Psychology is fun however there are a few things you should know before you sign up for a psychology course.
- It's going to be general. There are different subfields of psychology. Usually psychology is reffered to as the relationship between brain functions and behaviour or environment. The different types of fields are forensic psychology, child psychology, development, media, military and much more. If you want to take a basic introduction to psychology course, you will most likely be taught a general view of all the subfields.
- When you take a psychology course and begin to learn the different disorders people have, it may make you obligated to self-diagnose either yourself or your friends or family. You have to be careful with this. You may start to agree with the symptoms of certain disorders. If you find this happening, you should seek a professional opinion. Even though you are learning about psychology, you are far from professional and it's good to seek help if you need it.
- You do not learn therapy techniques, atleats not in the beginning stages. You might have to specialise of further your degree to learn this. You will learn about different disorders and what influences them but you do not learn how to treat them or diagnose them. Being a psychology student gives you an advantage though to seek professional help for those people in need. It is important to not take a professional role when there is a lot more that you have to learn beyond that one psychology course.
- Do not try to analyze people. Taking one psychology course will not make you able to read people's minds. Psychology is the study of the human mind to improve one's health which benefits the world. Analyzing someone's mental illness without their consent should not be done for the satisfaction that you will receive.
- Remember that psychology is a science. It thrives on research and experiments like any other science fields. It's important to back up your knowledge and facts. A lot of what you learn in an introductory psychology course is how good or bad a study or experiment was. Most of the research in psychology comes from correlational research which means the relationship between two variables.
Psychology is a great field of study and very interesting to learn.