To study from Russia

A part time undergraduate won't get you a student visa, I know that for sure. It would have to be full time. I don't know about a Masters, I assume it will because as far as I know there is no such thing as a full time masters (15 hours a week or more), and yet i know it is possible to get a student visa for a Masters.

What you would do would be sign up for a language course, that's 15 hours a week. Most universities want IELTS 6.5 or 7 but the private universities sometimes don't need IELTS or ask for a lower score. 6.5 means you need to be advanced. Don't skip any levels or rush through them.

When you say "work as a psychologist" what do you mean? There are very few psychology jobs here without a masters and people tend to specialize when they do their masters, if you say what kind of specialization you'd like people might be able to give more specific information. Since you mentioned ICHAS I guess it's psychotherapy?
The ICHAS masters in psychotherapy is not properly accredited. IICP https://www.iicp.ie/courses/masters/ has a masters in a similar price range which is accredited with IACP. DBS also has one and it's accredited with IACP and IAHIP . There is lots of discussion about these courses on other threads in this board.

It might be an idea to email one of the colleges and ask them if it is possible to do their masters on a student visa, I think it's called "stamp 2" but I forget

Ok!

Well on a student visa you aren't allowed work as a "professional". This means you are allowed to work 20 hours a week and you are only allowed to work in jobs such as on a pub floor, cleaning, hairdressing... it's very strange what does and what doesn't count as a "professional" job but anyway counselling and psychotherapy counts as professional unless you are volunteering. There is no problem with you volunteering and getting experience that way.

Then you are asking about work in psychotherapy specifically, there seems to be a fair amount of work (there was another thread asking about it), and you'll have an advantage because you know (at least?) two languages. But in order to be allowed to work as a professional in Ireland, a company needs to sponsor you for a working visa. Will they? I have no idea. You won't be allowed to work in private practice as you won't be allowed to be self employed. That's worth finding out in advance first.

One more issue, getting accepted on the course.
The normal path, as far as I know (please someone correct me if this is wrong), for someone with an undergraduate in psychology would be
psychology undergraduate, post graduate in counselling and psychotherapy, masters in counselling and psychotherapy
but I doubt a post graduate diploma will count for a student visa, so you want to jump straight to the masters. I'm sure that must be possible, so another piece of research is: which masters do I meet the entry requirements for, or which can i meet the requirements for by doing something very feasible, (e.g. volunteering while i study English)

I wish I knew more and I also wish the process was simpler! I hope it works out for you and you get the answers you want when you do your enquiries


Relatively affordable accredited college links:
https://www.dbs.ie/psychotherapy-ma
https://www.iicp.ie/courses/masters/
http://www.pcicollege.ie/ PCI college do not currently offer a masters in counselling and psychotherapy but they will by the time you are applying because they say want to do one in accordance with the new regulations and they are working on that. Fees will probably be about 5,000 a year for 2 years? (minimum wage €9.80 an hour, rent in Dublin 800 euro a month for a shared room in a shared apartment)

IICP would be your cheapest option. €3,875 a year for 2 years. They've a good reputation. An extra cost is that all the courses want you to be in personal counselling. Low cost counselling is €30 an hour, which you would be right to ask for for since with the student visa you're only allowed to work 20 hours a week. Then your client work needs to be supervised, and supervision costs €60+ a session, that's something you go to maybe once a month, depending. I know it's very expensive, it is already the cheapest option of the cheaper options. If you were looking for a masters in Clinical Psychology it would be €30,000+

So maybe write to IICP, formal email, I'll make it a template so anyone who googles this thread in the future can use it.

Dear Sir / Madam,

I am writing to enquire whether I would meet the entry requirements to your ________ ______________ course. I am from ____________ and will be here on a student visa, and I have an undergraduate in _____________ ____________ from _____________ university. I would like to ask if this would qualify me to study for a Masters with you, and if you know if the course would be acceptable for a student visa according to immigration regulations.

Thank you very much for any information you can provide,

Yours faithfully,

______________


IICP have a contact form on the "contact" page of their website




ILEP (immigration) have a list of approved courses here: http://www.inis.gov.ie/en/INIS/Pages/Interim%20List%20of%20Eligible%20Programmes%20-%20ILEP I don't know if IICP is on it. ICHAS are, so that's your plan B. If you find a company that will give you a full working visa with that qualification then pow you can work as a professional and save money to get a better qualification. The list is really handy, gives you lots of ideas for courses you could look into. Don't bother looking into any state universities, they charge non EU students an absolute fortune.

It would be WELL worth it for IICP to get on the list if they aren't so I'd still enquire even if it looks like they aren't approved, it might motivate them. It would just mean they had to get their course approved (it probably already meets most or all of the requirements) and they had to take extra special care with attendance records, which they already have to do anyway for accreditation.