Should I take Psychology?

[IwillsurviveIB]

Psychology is indeed one of the more challenging 6th subjects in IB, however the benefits you can reap from it will outweigh the negatives.

You'll learn many cool things, and you'll definitely appreciate psychology so much more. however, you need to put in more time and effort into this subject, as this will prove to be more challenging than some of your core subjects.

[bolan14]

Cough Cough Cough Cough.. Blindpet, I see you only chose Biology as your science option. Biology is only a BRANCH of science. Biology IS science, but SCIENCE is not just Biology

If you just memorised the Physics/Chemistry textbook you would not have scored over 3/7.

Im sorry, i am just a science fanatic.. Insulting science is just like insulting me. Apologies

That's not entirely true because I chose Biology HL and its not just random memorization and neither is IB Psychology. Both are very practical subjects that, at least the way my biology teacher, the Dr. Dowd taught was amazing. We don't just memorize, we analyze charts and find its implications, essentially Chemistry or Physics is memory too, biology just requires you to understand and it is more comprehensive. So definitely take IB psychology, i took it and got a 6, for SL, but all of our IA's were horrible, I got a 4 on the IA out of 20. Psychology is awesome, and you can definitely use it in life, also it's not too hard, oh and for your option you have to choose Cultural Psychology. It's more challenging but you learn alot!!!!!!

[johan1990]

Whats psychology IB all about? is it hard? i have never taken psychology before in iGCSE as it is not available

It isnt hard if you do your homework, its alot of studies and research you get to learn and have to memorize,

in brief, if your interested in intelligence, memory, the concious and subconcious mind, how human beings learn, interacts, and proccesses information, then you should take Psychology =)

switch away fast and dont hesitate if you dont like it! as long as you switch subjects within the first 2 months, youre good to go

[JAYT]

Is it true that it is very, very difficult to get a 7 in Psych or is that just my school?

[cmcgui09]

What you have to remember is that IB psychology is a humanities subject, so there is a lot of essays involved and a lot of justification. It has taken me a year to work out that psychology is essentially the use of case studies to come to your own conclusion about the topic at hand. If you choose psychology be prepared to research and memorise case study upon case study upon case study.

Also remember that it is highly open to interpretation, so be careful with what you write. What you need to do is learn the case study's and what they pertain to and don't mess with the accepted norms or the examiner will cut you off at the 2 point grade boundary.

Evaluation is also used a lot.

So if you're good at looking at something and evaluating it then IB psychology is for you, but don't forget it is an awful lot of work. More so than other subjects because of it's nature.

[cmcgui09]

It isn't too hard, depending on your strengths. If your school doesn't record many 7's, look around for examples: teachers arent always the best resource. This website is helpful for notes and essays but try talking to students/teachers from other schools and getting past examples of 7's. IB is about being independent and thinking for yourself, we can no longer depend only on our teachers. That is the beauty of the IB: people all around the world can help you, not just your state or country.

[Chesire_Cat]

Psychology is a very good option, and it keeps your choices open. You need psychology in many fields, especially humanities. You should take it if you're interested in being a lawyer, a teacher, a businessman (a lot of people say it's important for marketing strategies and such), and I find it really fascinating. It will be quite a lot of work, but in my opinion it's totally worth it. you should definitely choose it if you want to keep your options open.

[Ionn]

But then what's the difference between psychology and TOK. they both seem to be really closely related. I was thinking about taking psychology, but i wanted to know if there were any real benefits to taking it, and what kind of material we would be covering.

[1-2-3]

I strongly urge you to think about what you potentially want to do in university and choose your courses accordingly.

It's always good to keep your options open.

[emmak]

I think it depends on what your interests are. I've never studied psychology before IB, and I fell in love with it, and I'm planning on majoring in it. The basic areas that you learn about are the different branches of psychology (according to the IB): learning, biological, cognitive, and (for HL) humanistic perspectives. My classes aren't that interesting because my teacher is very boring, but because the material interests me, I stay awake. If you like learning about people and societies and how our minds work, then you should be happy with this course. I think the exams are pretty straightforward with the questions, so that if you know the basic assumptions about a perspective, you can answer. Then basically know one empirical study very well for each perspective. For me, it's not so difficult because I like the subject and I have fluent English (which I think is important!). I'm majoring in psychology and I like it for the reason that it's such a BROAD field where you can choose to specialize in so many different areas after your bachelors.

[Aliase]

I just want to point out that psychology is a science. (even though some uk universities may not see it as such).

And since, it's a science, most of it is based on research (except some early perspectives...), where as TOK is only philosophy and only based on thinking and discussion. They are two very different subjects.

Psychology is a very interesting subject as most people here pointed out and I strongly suggest it.

[rainbow]

IB psychology is very interesting! but as emmak pointed out , you have to be very good in English in order to write the quite challenging essays. Unfortunately I had to quit psychology after a while , even I enjoyed it so much , because of language issues . So I wouldn't recommend psychology to students who aren't native english speakers or very strong in english.

[Psychobabble]

Take psychology... It's my favorite subject. And it's not that challenging as long as your interested.

[laryxle]

I'm finding Psychology really interesting, but you definitely need to remember the case studies you look at (there are a lot) and be able to use them to prove something in an essay. I find that there is quite a lot of reading involved in the course but that it is interesting material. I guess it helps me that my Dad is a psychologist and I can talk about all the case studies with him to help me remember, but I think that psychology is very worth it. Also, i'm not sure about other countries, but in my country taking Psychology HL can allow you to skip the first year of Psychology at university if you do well in it.

[emmak]

Adding to laryxle's comment, psychology is definitely interesting! I don't often enjoy reading any materials for school, but I often find myself picking up a scientific american mind magazine to browse the psych articles. We just started with Abnormal Psychology as an option, and it's SO interesting, in my opinion! By the way, laryxle, if you have some info on undergraduate psychology in Australia, I would really appreciate it if you could share with me, because I'm planning on moving to Australia to major in Psychology. I didn't know about being able to skip the first year... more info on that would be great!

[Amber]

Get the old syllabus and read through it to see if it is hard for you. Everyone is different, something may be easy to someone but really hard to someone else