Let’s delve deeper.. (2022)
I recently read a blog post from a newly-retired academic professor, reflecting on her career in sport and exercise science. As a newly-graduated student, I thought I’d write a similar post, and create a sort of mini-series, documenting updates and achievements every few years. Here goes:
How did you get into sport psychology?
I studied Higher Psychology when I was in my final year of high school, and I was gripped by it pretty quickly. Towards the end of high school, I knew that I wasn’t going to immediately pursue a career in psychology because I had successfully auditioned for a dance school and the plan was to stay there for four years. Despite this, I applied to a few universities and visited their open days, just to get a feel for what university study would be like. Fast forward to my third year of dance school and one of my classmates had a scary experience with severe performance anxiety. I hadn’t really thought about psychology much while I was at dance school, but this one incident that happened right next to me in front of a live audience instantly reignited my interest in the mechanisms behind what happened to her. I completed a project about performance anxiety in my fourth year of dance school, and then took the leap back into university as a mature student back in 2018, to study sport and psychology as a joint degree.
Was it always your ambition to work in sport psychology?
Not always. The plan following school was to work in dance education, hence my four year degree at dance school. I was very ill and was hospitalised in my final year at dance school, and it was during this time that I decided a return to university was probably necessary: anything that didn’t require too much of my physical capacity. Once I mulled over the options of hundreds of courses, I settled on sport and psychology: I’d retain the physiology and biomechanics knowledge from dance school in the sport science component of the degree, and combine it with psychology and the mental side of performance. This seemed like an excellent option, and it was available at one of my local universities, so I didn’t even have to relocate!
What have you learned about yourself over the course of your undergraduate degree?
Due to the pandemic, half of my degree ended up being delivered remotely. This was something we were all obviously oblivious to back when I started the degree in 2018. Had I known that there would have been any element not delivered on campus, I am confident that I would have never signed up. I have previously attempted online courses and have dropped out because I didn’t have enough motivation or discipline to complete coursework in my own time. The mandated shift to distance learning when the campus closed filled me with quite a lot of dread initially, as I considered my past relationship with similar scenarios. I’m not actually sure what made the difference this time in terms of my work ethic, but the first few months of online course content brought my best assessment results of my entire degree. Perhaps it was because I didn’t have much else on, socialising and trips out were off limits, so I could really hone in on studying. I guess that surprised me most over the past four years, and I have learned that perhaps my learning style is suited to a relaxed home environment.
What is the best advice you have received so far?
During the course of my final year dissertation at university, my supervisor always encouraged me to challenge myself. More specifically, my proposed dissertation project involved some statistical analyses that are not taught on the undergraduate psychology curriculum. When I proposed this to my supervisor, he simply said “include the analyses in your project proposal, if you don’t offer to challenge yourself, you’ll never know whether you are capable”. It worked out well for me: with his support I completed my project successfully, spent a long (but rewarding!) time completing the analysis process, and got my desired mark for the module.
What is your best achievement to date?
My dissertation project was selected for the BPS Scottish undergraduate student conference back in April. I travelled through to Glasgow and presented my study to delegates. I had great feedback, and presenting at my first psychology conference was a nerve-wracking but really empowering experience.
What are you doing now you have graduated?
I have been accepted onto the MSc Psychology of Sport at the University of Stirling. I will commence study there in September, and the course will fulfil Stage 1 of the psychology accreditation route. I will also be working with University of Stirling Sport as a Student Activity Leader on their recreational sport programme.
