Career opportunities for people from hdip psychology...

irishbran77

I'm thinking about applying to the hdip programmes in UCD and TCD. But I'm in my late 20's and I'm worried that it'll be 8 or so years before I can even get an entry level job in any related fields.

Do people know If I'm likely to find employment after doing the two year conversion courses into psychology? With its extra costs and the fact that I'll not have those two years of wages, I'm worried I'm entering into an already saturated marketplace. If anyone can provide any info about this, and about the benefits for people doing the hDips (apart from interest of course!) I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks all.

The Black Oil

Um, well psychology of any stripe is generally quite competitive or difficult to get into. This country is not exactly awash with posts, but you could get some related work. Would you be interested in trying some voluntary work that would be related? It can be tricky to get work that's supervised by a psychologist and with a potential client group. This is the experience base everyone tries to build up in one way or another.

The H Dip Psych is sort of a spring board if you will, brings you up to undergrad level and you can go on from there. I finished it this year, we had a range of age groups in the class.

Xander82

The amount of AP posts is quite low, although the HDip is better than the BA or BSC (even though you sit the same classes which is odd).
Your age will actually work in your favour. It is ridiculously difficult to get anything until you are in your late 20's. Most of the people you'll have to deal with will give preferential treatment to those who are older- the older the better in most cases.

The Black Oil

Better?

Xander82

Yeah, better. A HDip is a professional postgraduate qualification.

Valmont

Xander82 wrote: »

The amount of AP posts is quite low, although the HDip is better than the BA or BSC (even though you sit the same classes which is odd).
Your age will actually work in your favour. It is ridiculously difficult to get anything until you are in your late 20's. Most of the people you'll have to deal with will give preferential treatment to those who are older- the older the better in most cases.

That's a gross over-generalisation. Age is incidental. The thing is it usually takes a couple of years after someone finishes their undergrad degree to get the required practical experience and research skills experience hence the result that most successful applicants are going to be in their late 20's. And why is the Hdip better than a B.A or BSC? Are you basing this on anything other than sheer bias? Blackoil has it right, the Hdip brings an individual up to the required undergraduate level of psychology, not beyond it.

The Black Oil

http://www.tcd.ie/Psychology/HDipPsych.html
The purpose of the course is to provide a pre-professional qualification in psychology. The course is accredited by the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI) and allows students proceed to postgraduate training, including higher degrees by research, and to specialize in an area of professional psychology.

Pre-professional...also, we were not really postgrads partly because of the trappings of Trinity. Our ID cards said postgrads, the H Dip only gives you undergrad library borrowing rights, yet we were on the Graduate SU mailing list, we didn't really fit in anywhere, but no matter, we got on with it. The H Dip is still fairly new and finding its feet so I'd find it hard to believe it's better than an established BA/BSc.