Soooo... I am still struggling with writting about school. I normally like to say what is better and what is worse. I like to distinguish these two possibilities based on some criteria. But with school here, I can't. And also I was probably expecting that I am going to study to place, where most of the thing is better. But I feel, that maximum level of studying here is on par with my faculty.
Now, I finaly have some schoolwork to do and spend my time with. I have so much free time here, that it is great pain to finaly start work. So today I was whole day trying to start working. But I only listened to a lot of amazing music, ate and checked in for a flight to Berlin. Instead of studying psychology here in Belfast I was studying portuguese and french a bit, going to the choir, listening to live music, just walking outside, I started to run again, I learned a bit how to play irish flute. And now I am not able to work. This education system destroyed my motivation to study. And now after whole day of torturing my soul with trying to do something, I write blog post. I will burn in hell of laziness :D. But firstly you can read about my comparison of studying psychology at Faculty of Social Science, Masaryk's University, Brno and School of Psychology, Queen's University Belfast.
Less Time in School vs. A Lot of Time in School
Obviously I have serious problem here, because I am just not in school. I go to school 2 days in a week. And the only effect is that during the other 5 days I do lots of things I like and none of the things I should do. I would just love to go to school every day, even for 2 hours or so. Only to have some schedule. And I love to go to lectures and listen to somebody who understands the topic. I just crave for more lectures here. Obviously they have so many interesting research projects from very different fields. So they could give us much more of the knowledge university is producing. And honestly, it is so much more interesting to hear about things then to read about them for me.
Even here, technical fields of study and other sciences are with much more work and time in school then social studies. And when you look at more technical people, they are used to working hard and with high effectivity, spend lots of time with work and still have hobbies and fun. I would like to have this routine too. But 5 days of free time... not good. Maximum I did for my psychological development is that I borrowed few psychological books in library. They have there some cool titles. I have Vygotski's book with old and very dirty cover now and it feels sooo good :).
Theory vs. Empirical Driven Approach
I am a bit concerned with absolute lack of theory here. It seems that talking about theory is taboo. We have 3 modules per semester and to each of them we have few articles to read every week. But probably it is the same articles which are then presented to us at lectures. So I choose not to read them but go to lectures. There is actually not much added value in lectures to articles or vice versa. Which is really a pitty. I think we got books recommended only in statistics class.
It is actually strange to me, that they never talk about some theoretical approach or background. What matters is previous research results, design, usage of results, ethical approval, economic sustainability and practical effectivity. They are much ahead in neuropsychological literacy. Not only in reading much more articles with neurological background but also about knowledge and even taking it more into account. On the other hand I feel they see many things much more unavoidable or fatal because of it. Which especially in psychology and psychotherapy can be very limitting point of view. And in a way it makes me think when the time will come that psychological treatment will mean reconnecting the wires in your brain.
In a way in Belfast it is much more sober and practical approach, which I really like. But it feels like something is missing. My teachers would call the missing part "psychological thinking". Talking with usage of concepts and knowledge we gained during our studies. I feel that talking only about specific study results or practical thoughts is creating much less consistent picture, because we talk a lot about the numbers and means, less about connecting these studies in some coherent picture. So far I saw only one teacher which did really good job in this connecting. But it seems very little to me. Also it was the only teacher who dare to give some negative feedback to class so far. He was external by the way.
Interesting is that the Master's degree is a lot about writting your thesis, so it should be more scientifical let say. And it is pretty amazing because all of the people here have their supervisor, who is tutor of their thesis. With the supervisor students consult most of their essays and they write the essays on kind of similar topic. And I have to say I am doing this too now, that I am fitting the topics more to my bachelor's thesis topic and it is much more enjoyable to write anything. Also you are still broadening literature you read in your own field of research and it is always handy. The supervisor is your guide through Masters. And teachers here are very nice and helpful. So this part of their studies is just amazing. If we should be inspired by something at my home university, it is this.
Wide vs. Narrow Spectrum
One of the main differences I see so far is that in Belfast no emphasis is put on history of psychology as a science or field and only accepted approach is very empirical and evolutionist. On the other hand at my faculty we pay a lot of attention to history of different paradigms in psychology. And psychology is a multi-paradigmal science. There is still no "right" perspective. So it makes a lot of sense to me to study all of them. The history, even sometimes very boring and not idealy taught, is important to understand what stands behind nowadays research, to evaluate how much something can be taken as "reality". It gives you more perspectives to see one problem. That's starting point for criticism and evaluation. If there is no alternative, there is no questionning. So even though students here are encouraged to criticaly evaluate the literature, the approach itself is not object of the critics.
