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Studying psychology as a visiting student

by Steve Draper, visiting student liaison for the Psychology department/school.

(A single combined page for convenient printing is here.)

To find out the room a lecture course is to be held in, my advice is: Consult, on the day before the first lecture, the online timetables (or my hand-made alternative entry to them).

Contents (click to jump to a section)

Introduction

I am the organiser / liaison faculty member of the Dept. of Psychology for students who are visiting from abroad: that is, JYA/exchange students and others who are visiting Glasgow University while mainly registered at a university in some other country.

However Erasmus/SOCRATES students visiting the psychology dept./school from the EU should instead ignore this page, and first see Lorna Morrow. See also this page (University notes on Erasmus, see here). However EU students not covered by Erasmus should probably see me.

Home students (i.e. already studying psychology at Glasgow university) who want a year abroad away from here (e.g. in USA or Germany) should not contact me, but instead see Frank Pollick.

This page collects some links and tips about this part of my job i.e. about my understanding of what is involved for foreign students visiting this university and doing some psychology. This page may change as I improve my grasp of the issues.

The main difficulty you are likely to face in understanding what psychology courses to take is that our teaching is fundamentally not designed as a set of standalone courses of a single standard size on the North American model. For instance, the most important practical and course-work is not part of the individual modules, but done (by home students) separately. The modules themselves thus mostly have no coursework or practical work as part of them. Another of the consequences is that getting registered for the courses you take here is likely to be more of a nuisance for you than the registration processes organised in many US universities. That is not only because we may be less computerised than your home institution, but because you are selecting courses of a quite different kind, in quite different combinations, to the home students, for whom the process is different.

A word about terminology or jargon

Here's a few notes on the terminology (actually, vile jargon) used here. The problem is that you may not be familiar with the way we use words like "course" or "level" or "professor" here; that it is probably often a silly way, though terms elsewhere are no more rational, just different; but you have to understand them or you can't understand the information we do actually provide.

Our local or home students do 4 year degrees, and we refer to these as level 1, level 2, level 3, and level 4. Levels 3 and 4 and also referred to as "Honours classes", as opposed to "Ordinary classes" (levels 1 and 2).
HOWEVER the university catalogue now uses "level" to mean something different e.g. "Level 3 (SCQF level 9)". If you have done a good Introductory Psychology course before coming here, we expect you to do our Level (year) 3 and 4 courses, all of which are listed in the catalogue as "Level 4 (SCQF level 10)" courses; and NOT the ones listed in the catalogue as level 3, which are less demanding and which are not used by our home students who want a qualification recognised by professional bodies.

The University recently reorganised, abolishing departments, and in many cases renaming them "schools" or else merging them into schools. If you see or hear someone say "department" then first assume they mean the school of the same name, then assume they refer to a subject group embedded within some larger school. I haven't found a convenient web representation of this, but if puzzled you could look at my rough notes on this.

There is no agreed use of the word "course" at this university. You are likely to find many people who say there is, but in fact they don't agree with each other. You may find it used for everything from a whole degree programme down to a tiny element worth a few credits or less. The same may apply to "module", "option", etc.

The word "paper" here not only may, but is more likely to, refer to an exam rather than to writing a long essay as coursework. Thus here people may talk of a student taking 5 papers for their finals (meaning 5 separate exams).

In North America, the three main grades of university teacher are Assistant, Associate, and full Professor. Here, they are generally called Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and Professor.

This university has gone over from terms to semesters. If you hear someone say "term" they now probably mean "semester". Semester 1: from late September until Christmas. Semester 2: from January onwards.

What courses are available?

Our local or home students do 4 year degrees, and we refer to these as level 1, level 2, level 3, and level 4. Levels 3 and 4 and also referred to as "Honours classes" (cf. "upper division"), as opposed to "Ordinary classes". Roughly speaking, you may take the whole of our level 1, level 2, or level 3 courses; or you may take any mixture selected from most of our level 3 and level 4 elements.

Note that the what the catalogue calls "Level 3 (SCQF level 9)" courses, which have course codes in the 3,000 range, are not intended nor normally suitable for visiting students.

  • By far the most detailed information is in the school/department's course handbooks ("course information documentation"), which gives almost lecture by lecture specifications of the course contents, and which are available on the web (see below).
  • I maintain a listing of psychology courses for visiting students. This attempts to be an up to date version of what is in the catalogue, shows which are available to visiting students, and may have better information on which courses are not running this session.
  • The University catalogue of officially approved courses.

