Kent has a really excellent reputation
for social psychology so Kent is home to
the Centre for the Study of Group
Processes which produces and discusses
some of the sort of leading social
psychology research and that obviously
means that you get to learn from some of
the leading experts in the field. I
chose to go into a postgraduate study
because I feel like having an
undergraduate degree is quite common
these days so and it's quite difficult
to stand out to employers without any
further training and qualifications so I
felt like doing a Master's course would
help give me that edge in the working
world. I chose this master's course
because of the applied nature of the
course. Kent makes a real effort to go beyond
just theoretical knowledge and actually
showing you how you can apply your
understanding to real-world situations
so for example some of the topics you
might explore are how to use social
psychology to tackle social issues such
as obesity or poverty. Probably the most
interesting piece of work I did is the
research project that every student has
to do so this is a research dissertation
where you really get to focus on an area
of study that you're interested in so
for me I was looking at leadership and
innovation and how different group
scenarios influence how well leaders can
innovate. Kent has a wide range of
facilities for social psychology
research so they have specially designed
group labs which can be used for any
study involving group behavior and Kent
also has a computer suite that is
specifically designated for masters
students so it's a nice little reclusive
area that you can get some work done.
The school psychology has a range of
research groups here so the social
psychology one is Group Lab and this is
a nice informal meeting place where
staff and students can come together and
just discuss their research in their
development so I think that's a really
good way to develop your skills as a
researcher my advice to students coming
to Kent to study social psychology would
be to just really get involved in
everything that the university has to
offer so this can be academic like the
research groups group lab is always good
to go to or non-academic so Kent also has a range of
sporting and non-sporting societies that
you can take part in