So I am wondering if the studies here are going more to depth, if the critics seems kind of week. In a way people in my class in the Czech Republic are much more diverse with even look at psychology as science and you can find much more alternative views. I am not much of a fan for alternative directions, but in a way it amazingly serves for broadening of your own view, if you have the opportunity to listen to different attitudes then yours.
Activity vs. Pasivity
In psychology, diversity of people and thoughts is one of the most important ways how to even learn something psychological. And I am really interested in thoughts and ideologies of people around me. It seems that in UK the discussion is not so rich during lectures. There are some questions and discussions, but mostly result is of stating something obvious from the lectures. Technicaly these are things the teacher just wants to hear. Questions which are not of the same opinion or mood with the teacher's are handeled as not so valid to the discussion. Also when we discuss something, the people does not share their opinions or ideas. Mostly it is talking about observable or kind of "obvious"things. I kind of miss ideological or more abstract point of view. So in this way it seems to me people here are more passive.
On the other hand, there is a lot of free time, so they all have most of the week to work in some organization. Also volunteering is supported a lot and it seems everybody is doing something. So at least at practical experience students here are much ahead. Or it seems like it to me.
Theoretical vs. Practical Educating
Talking about practical issues, university is also offering some placements into practice, but it is only for the best students. Which I think is not so good, because university should take care about their students having such experience in my opinion. At my university we have compulsory placements in educational, clinical, organisational psychology and councelling. Again. It is much wider experience and at least it gives you the opportunity to really try more fields and find out what suits you the best.
I like how in Belfast, everything is much more focused on policy implications, possibilities of intervention and practical issues in general. Also when I see their material and technical support and possibilities... It is really crazy. There are guys whose thesis was based on 3 month intervention in Congo, I was participating in thesis research with eyetracking, another friend is measuring babies's brain activity in connection with language development. There is whole floor for animal experiments. Nobody is doing such projects at my university. Somehow I feel this is partly about money, but partly because psychological research is seen here as very important part of science. And because of the more evolutionist/biologist approach.
Also during lectures we work quite a lot with measurement tools. We can see some of them at my university during lectures too, but here we really had fun testing ourselves during seminars. So now I know that I am lost case with more than 2SD over mean on attention deficit scale of measurement tool for adults' ADHD. And more than 1SD lower than mean on hyperactivity scale. So I guess that's the reason why I can handle just sitting and listening during lectures. And live my life day dreaming. But I have some suggestions why I wouldn't trust this scale.
By the way, we can borrow many measurement methods from office for how long we want. That's amazing. Also because there are very well standardised methods and tests. They have sometimes even special norms for Northern Ireland. When I see how many methods are just not standardised in czech, with missing norms and missing latest version, I just see how much easier some issues are in english speaking countries.
Another amazing thing is that at my university, we still write essays and some academic or scientific stuff. Here we do much more funny stuff as writting policy briefs (short document for not academic audience about latest research and it's policy implications in some specific issue) or doing posters for parents about children atypical development. (I like the word "stuff". It explains so much.) I feel too old for being assessed for beauty of my poster, but it is kind of refreshing, that we write something with not so strict form and it feels much more "real" and useful.
Western countries experience
I was actually going to Belfast because it is one of the best universities in UK and in the world. Also UK looks good in CV. I was really looking forward to going to "the west", to study a lot at this amazing place. I love United Kingdom history and architecture and Irish culture. The best place to go study is simply Belfast.
Well, in a way nothing like epic world rank education is hapenning. But still I see a lot of western stuff. Like much more money or just the fact we are in UK. That means great international connections. English is spoken here and everywhere, so they can basicaly go anywhere and they don't have to study another language to study abroad and they won't struggle with it.
Measurement tools are developed in English, with norms for anything you can imagine. One of the repeating suggestions of classmates on following research of some study is that the research should be replicated in Northern Ireland. In a way for me it is kind of funny. I was imagining how a czech expensive study would be replicated in Slovakia just to try if it works the same. It can hapen but normaly we are just happy with results from any other country. No money, no people, no interest...
I also think that because for them it is not so important to be able to evaluate imported methods or care about bad translations or missing norms and so on, there is lesser emphasis put on statistics education and learning about constructing methods. But the shortcomings I see in system here are probably same for every module I am attending here.
So what about the quality?
