Interview Transcript - Rosie & Tom
T. Rosie – we’ve got half an hour today – obviously if you need to come back again you can but we’ll talk abut that later, but you can do…..but
What I want to do a little bit this morning is talk to you about why you have come to see me – what help you expect from me – and what help you are looking for today, and also to look at some of the issues that you have raised on your form……to discuss them and how see how we can hep you to move forward…..are you happy with that?
R. Great
T. Great – so tell me about what you are expecting from the interview…..
R. Ok – we had a careers talk last week from one of your colleagues and since then it made me realise that I haven’t got a clue about what I want to do…and it seems like all my friends know – you know – they’ve begun to apply for things, courses..the milk round, and I don’t know what that is really….and I’m worried…because I’m working hard on my course but I don’t know what I’m going to do with my degree…..so, I guess this morning that I’m hoping that you can tell me what I can do with a psychology degree, and tell me when I need to apply for things…and help me get sorted out really.
T. Ok – I’ll try and do some of that in our half an hour today…..obviously we can’t achieve everything but you can come back and see us, particularly the careers adviser for psychology students
When I see a lot of students who say ‘I have no idea what I want to do’ I don’t really believe them – you must have some ideas of what you might want to do, or what you might not want to do as well – not necessarily jobs, but things that you would like to do in a job, or avoid in a job…
R. Ahem…before I came to university I thought I was going to be a teacher – I’d applied to teacher training college as well as university, but when I had the option of coming to university I decided I’d prefer that because it would open up doors to me….I’ve really enjoyed my degree so I’ve thought about things that relate to psychology – so I’ve tried to bring the two – maybe educational psychology – I don’t really know what that involves and how you can actually become an educational psychologist….ahem – one aspect of the course that I’ve really enjoyed is environmental psychology – and I’ve begun to check out and there are courses – Masters courses in environmental psychology, but I don’t really know what kind of jobs that would lead into – where I’d end up after the course – to some extent..I quite like being in a university, so I kind of – I don’t know whether I’m ready to go into a job yet – so I quite like the idea of doing more study…..ahem…..when I – I’ve been to – there was a careers fair and I’ve been to that and I really got disheartened…because it just seemed to be big businesses, and the thing that I feel I don’t want to do – because I don’t want to go into……that kind of graduate training scheme with a financial, or business organisation because I just don’t think I’d relate to it…..
Ahh – I’ve done quite – I’ve always worked in holidays – I’ve always had summer jobs – last summer I worked as a nursing auxiliary in a psychiatric hospital…because I thought clinical psychology might be an area to go into….but, it kind of terrified me a bit that environment and I didn’t really think I’d like to - to go into clinical psychology – but I do know that the jobs I’ve enjoyed most have been when I’ve been dealing with people – you know, things like shop work – I’ve done things like waitressing…ahh, working with quite different people – so..it’s sort of jobs helping people I’m thinking of – I don’t really know what….that might be really…
T. I think that we need to look at jobs that are helping people – we also need to come back to some of the other things that you’ve mentioned there….both past and present really, ahem…you talked about your thought about becoming a..sort of teacher when you were younger, before you came to university and I want to explore that with you a little bit this morning – if that’s ok – and why you didn’t go into it and whether you’d consider going into it in the future..as somebody a little bit older…..ahem – it would be interesting also to look at this environmental psychology, so what I would like to do is look at what you have seen of environmental psychology – what you like about that, and then we can perhaps relate it to some of the things that you are not sure about in terms of what kind of jobs you can do with that – so we’ll look at some of the contents of the modules – the elements of the course…….ahem – it was interesting also that you mentioned about…enjoying university – perhaps we need to look at what jobs there are in universities and whether that’s academic jobs or anything else – other people oriented jobs perhaps…….you also – if I could sort of challenge you a little bit on this – I think you did work experience….in the summer working in..mental – mental health, yeah? Did you actually enjoy that did you say?
R. Well – I was kind of like a support worker so it was really doing very basic work with patients in a psychiatric hospital – but it wasn’t working in anything like therapy or anything like that..
T. No – but you would have seen people working in that indirectly….
R. To some extent, I mean to be honest, the unit I was in was for long-stay patients – you know….and there were times when we were involved in organising various activities for these people and…they just didn’t want to do it and you wondered ‘who are we doing this for – are we doing it for ourselves or for them..?
