BSc Psychology at King's – Welcome to our new students for 2025

Congratulations – you’re in! We hope you are looking forward to starting with us at King’s. This webpage includes information, guidance and advice to help you prepare for, and get started on, your BSc Psychology degree. The information below focuses on what you need to know before you arrive, and what you will do in the first few days and weeks of your degree.

The first on-campus session of the BSc Psychology degree will be induction sessions on Guy’s Campus on Monday 22 September 2025. There will be a second day of induction activities, also at the Guy’s Campus, on Thursday 25 September. However, there are several things that you should do before then, as well as other activities that you can opt into. 

Download the Welcome to King's App

The Welcome to King’s App includes the Welcome Calendar for new students at King’s. This will show you what’s happening for the whole period of Welcome to King’s and allow you to book into events. You can download the Welcome to King’s App for free from an Appstore (e.g., Google or Apple) – though please check carefully when doing so because there are other Apps available with very similar names!

Introductory work for the Semester 1 psychology modules

You can start preparing for your degree right away! We have identified some reading and other activities, which will introduce some of your Semester 1 modules. There are details of this material below. This will take less than a day altogether (e.g., they could be done over few evenings); please complete this work by Monday 29 September.

Check your King's email account regularly

Email is one of the main ways that we will contact you with important information about your studies. Once you are a member of King’s College London, the University will no longer use the email account that you used in your communication with King’s during the application and pre-admission process. Therefore, it is very important that you get into a regular habit of checking your King's email account – ideally, every working day – because otherwise you may miss out on important information. There may only be a few emails in the weeks leading up to the start of Semester, but once Semester has started, there will be a great deal of information coming to you via your King's email account.

Improve your digital skills

As part of being a student at King’s, you will have access to an enormous range of online resources that will open up many opportunities for learning. To help you make the most of these resources and opportunities, King’s have designed the Essential Digital Skills programme. You can self-register for this online course as soon as you have the K-number and password for your King's IT Account. We would strongly encourage you to complete Chapters 1 and 2 of the course (there are four in total), either just before Welcome Week or during the week itself.

Here is an outline of what happens each day.

Day 1 of Induction: Monday 22 September

Come to the Harris Lecture Theatre (Hodgkin Building) on the Guy’s Campus. We will begin our first session at 10:00, but please aim to arrive a few minutes early to ensure that you are there in good time. This first day will include activities in the BSc Psychology Teaching Rooms (Addison House). You will get to know your fellow BSc Psychology students, meet your lecturers, be introduced to some of the online learning resources for your studies (e.g., order the e-codes for your Semester 1 textbooks). We’ll also provide lunch (including vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options), which will give you further opportunities to mix with your fellow students. The day’s activities will finish by 15.00. You can then head to the Welcome Fair at Old Billingsgate.

Day 2 of Induction: Thursday 25 September

Please arrive at Guy’s Campus in time for a 10:00 start (you will find out on Day 1 of Induction which room to come to when you arrive on Day 2). You will learn more about your course and what your first year of study will involve, and will find out about KEATS (the online platform that provides you with resources and activities to support your studies). You will get to meet your Personal Tutor and meet with other students in your Personal Tutor Group. Between these sessions student Mentors from years two and three on your programme will be available to give you campus tours and help you find the best lunch spots on campus and in the surrounding areas. Day 2 of Induction will finish by 17:00.

Please sign up for both days of Induction activities via the Welcome to King’s App. If you are unable to attend some or all of the two Induction Days, please email Ginny Sanders (Programme Officer for Year 1 BSc Psychology students).

For the remainder of the on-campus week of Welcome to King’s, there are no compulsory induction events for the BSc Psychology course. However, there will be many events across King’s that you can get involved in – and we recommend that you join some of these events (whatever interests you!). For example, there will be events online and at the Denmark Hill Campus for new students at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (which is your faculty - the part of King’s that you are now a member of). So do keep an eye out for anything that interests you.

Don’t forget to complete the introductory work for the Semester 1 psychology modules by the end of the on-campus week of Welcome to King’s – see details below.

The “regular” timetable for the Semester begins on Monday 29 September.

Compulsory BSc Psychology Semester 1 Modules:

• Psychology and the Brain
• Psychology and Society
• Research Methods 1
• Inspirational Research (continues in Semester 2)
• Addressing Real-World Problems (continues in Semester 2)

Additionally, Transition into Higher Education: Skills for University Study, is available to a subset of students (approx. 40). This is an optional non-credit bearing module designed to help you develop the key skills for university and key graduate attributes expected by all employers. You will receive more information about the module during Welcome Week and instructions on how to enrol from Week 2 onwards. Once enrolled, the module runs from Week 6 of Semester 1 to Week 5 of Semester 2 (10 weeks in total) with one 90-minute interactive workshop each week.  

The teaching timetable for Semester 1 begins on Monday 29 September. The final day of Semester is Friday 19 December and your final timetabled activity for Semester 1 takes place on Friday 12 December 2025. 

Three of your Semester 1 modules have examinations in January, within the period Friday 9 January to Thursday 15 January 2026. You will need to be in London to complete these exams. Semester 2 begins on Friday 16 January 2026.

Some BSc Psychology students from a few years ago have shared their experiences of studying psychology at King's in the 'Making the transition to university' videos linked below. Take a look to see what you can expect on the degree, and to get some tips for your first year at King's: 

We also recommend that you take a look at this guide that has been put together for students who are about to start university. It is called Know Before You Go and will help prepare you for many of the practical and personal challenges associated with entering higher education.

