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Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience

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IoPPN student and graduate profiles

The IoPPN has over a thousand students who come to us from all over the world. Find out more about what our students think about their time here at the Institute: 

 

Ottilie Sedgwick | MSc Clinical Forensic Psychology

I did my undergraduate degree at King's and was always keen to study at the IoPPN for my Master's. So many people here are world leading experts in their fields which is very inspirational, and the students are all of such high quality.

One of the best things about my course is that it offers a 75 day clinical placement where students take the role of honorary assistant psychologist two days a week. The clinical placement has been a fantastic experience, allowing me to see first hand how a secure forensic psychiatric service operates.

I'm doing this MSc as a preparatory year before I begin a PhD in September with the Biomedical Research Centre at the IoP. My PhD will be broadly on the topic of clinical forensic psychology, so this course fitted perfectly as an introduction. Following this, I hope to train as a clinical psychologist.

Chesmal Siriwardhana | MSc Psychiatric Research

I studied this programme as part of my Wellcome Trust Fellowship in Public Health and Tropical Medicine. It was the perfect course to enhance my skills in psychiatric and mental health research. I had worked as a researcher in mental health prior to the course and this course gave me the chance to hone my skills and learn sound research and statistical methodology. I also had the chance to acquire knowledge on different fields of psychiatric research.

Being at the IoP was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life as I had the chance to learn from global leaders in mental health. They were inspirational for me in many ways in developing my career as a researcher and an academic.

Grace Ryan | MSc Global Mental Health

My background is in medical anthropology, a field that generates a lot of criticism of global health agendas in general, and of global mental health in particular. I wanted to understand this debate better, but not simply from the anthropological perspective. I saw faculty at the IoPPN and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who were working cross-disciplinarily to channel academic critiques into better service delivery, and I wanted the opportunity to learn from them.

The Global Mental Health MSc is the only course in the world of its kind, and having the opportunity to be a part of the inaugural class has been wonderful. It has attracted an amazing cross-section of students from very different backgrounds, and we learn from each other almost as much as we learn from our professors. I think it's that spirit of collaboration that's the best thing about the course.

Amelia Jewell | MSc Forensic Mental Health Research

I chose to do the Forensic Mental Health Research course as it allowed me to combine both mental health and forensics, two topics I have been particularly interested in since my undergraduate degree. I enjoyed completing the dissertation in my undergraduate degree which helped me decide to follow the research pathway of my course at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience.

The best thing about being a student at the IoP is having the opportunity to attend so many worthwhile events both within and outside the Institute, including guest lectures, conferences and training workshops. It gives you the opportunity to meet people from different disciplines and learn so much more around the subject. There is so much research going on at the IoPPN and it is exciting to be a part of it.

Sinem Tekes | MSc Mental Health Studies

"I chose this MSc specifically due to the clinical placements offered, and also the teaching content especially the focus on formulation skills. The course offered a broad range of modules which all sounded very interesting.

The programme team were fantastic and the module leaders were very approachable and supportive. It was great being around other students who were ambitious and aspired to achieve and contribute to mental health. I enjoyed being the student representative on the course as there were many opportunities to make changes and the staff were all very helpful with driving the student voice forward and supporting student led initiatives.

It was challenging at times to manage the demands of the course including coursework and exams, thesis as well as the clinical placement. However I believe this gave me a very well rounded experience and valuable insight into the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (DClinPsy) programme, which helped me gain the confidence to balance these demands.

My thesis was published and I also had the opportunity to attend an international conference to present the findings as part of a symposium. I had kept contact with my research supervisor after finishing the MSc and we worked together to prepare the thesis for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. It felt incredibly rewarding to have my name on a published paper for the first time, and the opportunity to disseminate the findings to researchers and clinicians working within the field.

I am confident that I would not be where I am today without the master’s! It helped me to develop my academic and research skills, which was incredibly important to gain my first research assistant role. The master’s also helped me to gain a deeper understanding of the role of a clinical psychologist and inspired me to continue down that route."

Petra Gronholm | MSc Mental Health Studies

"I really enjoyed the dynamic academic environment at the campus, the frequent opportunities to attend interesting talks and training sessions, and the atmosphere of working alongside world-class scientists in the various fields of psychiatric research.

I wanted to follow up my Psychology BSc course with postgraduate studies that provided a deeper understanding of the human experience of mental health difficulties. I was also interested in community mental health, issues around barriers to care, health services availability and accessibility; the Mental Health Studies MSc felt like a perfect match for this.

The course offered a broad range of optional modules, so I could tailor its focus to my interests. The lectures were engaging, with speakers often bringing added depth to the teaching by going beyond theory to discuss real-life applications based on their own work, and through examples of ongoing research. I enjoyed the flexibility of the dissertation project too, and how this could be chosen from a list of suggested studies or be set up by the student. The latter option enabled me to combine my dissertation research with the part-time research work I carried out alongside my studies, which made for a smooth integration between work and studies.

My dissertation project has been published: Mental health service use by young people aged 9-18 years: the role of caregiver characteristics. During the final year of my MSc I successfully applied for a competitive fully-funded NIHR BRC PhD studentship, and consequently transitioned to full-time PhD studies once I had completed the course. The PhD project proposal this studentship supported was developed jointly with my MSc dissertation supervisors and myself, with the project intended as a continuation of the research I conducted during the MSc. Thus, without the continued collaborations I established with my supervisors during the MSc, I would not have had the opportunity to pursue this PhD studentship.

Overall, in my experience, the MSc provides a great platform whether wishing to develop skills suitable for clinical work or a more research-orientated career.

 

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