    I also have, and try to maintain with up to date accurate information, a listing of the course codes for psychology courses that we offer to study-abroad students. This is mainly important for administration.

    A note on assessment policy is available. Basically, students here in semester 2 will mostly do the same assessment as home students (usually exams in May), while students leaving earlier are most often assessed by extra term papers.

    Key links

    Finding us:
  • Who I am (Steve Draper) and the main psychology dept./school website.
  • How to find me and the dept./school
  • How else to contact me.
  • Lorna Morrow (for Erasmus/SOCRATES students). See also this page
  • How to find the course administrators / secretaries: just find the dept./school: then the first offices inside the main door.

  • The university office for year abroad students: general web page, and the key person Colette McGowan (also here, or if necessary here).

  • My attempt at an up to date catalogue-like listing of the courses Psychology offers.
  • University catalogue: course list with summary descriptions. It may list some courses that are approved but not running this year.
  • List of the course codes for psychology courses.
  • Assessment policy

  • The department/school handbooks: The handbooks are most valuable for giving detailed course contents (almost lecture by lecture). They also give the days, times, and places of classes. They do not give course codes, credits, and the assessment details in them apply only to local students, and not to year abroad students.

    They are normally available from the department/school office ready-printed; but are also available on the web as fairly large (0.5Mbyte) PDF files, which can be printed out 2 document pages per side of printer-paper, and double-sided.

  • Print off a blank timetable to use in figuring out how to fit your classes together.

    The enrolment procedure

    If you are an ERASMUS student from Europe, then see Lorna Morrow instead of me.
    If you wish to do a level 1 or level 2 course, then you will need to see Margaret Martin instead of me.

    Otherwise to enrol in psychology classes you need to:

    1. Find the courses that might interest you; and when they run (to detect timetabling clashes).
      • My online catalogue gives which semester they run in, and brief descriptions
      • Detailed course contents are described in the handbooks (see above)
      • Days and times of lectures are in the handbooks or other documents (see above).
    2. The courses available to visiting students generally involve only lectures, no tutorials or practical work.
    3. See me, Steve Draper, and clear with me the level of the courses you are considering. (Obviously we don't want to enrol students in honours courses if they have little introductory psychology, nor to bore students in introductory courses if they have a lot of psychology already.) I am also happy to discuss any other issues with you. The key information for me to get from you is:
      • Your student ID number (GUID)
      • Your email address if you have one already working
      • How long you are here for (e.g. Sept-Dec 2011; or Sept-May 2012).
      • Whether you will enrol for a Critical Review tutorial group
      • The other courses you are thinking of enroling on.
    4. When you've finished your decisions, I have to sign a form for you to take to Colette. However there is no rush in doing this: you can attend classes anyway. Alternatively, I could sign an entry on the form for every course you are considering, and you just later delete the ones you decide not to take.
    5. Register the same courses on the University database ("MyCampus"). If you have trouble doing this (e.g. it complains about unsatisfied pre-requisites), see Colette McGowan in the Recruitment and International Office in the Fraser building (opposite the library), who will probably be able to fix it. There is normally no need to see the lecturers running the courses, nor to see me again.
    6. Provided I have seen you and I have OK-ed you for doing psychology level 3 and level 4 courses, you can change them by getting Colette to change your database entry. I would appreciate it if you email me to keep me up to date, but I will take the database entries as definitive.
      The exception is critical reviews, which additionally require special supervision arrangements, and I'd appreciate you telling me as soon as possible in order to get you assigned to a group.

    Further points

  • Information about exams and term papers is dealt with on my assessment page. Lorna Morrow is available for you to consult about all written work for the department (including essays, lab reports, etc.), at all levels.

    Answers for some frequently asked questions

    Don't I have to do lab work?
    Practical work for our home students is done in separate projects, not associated with modules.

    Shouldn't I have assignments to hand in?
    No, except for the minority of level 4 option courses that have coursework as well as an exam.

    Won't I get any practice or feedback at exams?
    Not unless you organise it yourself. Past exam papers are available in the library. Home students will have had practice, and will be taking many exams all in the same format in this department/school.

    I'd like to do a psycholinguistics course.
    Psycholinguistics material is scattered as elements in:
    (level 3) Cognitive psychology
    (level 4) Interaction and communication
    (level 4) Psychology of reading and understanding

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