I heard and saw here few very crazy and unbelievable things for me. And in a way I would be interested with what students from Belfast would be shocked in the Czech Republic.
- "Cognitive behavioral therapy wouldn't probably work with this poverty based problem, because the problem is on neural level." I am sorry, I don't remember what exactly it was about, but it was a lot behaviorally based. In my opinion, every psychological problem is somehow neural too. And if CBT can't "cure" it, because it is too much based on physical level, why CBT can't be effective as a facilitator of behavior and cognition? So what can we do? Are psychological problems possible to solve only with medical treatment?
- "So Piaget sth sth... Have you heard about Piaget?... Nobody?... Ah... OK. So he is very important." This was very crazy for me. We talked about Piaget even on high school. And I definately couldn't go through Bachelor's without knowing him. In UK people studying Master's from Childhood Adversity and Childhood Atypical Development never heard about him. Sometimes at home I really don't understand why we care so much about names and not about principles and processes itself. But this is not only about a name. It is more about the theory itself. And Piaget's theories are quite crutial for early development.
- First seminar in Assessment and Intervention module we did little test in groups about interpreting percentiles. It was very simple. Something without which we couldn't make it through first semester of statistics in my home faculty. So my group had 10 out of 10. But other groups had 7, 5 and 3 points. This was also scary. The statistics module focused on analysis in SPSS ended already. We wrote a test. I had one mistake because I couldn't understand few words in one question. 3 other people also had one mistake and remaining 50 people were behind us, having sometimes half points from a test based on one reading of all 5 presentations from lectures. I was really surprised by this. I wonder how this statistics level matches the great possibilities for research here. And also the proclaimed level of university. How is this measured? That a university is among 200 best in the world?
- Another thing is that we are provided here by exact examples how to do our essays and other works. When I went to consult a case study we will write, I basicaly got served everything I needed to know for preparation. In statistics we were writting a portfolio with few analysis. Nobody expected us to have some other knowledge then to repeat what we already did during lectures with teacher. I don't feel here I am expected to study more then is content of lectures. And it seems nobody does it. Also when you ask a question at a lecture, teacher's often don't understand it not only because my English is not perfect, but it seems they are replying to some less complex question because they just don't expect you to ask something beyond what they want to tell you. That made me stop asking questions because it gives me nothing. And other people seem not to ask much. But often when they start to speak, they have interesting ideas, practical,.... Maybe they are not used to sharing them. I don't know. But this sharing between students often teaches you the most.
So what is about these students after school so much better then about students from the Czech Republic? Studying at my faculty is much harder, much more critical thinking and independent study is needed to study in Brno then in Belfast. So what is the advantage? Lot of free time to work on your CV with more internships and so on? Or being native English speaking person? Or just the fact that everybody knows UK and half of the world think the Czech Republic is still Czechoslovakia (in case they know there is something like the Czech Republic)? Or the fact that UK is more economicaly and politicaly important, so they have more connections and probably put more money into research and so on?
I was thinking what could possibly be the cause of these strange things I wouldn't expect to meet in one of the best universities in UK. And I think there is very little feedback. I have modules, where we don't have exams, only work during semester. But the topics and content of work is kind of unrelated to what is content of the module. And there is no feedback on what we learned during the semester. There is no feedback telling me if I even understood what the readings were about. Or if I even read the articles itself or some notes. Teachers from my faculty often complain that students read so little. Honestly, I think teachers at my faculty are a bit underestimating the amount of work we do during semester and what everything we read for this work and also the quality of our work. At home I can get my essay back with thousands of notes on what is horrible about it and that I should make it better. And it is very very useful. Here if students know nothing in assessment module about interpreting percentiles on Master's, teacher will be surprised that somebody actually knows something. I have to say, last semester at home I screwed up in epic style. But if I would be here, I would be sweet.
I am finishing this horribly long post, happy that I finally wrote all of it down. I have very ambiguous feelings about studying here. Some things are totaly amazing about style in Belfast, some things make me question what is purpose of studying at all. Is it preparation for working and practical problems? Or is it building up the continuity of science and knowledge and being able to apply it? I think one without another doesn't make much sense. And in combining those two, I feel my faculty is doing much better job. So I hope we will still receive feedback, we will be still expected to work, expected to deliver good results and most importantly being helped, but expected to move forward and be independent. I think so far this is quite working. And maybe one day education from the Czech Republic will be considered on the same level as anywhere else from EU at least.
Motto of the day: Thank God for feedback! It's needed.
