If I could change my programme...

Well, I’m in my 4^th year of the programme of psychology of the Universidad de Chile and I have some complaints. I think that I haven’t developed skills that I need for work properly. In this programme the only concern is to learn theories and content, and sometimes a critical thought.

So, I think that some changes are really necessary in this programme. In the first place, I think that is necessary organize practical activities since the first year and increase the option to intervene with the years of experience of the student. But it is important that these activities don’t correspond to a particular subject but to be transversal to the programme. This would allow the student to apply the things that have learn so far.  Also these activities will prepare the student for the field work because will allow him/her to develop some skills that are beyond the theories.

Also, I would eliminate some subjects that are really specifics for the firsts years, like “basic processes of learning (that sound really introductive, but actually I think that I never going to use the things that I learn there). In this respect, some of these subjects make the programme more difficult because the teachers expected you to memorize a lot of concepts and content and that give you -as student- more workload. I think currently is no need to memorize, because you can find anything that you don’t remember in the internet very quickly. So I think is more important to show the student the use they can give to this theories and concepts.

Last but not least is really important that the teachers dedicate time to plan ahead the classes and compromise with the subject that they are teaching, because you can really tell when some teacher doesn’t want to be there. Also, some teachers need some courses of pedagogy, because they know a lot of the topic that are teaching, but they don’t know how to teach it.