T. Did you build up any sort of rapport with the patients? How did the patients relate to you?
R. Ahem……I can’t – I felt that I was able to….talk to people and kind of…. And they listened to me when I talked to them…ahem… I just found the whole environment too… too stressful you know – some people would come in who had had a severe nervous breakdown – or people going through obsessive behaviour, or severely depressed – and I didn’t – it just wasn’t me, and some of the psychologist I came across seemed to be as nutty as the patients to be honest….
T. Yeah – some of the ones we meet, yeah…
R. ….so I know that isn’t an area that I would feel comfortable working in – and I’d actually feel quite threatened in that kind of work situation – in a hospital environment anyway.
T. So – in terms of people orientated jobs – because that’s what you seem to pick out sort of generally….. what things in a people oriented job would you expect or think you would like to do?
R. Well – I quite like the idea of kind of helping people who have got problems of some type – whether it’s sitting down with them and talking it through – how they might deal with problems – I kind of find that my friends often come and confide in me when things aren’t going very well – I don’t know – when relationships have broken down or they’re worried about money or something – they tend to come and seek me out – I’m quite good at listening to what the issues are and helping them to work out what they’re going to do next – so I vaguely thought – well I’ve heard of jobs like counselling, and maybe that’s the kind of thing I could be interested in…
T. …You’ve vaguely hear – have you done any reading at all about what’s involved, or talked to anybody?
R. I mean – yeah – I’ve watched television and films and you see counsellors – but to be honest I haven’t been to your careers library and haven’t really looked at information.
T. What do you think they do? What do you think they actually get involved in in terms of that listening and so on?
R. ………..well…I think when people are going through a difficult time they just need to be able to talk – so some of what counsellors do is about being able to listen to people….
T. Is that all you would think they do – do you think there might be? You – you seem to want to move them forward as well a little bit – you say you help - you listen to people, but you help your friends to resolve situations as well….
R. Well with my friends – I think it’s not really about telling people what to do – because generally people know what they should do – it’s..it’s about helping them realise what they’re thinking, by talking it through – you’re kind of facilitating their problem solving – and I think, if I’m right, that’s what counsellors actually do…
T. Yes – I think that’s a very sort of simplistic but very appropriate way of saying what they do – I think on that side, I think….. to give you some early advice about what to do on that one – I think that it would be worth.. perhaps even going down to a student counsellor – ahem – asking if you can make an appointment perhaps to talk to one of their counsellors – obviously there would be confidentiality issues - but asking if you could perhaps have just a brief chat with one of them about what the actual job involves… ahem, if you want me to help you to sort of liaise with a couple of my colleagues in counselling I would be happy to do that - I’m not sure what they’ll say, but even if it’s just five or ten minutes having a cup of coffee with you just to talk a little bit about the role – how would you feel about that?
R. Yeah – that might be useful – I also did think about volunteering with student nightline, because I know there’s a student advice line and I just thought that’s the kind of thing I could do – that would be – if I can make the time – be quite useful..
T. I think that would be very good and… as an ex-student myself I’ve done nightline and I’ve found it very valuable in my job in terms of listening - ahem – so, I think that would be an excellent idea..and it would be worth popping into the students’ union to ask – have you got the time in your final year to give some time to do that?
R. Well it might have to be….I’m not so sure – I’m getting a bit worried now ….I don’t know whether I’d need to train for that – I probably would do so it depends if there’s anything…..
T. I think if you have spoken to somebody about the counselling role and you need some experience after that and it does motivate you and you think ‘yeah, this is something I could do’ then I think time-managing a little bit of nightline experience would be invaluable to you if you choose to pursue that possible option when you graduate….
Let’s go back a bit Rosie if that’s ok……..let’s talk about what you thought about doing before you came to university - you’d said that you’d thought about doing a teacher training course but then you chose to do psychology instead…….. was there anything that sort of interfered with that move into teaching?
R. Well it was the careers advisor actually – I saw a careers adviser when I was doing ‘A’ levels and I was applying to do teacher training – doing a B.Ed..and…we talked about it and…when I got my summary afterwards about what we had talked about – we’d talked about different ways into teaching and she’d put down ‘you could do a B.Ed, or you could do a degree and then do a PGCE which I think it was called?
