#mahtext

First up, go to O’week and the introductory lectures! You’ll meet your lecturers, meet your peers, and get a really good idea of what the year will be and what they expect of you. Go around to the different O’week stalls and get as many freebies as you can, especially from the big red uni union stall - they’ll give you a student diary and they usually have like boxes of tea and vouchers and it’s a real good time. 

My main piece of advice would be to definitely make it to all of your lectures, stay on top of your assignments, and please don’t be afraid to ask the lecturers for help if/when you need it. That is my biggest issue - I feel like I’ll be a hassle and not ask for help and end up with very low marks. They have a help centre open every Thursday I think for psychology students so make sure you go if you need help with the topics for that week.

First year psychology consists of three compulsory subjects; Psychology IA, Psychology IB, and Research Methods in Psychology.Psych IA and IB are simple enough - watching online can be just as good as going in person but again, make sure you ask when you need help and stay on top of your assignments. There are six topics in each subject and at the end of each topic you have a test called an ‘MAE’ where you get marked out of 30. These are open book but they are a lot easier when you’ve actually done the readings so, please, learn from my mistake and do those. For both subjects there’s two assignments, six MAE’s, and an exam.Research Methods is a challenge if you don’t pay attention. They don’t record these for online lectures do you need to show up, and they also have these SDGE’s where you need to ‘join in’ with other students and solve problems/come up with scales/etc. There are two practical lessons where you are taught how to create a research experiment. The subject has one assignment (I think, don’t hold me on that) and an open book, online exam.

There are a lot of mature-aged students when it comes to UofA so you won’t be alone. Everyone is so lovely and are usually more than willing to have a chat and make pals. I’m 22 and I managed to make a lot of friends my age when I assumed everyone would be like 17 years old and fresh from school. And hey, if you ever want to grab lunch and a pint at the UniBar and go over Research Methods notes I’d be totally down for that!