Psychology programmes seem to be all the rage the past few years with many students who have set their sights on this course of study. Could just be a fad? Perhaps. Regardless of whether you’re in it for the status, or have a desire to help society, it’s still a tough course of study, with a longer than average pathway to being fully registered and workforce ready.
Here’s a 3 step guide for all you aspiring psychologists out there.
Step 1: Bachelor Degree in Psychology
This is a critical entry point. To get registered as a psychologist in the future, you will need to complete a Masters in Applied Psychology and all these programmes require you to have a background in psychology.
Degree in Mass Communication? Degree in PR and Journalism? PhD in Materials Engineering? Master of Counselling? Sorry, these qualifications are not accepted. You’ll have to start with Step 1.
The course selection is especially important when you decided to go with an Australian university. Start by making sure the degree is accredited by the Australian Psychology Accreditation Council (APAC). They have a handy website where you can do a search. Do keep in mind that they accredit the programmes at different campuses separately and you need to ensure the course being taught out of that particular campus is accredited.
Step 2: Honours Degree or Graduate Diploma
There’s quite a bit of confusion at this step owing to the university system in Singapore.
Unlike the local system where the Honours indicate a level of achievement, Australian Honours Degrees are a research programme that you enroll into after completing a Bachelors Degree.
For those looking to enroll into the Honours programme or Graduate Diploma at James Cook University, your qualification must be deemed an equivalent to an APAC accredited psychology programme. If you have an Australian qualification, you can simply check in with the APAC website. Otherwise, you’ll have to send copies of your qualification over to Australia and they might take up to 2 months to reply… by post.
Step 3: Masters Degree in Applied Psychology
This is where it gets tricky. The key word here is applied. Which means there must be a practical component as part of the course.
When it comes to clinical psychology, the National Council of Social Service pretty much recommends only two programmes locally. NUS’s Master of Psychology (Clinical) and JCU’s Master of Psychology (Clinical). Their website is an informative guide on which programmes you can look at, depending on the area of psychology you’re interested in.
Just take note that if choosing to enroll into James Cook University, you’ll need an Honours Degree that is equivalent to an APAC accredited Bachelor of Psychology Honours degree. There are two popular Honours programmes offered in Singapore that unfortunately don’t meet the criteria. One of them is by a US university taught out of a private institute in Clementi and another one by a UK university taught out of a private institute in Queenstown.
Caveat Emptor!
There’s a difference between Singapore Psychology Society (SPS) membership and registration into the Singapore Register of Psychologists (SRP) .
The criteria for SPS membership varies greatly from simply being enrolled into a psychology degree program to be a Student Member, to at least 400 hours of supervised practical training AND a Master/Doctoral/Postgraduate professional qualification in a specialised field in psychology from a recognised academic institution for Full membership. (more info)
On the other hand, SRP registration requires you to have completed a Masters degree in applied psychology. This means that there must be a practical component in the programme with at least 1000 hours of practical training. Counselling qualifications are not accepted.
If you ask a programme consultant at a school if the degree programme makes you eligible for SPS membership, they can honestly tell you that it does. Remember to ask the right questions!
Loophole?
Enrolled into a programme that doesn’t meet the requirements? All is not lost. The Singapore Psychology Society themselves openly state that the profession is not regulated in Singapore and anyone may call themselves a psychologist and practice.
You just won’t be able to get yourself registered.
If you’re interested in the Master of Psychology (Clinical) offered by JCU, check out the 2 part course preview.
This article originally posted on Linkedin
