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March 19, 2024, 03:14:32 pm

Author Topic: Best place to complete Psychology honours  (Read 1582 times)  Share 

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TheCappelienGuy

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Best place to complete Psychology honours
« on: March 01, 2021, 05:13:08 pm »
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Hey!
I am currently going into my third year at Monash psychology and on track to get into the honours program offered with my course! At the moment I find the psychology department at Monash to be problematic, outdated and generally very out of touch. I was wondering if there were any better universities that had better options (preferably within vic but open to anything)!!

Thanks in advance!
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Re: Best place to complete Psychology honours
« Reply #1 on: March 01, 2021, 07:11:37 pm »
+5
From my personal experience, psych honours at Monash is significantly more well ran and managed than undergrad is. Unfortunately cannot give much input on honours at other unis.

If you had any specific questions that would help you get a feel for whether you would find it a right fit for you, I'm happy to answer them.
2017~2020 (Monash) | BA, BA(Hons)Psy
2021~ | job! - AN hiatus, it's been fun here (:

TheCappelienGuy

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Re: Best place to complete Psychology honours
« Reply #2 on: March 01, 2021, 09:03:39 pm »
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From my personal experience, psych honours at Monash is significantly more well ran and managed than undergrad is. Unfortunately cannot give much input on honours at other unis.

If you had any specific questions that would help you get a feel for whether you would find it a right fit for you, I'm happy to answer them.

Thanks for your response! I think it was mostly the out-dated lecturer for me that are not really teaching up to date work, I really hope honours is better run! On the positive side I have had the opportunity to do 2 internships through the b.psych program which is really great!  I have a few questions for you, is there more of an independent aspect to honours? Does the place that you do your honours really change your experience? Finally, is there any place that I should preference?
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Re: Best place to complete Psychology honours
« Reply #3 on: March 02, 2021, 12:12:18 am »
+5
I have a few questions for you, is there more of an independent aspect to honours? Does the place that you do your honours really change your experience? Finally, is there any place that I should preference?

The thesis will be the independent part of honours, no doubt about it. You will have a supervisor or supervision team to help you out, but it's pretty much up to you to own that thesis from start to end. I met with my supervision team to specifically discuss my thesis once every two weeks, but it differs depending on the supervisor(s).

The only thing I can think of that would change the honours experience between unis is staffing and equipment. Certain unis may have access to particular researchers/experts (which are part of the supervision pool) or specialised equipment that allow for a wider range of possible research projects. I genuinely think the overall honours experience would be similar between unis though.

I can't really tell you to prefer one uni over another as I never applied to any other honours program outside of Monash. I assume you're doing the Monash BPsych which comes with the reduced entry requirement. I went through the Monash BArts which had a higher requirement, and I believe the standards for non-Monash students are even higher. Consider the basic things such as travel time, entrance requirements, etc. I'm not too well versed on how entrance requirements change at other universities when you're not already a student there, but it's something you should consider if you don't want to continue your honours studies at Monash.
2017~2020 (Monash) | BA, BA(Hons)Psy
2021~ | job! - AN hiatus, it's been fun here (:

TheCappelienGuy

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Re: Best place to complete Psychology honours
« Reply #4 on: March 02, 2021, 10:33:02 am »
+1
The thesis will be the independent part of honours, no doubt about it. You will have a supervisor or supervision team to help you out, but it's pretty much up to you to own that thesis from start to end. I met with my supervision team to specifically discuss my thesis once every two weeks, but it differs depending on the supervisor(s).

The only thing I can think of that would change the honours experience between unis is staffing and equipment. Certain unis may have access to particular researchers/experts (which are part of the supervision pool) or specialised equipment that allow for a wider range of possible research projects. I genuinely think the overall honours experience would be similar between unis though.

I can't really tell you to prefer one uni over another as I never applied to any other honours program outside of Monash. I assume you're doing the Monash BPsych which comes with the reduced entry requirement. I went through the Monash BArts which had a higher requirement, and I believe the standards for non-Monash students are even higher. Consider the basic things such as travel time, entrance requirements, etc. I'm not too well versed on how entrance requirements change at other universities when you're not already a student there, but it's something you should consider if you don't want to continue your honours studies at Monash.

Thanks again!

I believe I may have misworded my question, in terms of the supervisors within Monash University is there a vast difference in experience due to the supervisors, are there specific labs that I should avoid/preference?
I am within the b.psych program but my my marks should be high enough to transfer to another uni for honours. 

Thank you for being so comprehensive in your answers much appreciated!
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Re: Best place to complete Psychology honours
« Reply #5 on: March 02, 2021, 11:20:08 am »
+5
I believe I may have misworded my question, in terms of the supervisors within Monash University is there a vast difference in experience due to the supervisors, are there specific labs that I should avoid/preference?

At Monash, you can insert that you've worked with in particular lab or supervisor before, but supervisor allocations are done based on availability of supervisors and your ranked preferences of areas of study/broad topics. So you can't explicitly say 'I do not want this lab/supervisor' other than putting the related area that the lab/supervisor might specialise in at the bottom of your preferences. Then you would discuss with your allocated supervisor about your ideas or find out if they have a couple of ideas lined up already.

Supervisors and labs will have different supervision styles - it will be like this at any uni - and will depend on what you prefer. My lab had a super casual culture and so my supervisors were really easy to get along with like they were friends. They recognised when to be professional and when work needed to be done though. I worked well in this type of environment. There are other labs that really emphasise hierarchy and supervisors who are not so casual and friend-like (not to say they're not friendly), but someone might thrive in this environment.

I heard some minor complaints of people not 'clicking' with their given supervisor but it was nothing that got in the way of them doing well. They still had decent relationships with their supervisors. The beginning of the honours year is when a supervisor should lay out what they expect and you should express what you might need from them - then negotiate from there.
2017~2020 (Monash) | BA, BA(Hons)Psy
2021~ | job! - AN hiatus, it's been fun here (:

TheCappelienGuy

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Re: Best place to complete Psychology honours
« Reply #6 on: March 02, 2021, 08:05:13 pm »
+2
At Monash, you can insert that you've worked with in particular lab or supervisor before, but supervisor allocations are done based on availability of supervisors and your ranked preferences of areas of study/broad topics. So you can't explicitly say 'I do not want this lab/supervisor' other than putting the related area that the lab/supervisor might specialise in at the bottom of your preferences. Then you would discuss with your allocated supervisor about your ideas or find out if they have a couple of ideas lined up already.

Supervisors and labs will have different supervision styles - it will be like this at any uni - and will depend on what you prefer. My lab had a super casual culture and so my supervisors were really easy to get along with like they were friends. They recognised when to be professional and when work needed to be done though. I worked well in this type of environment. There are other labs that really emphasise hierarchy and supervisors who are not so casual and friend-like (not to say they're not friendly), but someone might thrive in this environment.

I heard some minor complaints of people not 'clicking' with their given supervisor but it was nothing that got in the way of them doing well. They still had decent relationships with their supervisors. The beginning of the honours year is when a supervisor should lay out what they expect and you should express what you might need from them - then negotiate from there.

Amazing! You're the best thanks!
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
-Albert Einstein