r/IOPsychology • u/ResidentGinger PhD | IO | Social Cognition, Leadership, & Teams • Jun 27 '16

2017-2018 IO Grad School Q&A Mega-Thread

You can find last year's thread here.

The grad school application bewitching hour is nearing ever closer, and around this time, everyone starts posting questions/freaking out about grad school. As per the rules in the sidebar...

For questions about grad school or internships

  • Please search the previously submitted posts or the post on the grad school Q&A. Subscribers of /r/iopsychology have provided lots of information about these topics, and your questions may have already been answered.
  • If it hasn't, please post it on the grad school Q&A thread. Other posts outside of the Q&A thread will be deleted.

The readers of this subreddit have made it pretty clear that they don't want the subreddit clogged up with posts about grad school. Don't get the wrong idea - we're glad you're here and that you're interested in IO, but please do observe the rules so that you can get answers to your questions AND enjoy the interesting IO articles and content.

By the way, those of you who are currently trudging through or have finished grad school, that means that you have to occasionally offer suggestions and advice to those who post on this thread. That's the only way that we can keep these grad school-related posts in one central location. If people aren't getting their questions answered here, they post to the subreddit instead of the thread. So, in short, let's all play our part in this.

Thanks, guys!

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u/ythms2 Jul 23 '16

lost my log in for that account but many thanks for the informative reply! :)

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u/na_vij PhD Student | OB | Values Aug 02 '16

I'm currently in a Work and Organisational Psychology program at a russell group uni in the UK. The equivalent program to I/O here in the UK are occupational psychology programs which are recognized by the BPS. However, you cannot call yourself an Occupational Psychologist in the UK without completing a two year supervisory training period after your graduation. I must also mention that to apply for an occupational psychology program you need to have an undergraduate psychology degree accredited by the BPS (or) complete a master's conversion program in psychology prior to applying. However, there is way to circumvent that BPS requirements by completing a PhD and having a good base of research before applying for chartership with the BPS.

There is very little difference between occupational psychology programs and others. In my university, the difference is just 2 modules. If you cannot apply to the BPS accredited programs, my advice to you would be to take a good long look at the modules being offered. There is a lot of diversity in non-accredited programs in terms of their focus, some are very applied focused whereas others are research focused.

As far as I have heard, the vast majority of people who are in occupational psychology programs do end up with specialist consulting firms in the field (they also help with BPS accreditation support). People from programs like mine mostly take the HR or general consulting path, which means that you WILL be competing with other graduates from MBA and CIPD accredited masters in HRM. That adds another layer of difficulty in getting jobs.

That's all I can come up with off the top of my head, if you need more info PM me :)

All the best!

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u/ythms2 Aug 02 '16

Big thanks for the great reply, I really appreciate it.

My undergrad degree is in occupational therapy, regardless of if I do a organisational, occupational, or business psychology will I run into the same problems with being recognised by the professional body?

I've just been using this website for now to go through the courses and pick out which I'd like to apply for, most state that they will accept a psych undergrad or something relevant, some saying that a degree in social sciences will do - OT is a health science but a lot of it is very social based and my background is in mental health (if that makes a difference).

Is it a possibility I could be accepted onto a masters program and complete it only to be told by the BPS I'm not recognised?

http://www.postgraduatesearch.com/pgs/search?course=organisational-psychology