All my life I had taken psychology as any other subject taught in schools. It was not until I took critical look at Kuther’s handbook that gave me light on just how important psychology is important in a human being’s life. This book has insightful explanations that hit directly into the fears of unknown that students often develop in the course of career choice. This was cemented by interesting lectures and encouragements I got from the University. I got much interest in health psychology because I realize the physical health, emotional health and mental health go hand in hand. Most of my friends took counseling as a subject for encouraging people with problems. However, this career is far much more than just counseling. Psychology has embraced modern technologies and students have varieties of areas to specialize in psychology. More so, various careers depend on psychology for their running of their activities. This takes me to the areas within psychology that students do not like specializing in.
First, education psychology is another field within psychology that is very important. Unfortunately, students associate this subject with teaching and those who have no interest in teaching rarely take this career path. As an enlightened psychologist, I have known clearly that education psychology is just as important as health psychology, forensic psychology and developmental psychologies. Another field in psychology that students do not have much interest in is the forensic psychology. This field deals with application of psychology in criminal law. It is important, especially in when dealing criminal acts, their behavior and theories related to criminal behavior. This is one of the most interesting careers that students should look into seriously. Students associate this field of psychology with police and law enforcement agencies. This discourages students who have no interest in these fields from taking this career path.
Time wasted is never recovered and if a student fails to plan his time then such a student is definitely planning to fail. Time management is very crucial for students preparing to do exams. First, students should develop personal study time tables and follow it strictly without any supervision. This will instill discipline among the students. Also, the time table should be goal oriented. This means that each time allocated on the time table should have the goal it aims at achieving. For example, a student can cover a topic and evaluate himself and ask others questions from it to confirm that you have really understood the topic and no challenging question can fail you from such topic.
Critical thinking
This is an important component to students. One of my friends argued that AIDS IS a curse and I believed such a myth for a long time. I felt sorry for them and wished that the curse would go away. I even helped in spreading that myth to others. One day as I watched keenly as the HIV/AIDS patients streamed into a nearby hospital, I started thinking. How can a curse have the same signs and symptoms? Who curses these people and why? These questions prompted to ask my science teacher who explained to me how the condition is spread from one person to another, preventive measures and how to live with the condition. Had it not been for my critical thinking I would have remained in the dark as far as this disease is concerned for a long time.
There are some things in life that are destined to happen just as they are. The sun rises without the control of anything and the crowing of the cock has no relationship with the rising sun. This is because the crow has related the rising sun and crowing. In real life situation, sometimes we relate some life happenings to fate and destiny. For example, people believe that once you are born in a poor family then your life is destined for poverty. This is all in the mind and has no direct relationship with what one may become in future.
Kuther, D. (2011.). The Psychology Major's Handbook. New York: Cengage Learning. .