Here are the details of the main module textbooks for your core modules:

• Schacter, D., Gilbert, D., & Wegner, D. with Hood, B. M. Psychology (European Edition). Published by Worth Publishers / Palgrave
• Toates, F. Biological Psychology. Published by Pearson
• Reisberg, D. Cognition: Exploring the science of the mind. Published by W. W. Norton & Co.
• Greenberg, J., Schmader, T., Arndt, J., & Landau, M. J., Social psychology: the science of everyday life. Published by Worth Publishers.
• Leman, P., Bremner, A., Parke, R. D., & Gauvin, M. Developmental psychology. Published by McGraw-Hill.
• Maltby, J. Day, L. & Macaskill, A. Personality, individual differences and intelligence. Published by Pearson.
• Haselgrove, M. Learning: A very short introduction. Published by Oxford University Press
• Stanovich, K. E. How to think straight about psychology. Published by Pearson.
• Howell, D. C. Fundamental statistics for the behavioral sciences. Published by Cengage Learning. 
• Gravetter, F. J., Forzano, L. B. & Rakow, T. Research methods for the behavioural sciences. Published by Cengage Learning. 

Where relevant, we will explain how you access your copies individual of these textbooks in the Induction session on Thursday 25 September.

Meet some of the team

Ginny Sanders

BSc Psychology Programme Officer for Year 1 BSc Psychology students

Professor Michael Aitken

Head of Department of Psychology

Professor Juliet Foster

Dean of Education

Professor Ellie Dommett

Director BSc Psychology

Dr Oliver Runswick

Deputy Director (Industry & Employability) BSc Psychology

Dr James Findon

Deputy Director (Curriculum Design) BSc Psychology

Dr Caroline Catmur

Deputy Director (Research Methods and Skills) BSc Psychology

Dr Ashley Brown

Module Co-Lead for Psychology and the Brain

Dr Apurv Chauhan

Module Co-Lead for Psychology and Society

Dr Dan Kennedy-Higgins

Module Co-Lead for Research Methods 1 and Research Methods 2

Dr Alan Meehan

Module Co-Lead for Inspirational Research and Psychology and Development

Dr Julia Ouzia

Inclusive Education Lead

Dr Rebecca Upsher

Deputy Senior Tutor

Dr Ken Widanaralalage

Module Co-Lead for Psychology and Society

Dr Sumeyra Yalcintas

Module Co-Lead for Addressing Real-World Problems

Dr Nicola Byrom

Senior Tutor

Dr Devin Terhune

Deputy Senior Tutor for Year 1 students

Dr Salim Hashmi

Module Co-Lead for Psychology and Development

Dr Sam Westwood

Module Co-Lead for Research Methods 2

Dr Tim Rakow

Module Co-Lead for Research Methods 1 and Addressing Problems

Dr Stacey Bedwell

Module Co-Lead for Inspirational Research and Psychology and the Brain

1. The IoPPN is passionate about psychological research, and this is reflected in your BSc degree programme. In the Inspirational Research module you will have the opportunity to meet with some of King’s notable researchers, and to ask questions of them about their research. For this module, it will be valuable to keep up to date with current research so that you can engage fully with these sessions. A good way to keep up to date with research is to read the British Psychological Society (BPS) Research Digest, which appears in The Psychologist and can be accessed here  via the BPS website. For your introductory activity for this module, take an hour or so to read through some of the recently posted articles.

2. In your degree, we will train you to understand psychological research and to be able to conduct research for yourself. This will begin with the Research Methods 1 module. Learning skills in data analysis will be an important part of this training, and we have prepared an online lecture to introduce you to this statistical component of this module.

Your activity for this module is to watch this video and complete the activities that it includes. You will first need to download this lecture handout.

If the video does not display above, cut and paste this link into a new window: https://media.kcl.ac.uk/media/Introduction+to+Statistics+and+Data+Analysis/1_ivh7naqo

It will take you 60-75 minutes to watch the video and to do the activities that it includes. The handout also has details of some questions you should answer (which you can do before arriving on campus) and your initial reading for this module (to be done once we have given you your textbook). 

3. Before you arrive at King’s College London to study on the BSc Psychology degree, you will find it beneficial to familiarise yourself with some material on biological psychology which will relate to your Psychology and the Brain module. To do this we encourage you to access a new free online textbook 'Introduction to Biological Psychology' and read Chapter 1. If you have more time, reading any of chapters 2-5 will be helpful to you later on. If you cannot access this book or prefer to read something briefer, you can start with a resource from the British Neuroscience Association (BNA), which is free to download from the BNA. The sections most relevant to your study in the first few weeks are those at the beginning of the publication. Therefore, you should read through Sections 1-3, but you may also want to look over the material on the developing nervous system and brain imaging. You could also look at this neuroscience and psychology blog which links to some interesting articles.

Each module requires 150 hours of work – making a total of 1200 hours across the year for the 8 modules. That’s a lot of work to fit into 36 weeks (28 weeks of Semester time plus two 4-week periods between the University Semesters) – but the effort is well worth it! Most of this time will be spent in some form of independent study; therefore, for much of the year it will be up to you to organise your time in the way that helps you to get the most from the course. To give you an idea of what this means, you might choose to work 40 hours per week every week during Semester and do the same for two of the eight weeks that fall outside of Semester time. Alternatively, it might suit you better to do 35 hours every week during Semester and outside of Semester time, taking a week off at Christmas / New Year and half a week off in the period between Semesters 2 and 3.