Psychology/Italian in Trinity College Dublin

dawn778

Hey there,
So I've been wanting to do Psychology with a while now but also have an interest in languages so had been juggling over which course to choose next year. I came across a joint programme in Trinity where you can study both Italian and Psych for 3 years and then you choose one for the final year. I was just wondering if anyone could provide me more information on this course, eg: what it's like, job prospects, and any general knowledge on the actual course will all be greatly appreciated

TrollHammaren

Hi OP, the joint course is a Two-Subject Moderatorship, or TSM. In order to be recognised by the Psychological Society of Ireland you would need to major in psychology in your fourth year. I did TSM psychology and found that the Single Honours was a better course with more in-depth modules and more statistics, which come in handy should you decide to pursue a research career.

I'm slightly biased because I hated my other TSM, sociology. Career prospects depend on what you want to do. If you want to get into a job that just requires a non-specific degree then psychology and Italian would be great. Any job in psychology usually requires at least a masters' degree, so you'll have to be willing to do a postgrad if you're looking to get a job in psychology. You can still go on and do a postgrad, and subsequently a career in psychology if you do TSM - I'm starting masters' in neuroscience in September - but I felt I missed out on a lot of important stuff that the Single Honours students studied. My best advice would be to consider what you would like to do in the future, and choose the course that would best suit you.

As for what the course is like, I very much enjoyed psychology, but there will always be modules you'll find to be a load of bollocks; it's inevitable. For the first two years your modules are all mandatory, but in the final two years you get to pick and choose the modules that fit with your interests, within certain parameters. There's a lot of statistics involved in both TSM and SH, but they're fairly doable.

Feel free to fire any questions this way, or you can also PM me if I can be of any help.

languagenerd

Hey! I don't do either of those subjects, but I'm a TSM-student and I do languages so I can provide some general info for you (I don't know if anyone on this forum does Italian, but the general stuff is the same for all languages).

TSM is a pretty big course, but the actual classes are often quite small. Italian is one of the smaller language courses, so you'll get to know everyone in your class pretty quickly. You'll have to spend at least 8 weeks in Italy before the end of your degree (before the end of 3rd year if you're majoring in Psychology): this can be anything from holidays to studying to working, and it doesn't have to be all done together. You'll do a mixture of language classes and other modules in literature (maybe also linguistics and culture).

Being in TSM means you'll be hanging out with people who do completely different subjects to you, which is pretty good fun.

If you've any general TSM or language-related questions, ask away