• Question: What inspired you to become a psychologist?

    Asked by anon-316005 on 14 Mar 2022. This question was also asked by anon-315983.
    • Photo: Jamie Chan

      Jamie Chan answered on 14 Mar 2022:

      I was always curious about why people act the way they act and why some people act or think differently than others. I think that’s the main reason why I started studying Psychology. Eventually, I chose to specialise in ‘social psychology’ because I enjoy learning about people’s behaviour with one another. I don’t think a person inspired me but it was more of the subject that drew me to it, but my decision to do a PhD was inspired by my teacher (lecturer) in university – she is super cool and is great at her job.

    • Photo: Hannah Howman

      Hannah Howman answered on 14 Mar 2022:

      I first became interested in psychology when studying the subject at A-level, and I decided that I wanted to study psychology at university. I became more interested in having a career in this area when I was given the opportunity to help a lecturer with some of her research. It was the first time I was involved in a study and I loved being a part of it. That lecturer supported me throughout my undergraduate degree, and inspired me to come back to studying psychology after a two-year break. Now I love the research I’m involved in and working out why people behave the way they do online.

    • Photo: Reece Bush-Evans

      Reece Bush-Evans answered on 14 Mar 2022:

      Great question. I was filming a documentary with North Korean refugees and was listening to their stories, which were often traumatic and sad. I learned a lot about PTSD during this filming and then I realised I loved learning about psychology and the human mind.

    • Photo: Keri Wong

      Keri Wong answered on 16 Mar 2022:

      The work of Professor Adrian Raine (PET scans of prisons’ brains)!

    • Photo: Nadine Mirza

      Nadine Mirza answered on 17 Mar 2022:

      The reason I started was when I was 16. It’s such a silly reason to me now (but cute) that my friends would always tell me I was a really good listener, that I helped them vent and made them feel comfortable when they shared their problems. They kept saying “You’d make a good therapist” and without knowing what that meant I thought “Okay!”

      When I was 17 we finally started studying psychology in school and I enjoyed it so much that I decided to stick to my therapist plan. It was the perfect combo of understanding all the learning and still being interested in it.

      Later on I learnt more about the different kinds of psychologists and what they study. I decided to specialise in dementia because it’s quite personal to me- one of my grandmother’s is living with dementia, another passed away because of dementia last year. I also have an uncle with dementia. I saw so much of what it does to a person and also all the things that can help a person living with it and it made me want to understand it more and do work in it.

    • Photo: Michelle Newman

      Michelle Newman answered on 23 Mar 2022:

      For me it was after watching a video during my degree about a 30 year old man who had had a stroke, who was not able to speak afterwards. I was about the same age at the time and it really stuck with me what that would be like if that happened to me. That is when I realised I wanted to understand more about what happens when the brain is injured, and what we can do to help.

Comments