Program Overview

Our four-year Psychology with Placement Year BSc allows you to study across the breadth of the subject before putting your new knowledge into practice during a year-long work placement. From your very first week at Sheffield, you’ll start to cover five key areas:

• Cognitive psychology
• Developmental psychology
• Neuroscience and clinical psychology
• Social and health psychology
• Research methods

Within these five areas, you'll get the chance to explore important topics with real world relevance such as addictions, eating disorders and depression. You'll run your own experiments and learn from some of the UK’s top psychology researchers, too.

In the first year of your degree, you'll study fundamental psychology topics, including how memory works, how we interact with others and our environment, and the biology behind human behaviour.

In second year, you go even deeper into these core subjects. For example, you’ll learn about eating disorders, how children learn, and why people struggle to follow through with their intentions.

Your advanced research methods training that runs alongside this will teach you how to use professional statistical analysis software, and how to take ethical considerations into account when designing research projects. This will give you an excellent foundation of subject knowledge and the technical skills you’ll need, ready to specialise in the topics you’re most passionate about in your third year.

Alongside your studies, during your second year you’ll embark on your placement hunt. Placements aren't guaranteed - it’s your responsibility to secure one, but there’s plenty of support available. From regular emails about opportunities specifically for psychology students, to workshops on CV and application writing, job hunting and preparing for interviews, the school employability team and the University careers service are on hand to support you.

A placement is a great opportunity to test out a career path that you're considering, whether that's within the field of psychology or applying your transferable skills in industry. Our students have previously completed their placements with organisations including the NHS, Prison and Probation Services, and local schools, in roles including assistant psychologist and HR business development.

When you return to Sheffield for your final year, you’ll have a huge range of optional modules to choose from. Topics range from criminal psychology and the psyc