T. Yes – it’s a one year teacher training course after you have done your degree….
R. Yeah – and I suppose I’d always thought, up until that point, I’d always thought ‘I’m not sure I’m bright enough to do a degree’ - I mean, teacher training seemed to be sort of like….. I don’t know, ok, butactually then I thought ‘well, if I can get in to do a degree’ – and I’ve always been interested in psychology – I thought that it would be great to do that first – then I’ve still got the option of training for teaching after…
T. Right – when you were thinking about teacher training – was it younger children or was it older children…?
R. Yeah – I mean that’s the other thing I’m not too sure about – I mean, I’d always thought about junior school - junior school teaching – and I know a few teachers and it always seems to be quite a closed environment - I mean it’s very heavily female really in terms of the staff….. ahem… and..
T. Is that important to you – to have a mixture of ….
R. No….well, I think I’d rather work sort of with a more balanced workforce really – I know that you work with parents etc…. and I also wondered whether I’d find it stimulating enough really - I mean I know it’s awful to say but I – I’m not sure how, how enjoyable I’d find it spending the whole day with 20 or 30 young children sort of 6 or 7 years of age – in terms of intellectual stimulation - I would get probably – I might be completely wrong but…..
T. Yeah – it’s a realistic thing to challenge – absolutely…
R. Yeah – and I’m not saying I don’t want to work with children, but in that role to try and control and actually teach them – that might be different from working with children on a one-to-one basis where you could really engage more with the individual child…
T. Yes – ahh right – so it’s, it’s the classroom management as well as…
R. That’s part of it…
T. ….the one-to-one interaction - is that what you saying a little bit?
R. Yes – but also, you hear terrible stories about violence in schools and all the kind of family problems you’ve got to get drawn into – depending on where your school is - I’m not sure that’s what I want to get into…
T. Ahh – that’s a good point – there are two good points there - one about getting drawn into social problems and social issues, but – I mean obviously as a counsellor working on a one-to-one basis there may be things in a counselling role that you’ll be – that the person would come in with certain issues but there may be certain other issues involved – they may be depressed but it might be because they have been abused as a child – sexually abused or whatever – so there are certain things that escalate in a counselling situation – so really that not any different in terms of teaching is it?
R. Well…I would have thought it is because in my understanding of counselling – you’re not really required to deal with the problem – the problem’s the client’s problem - you’re helping them look at how they manage it whereas I guess when you are in a classroom situation and you suspect a child has been abused, then there are courses of action that you really have to take to have that done….
T. Oh yes – procedures…
R. I think it would be the level of responsibility that I would really be worried about if I was dealing with young children… where there could be abuse issues – where you could be involved in the child being taken away from his family – I mean that kind of thing is the bit….. that I don’t think I would wish…..
T. Yes…yes it would, but it wouldn’t happen very often…
R. Wouldn’t it?
T. …..and it also links to the other statement that you have made earlier – where this fear of violence and verbal abuse as well as physical abuse of teachers – I’m not saying it doesn’t happen Rosie, but I think that it is slightly exaggerated by the press – and you know there aren’t that many teachers who are physically or verbally abused by children or even parents…
R. Yeah – I was thinking more about secondary age range I suppose – I would think that it is less likely with the younger age..
T. Yes – less likely – but the other issue that you have brought in was about that sort of, not dumbing down but almost that more simplistic approach to educating younger children that might not satisfy you.
Let’s sort of leave that alone for a minute because obviously there are certain things that you seem to be talking a little bit of yourself out of on that one?
One of the other interesting things was though was - you were interested in psychology – you said that you had chosen not to that because you were interested in psychology as a subject, but since then you’ve – you’ve latched on really with your career to the environmental psychology.
R. Yeah – that’s one area, but the other area – in fact my dissertation - is social psychology – so, I really enjoy the environmental module but it is only one of the elements of the course and I’m fascinated by how the built environment can affect people’s behaviour and I have quite a few friends who are architects, so that links in a little bit with understanding what they’re doing in the design of buildings…ahem..
T. That’s interesting – you said social psychology – how would that built environment, for example,and that environmental psychology perhaps link into things that you have studied in social psychology?
T. Well the dissertation that I am doing is all about self-concepts and person perceptions – how the way you view yourself affects the way that you view other people – ahem, which is kind of a totally different sort of slant - but I’m - I’m very interested in….. people facing jobs – ahem…jobs where you are looking at how people behave – why they behave in a particular way…. Ahem, I know on the one hand the really commercial bit - you could use that kind of slant in advertising, marketing, but that’s just not - just not what I’m – not what I’m drawn to… but I am interested in, you know…. things to do with – personal development – I’ve heard of this new area of life-coaching - and that’s sounds really interesting where you’re kind of working with people, helping them with how they can enhance their quality of life…..