay for equal work is extremely common in this line of work (for details, search Google for news related to "counsellor").

Furthermore, Hong Kong has never had a statutory registration mechanism to accredit professions related to mental health (including counsellors, clinical psychologists, play therapists, and so on); all along it has only ever been a matter of people within the industry setting up professional bodies on their own and voluntarily submitting to those bodies' oversight. Under these circumstances, there are some people in society who take just a short course (which can be as brief as 10 hours) and then call themselves psychotherapists. Under the current system, industry insiders are simply unable to do anything about it and cannot take any legal action against them. How to raise public recognition of the counselling profession is a shared task for the counselling professionals of the future.

Perhaps those of you who are full of enthusiasm and planning to take this course will feel somewhat deterred by the content above, but I have to tell you that every profession has its own joys and hardships, and my purpose in doing this is to hope that students who are keen to enrol can make the best possible preparation (including understanding the potential gap between the course's expectations and reality), and meet the various challenges and uncertainties that lie ahead for the counselling profession. If readers can first set aside this kind of career-oriented thinking — "after finishing this programme, will I be able to find work?" — then studying for a degree in "Counselling and Psychology" is, in fact, a rewarding learning process, as well as an experience of personal growth and integration. First, besides training students' thinking and problem-solving abilities and an attitude of curiosity towards learning (which, in truth, every university course does), you'll have a great many opportunities to learn some of the counselling communication skills (microskills in counselling), including in-class role-play exercises (role-play) and a fourth-year counselling internship (internship in counselling).

While learning counselling skills/theories, students will often, through the feedback and opinions of supervisors and classmates, notice some of their own habitual verbal tics or habitual ways of coping in interpersonal relationships (coping skills in interpersonal relationships) that they had never been aware of before — and these ways of speaking/coping may well be the stumbling blocks to your personal growth or the development of your interpersonal relationships, so that "knowing one's shortcomings, one can then reflect on oneself; knowing one's difficulties, one can then strengthen oneself". Put simply, students can learn to have a keener self-awareness (self-awareness <– a word you'll hear no fewer than 100 times in the years ahead) of their own emotional reactions and words and deeds, thereby attaining "cultivating oneself and bettering the community". To give an example, after graduating I once served as a research assistant at a university and noticed that a particular colleague in the office had behaviour that seemed obsessive-compulsive (obsessive-compulsiveness is a type of anxiety disorder), yet that colleague seemed entirely unaware that this was a "problem", and so could not seek out relevant professionals to work together on addressing these psychological difficulties — and such situations are far less likely to occur in students who have studied CounPsy.

Finally, I firmly believe this article cannot fully answer all the questions in students' minds. If you'd like to learn about the career prospects of studying psychology or other mental-health-related professions, you're welcome to learn more from the university's teaching staff, or click here to read another article about studying psychology.