Psychology BSc (Hons)

Upon completion of your psychology studies (with an overall classification of a 2:2 or above), you are eligible for Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership (GBC) to the BPS. Acquiring your GBC has a host of benefits for a future career in Psychology.

Completing this undergraduate programme opens the door to move into Postgraduate Study in a number of areas in Psychology and beyond, without needing to do a further Psychology Conversion course to obtain GBC status.

Graduate Basis for Chartered (GBC) Membership is considered as the starting point to your career in psychology. Obtaining GBC encompasses many benefits, including access to journals, conferences, and events. You will have the opportunity to enhance your employability through volunteering opportunities and research placements, as well as through the courses focus on analysing human behaviour from many psychological perspectives.

At the University of Northampton, everything we do, from funded trips to paid internships, is to give you everything you need to make a difference when you leave.

If you join our full-time BSc Psychology degree at Northampton, you will receive a laptop when your course begins*. The laptops are built to a bespoke custom specification ideal for use in the seminar room, collaborative group work or studying at home.

Whatever your ambitions, we’re here to help you to achieve them. We’ll support you to identify the skills you’re learning during your course, find your strengths and secure practical experience so that when it comes to applying for jobs or further study you’ll feel confident in standing out from the crowd. We’ve created the Northampton Employment Promise because we are so confident that if you focus on your studies and complete one of our awards you’ll be highly employable by the time you graduate. Putting you in a great position to secure employment or continue your studies.

To check out the full list of perks, visit our Student Perks page or dedicated International Perks page.

* UK fee payers only (see Terms and Conditions for further details)

The Integrated Foundation Year (IFY) offers a new and exciting route into studying for a degree in psychology, attracting ambitious and driven students who are willing to learn and advance.

If you have non-standard qualifications or do not quite meet the admissions requirements we can offer you a fantastic opportunity to study a four-year programme that includes an Integrated Foundation Year. The Integrated Foundation Year will help you develop the theoretical/practical and academic skills you need to successfully progress to the full award.

Our four-year courses will enable you to successfully follow the degree pathway of your choice while gaining essential study skills. The foundation year of your chosen degree will be studied on a full-time basis and is aimed at supporting the transition to higher education. Years two, three and four are then studied as a standard degree programme.

What can I do with a psychology degree?

With a psychology degree, you can specialise within different pathways and develop within an area of your choice in the field of psychology.

Students who study this course may also choose to follow various career paths outside of the psychological profession. With a Psychology degree, you will have gained such an invaluable set of skills and a knowledge base that you can succeed in areas outside of psychology.  For example, our graduates are employed in the following other areas:

• Education
• The health service
• The police force
• Human resources management
• Marketing
• The civil service
• Broadcasting
• Social work

The work-based elements of this degree provide valuable career based skills. As well as our annual Psychology Careers Event, we also offer other volunteering opportunities through our Changemaker Hub, Employability Plus recognition, STEAM Opportunities and support from our careers team.

Upon completion of this Psychology BSc course, and depending on degree classification, you can progress to postgraduate training to obtain British Psychological Society (BPS) ‘chartered’ status (GBC). This status can be obtained through the following areas:

• Counselling
• Clinical
• Educational
• Occupational
• Health
• Forensic psychology

You could pursue a career as an academic psychologist, conducting research and teaching in higher education. More information about psychology careers can be found on the BPS website.

Is BSc psychology a good degree?

One of the main draws for a degree in psychology is that it does not limit you to just working within psychology. Of course, those options are available (and more information about Psychology careers can be found through the BPS website), but the skills that are acquired are applicable to careers much more broadly. Transferable skills that you can expect to develop across the course include critical thinking, writing and computer literacy. You will also become an effective communicator in a variety of different channels with thorough and ethical research practices. Many of the skills from a Psychology degree are transferable across many different careers and therefore gives you the opportunity to develop yourself towards any route you would like to pursue.

Can I study full-time or part-time?

The programme can be taken as either full time or part time. If you are studying this course full-time you will take 120 credits worth of modules for each stage for three years. Some modules are mandatory whilst others are selected from a range of options. In stage one important core ideas, evidence and methods are introduced. This basic knowledge is built upon in stages two and three to foster an advanced understanding of topics.

How long is a psychology degree?

The BSc Psychology route is between 3-6 years, depending on your availability to study, as you can choose to study this course as a full time or part time psychology degree. This gives you the time to not only develop a foundational knowledge of psychology and appropriate research skills. You will also be able to develop towards the areas that are of interest to you, and have time to explore career opportunities and areas of expertise, alongside our staff team.

Are there work placement opportunities?

There are multiple points throughout this Psychology BSc course where there are opportunities for work placements. During stage one, there is a short work placement to complete as part of a module assessment. Following from here, there are work placement opportunities within our Education focused modules at stages two and three. We also run an optional placement year, between stages two and three, giving you the opportunity to strengthen career skills alongside your degree, should you so wish.

How will I learn?

The teaching methods of this BSc Psychology degree include an innovative, active blended approach to learning. These methods make the acquisition of knowledge more dynamic and flexible for students than ever before. This involves face-to-face seminars, tutorials, practical or laboratory workshops and computer assisted learning. Independent and group work will be supplemented with online seminars, self-directed learning and virtual tasks.

You are encouraged to actively engage and participate with your BSc psychology course material both online and in class discussions to further enhance your learning. This includes a willingness to complete independent study alongside attending your classes. Practical work represents an important component of the Psychology course in each of your three years of study. Throughout the course, you are exposed to different research approaches and will develop an ability to apply both quantitative and qualitative techniques to research questions. We have extensive online resources that support face-to-face contact in class.

You are taught by experienced, well-qualified staff that are experts within their disciplines. Staff in the Subject Group are active researchers, producing research that is nationally and internationally recognised.

How am I assessed on the BSc Psychology degree?

A variety of assessment strategies are used at each level to ascertain your level of competence in a range of academic and transferable skills. These strategies include essays, practical reports, multiple-choice tests, oral presentations, time-constrained essays, seen and unseen examinations, critical reviews, group project work, patchwork blogs, audio-visual presentations, and reflective reports, for example.

What will I learn?

At the University of Northampton, you will benefit from studying applied Psychology modules, providing valuable work-based learning skills and links to Changemaker. You will have access to excellent facilities and resources for research. Research areas include social, cognitive, biological, developmental and personality psychology.

Our single honours psychology course allows you to understand and analyse human behaviour, thought and emotions, from many different psychological perspectives. The course provides you with useful experience, especially if you are intending to work in a range of career areas both in and outside of psychology. This experience can be applied to educational psychology, clinical psychology, teaching and research. Listed below are some of the key tests you can administer within our psychometrics library:

• Intelligence scales: Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale, Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children, and the Weschler Abbreviated Intelligence Scale x 2, Personality measures: NEO Five Factor Inventory & PI-R, Eysenck Personality Scales, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Cattell’s 16PF Form (A&B), Health Psychology Portfolio, Mental Health Portfolio, Measures of Children’s Mental Health & Psychological Well-Being, Child Behaviour Checklist, Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking – Verbal/Figural, Rorschach test, Witkin’s Group Embedded Figures test.