Welcome to the MSc Psychology at Canterbury Christ Church University. This is a psychology conversion course designed for those wanting to pursue a career in psychology, but who hold an undergraduate degree in a subject other than psychology or a non-accredited psychology degree (either combined or single honours).

Your Course Team

Key dates

Academic Calendar: Trimesters [15 Week]

View key dates for this Academic Calendar for 2025-26 including when teaching starts and finishes and when you break for holidays. 

Welcome and Induction

Your Welcome Week is an essential introduction to your course and the wider university, helping you to feel confident and prepared for your studies right from the very start.

It is important to check your Course Welcome Week for all the activities you are required to attend as part of your course induction.  If any of your welcome activities are in groups, your course team will contact you before you arrive to let you know which group you will be in.

View your Course Welcome Week

In addition, check the Student Events Hub for a range of fun activities. including the Students’ Union Welcome Fair, to help you make friends and live your best CCCU student life.

Your teaching timetable 

UniTimetables provides an overview of all teaching activities for a course. If your course is taught in groups, it will display information for all groups, not just the group you will be assigned to.

Learn more about timetabling for new students including user guides and videos.

Welcome

We look forward to working with you all, and watching you develop your knowledge, confidence and competence in psychological skills and understanding which I hope will help contribute to your future career pathways.

The course will provide you with a broad grounding in the core areas of psychology and will confer eligibility for the Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership (GBC) of the British Psychological Society (BPS)*, as long as you PASS the empirical psychology project AND obtain an overall pass for the course (50%). GBC is a requirement for postgraduate training in psychology (e.g. to become a Clinical or Educational Psychologist). However, the course can also be used as a stepping-stone onto postgraduate research in psychology (e.g. PhD).

Whilst studying for this course you can also apply for Student Membership of the BPS where you can get access to many membership benefits.

Getting started

Community

On the social side, the Student Union (CCSU) has a huge range of clubs and societies – all of which have unique social calendars of their own and offer endless opportunities to make lifelong friends and discover new hobbies. And you can always create your own society and cultivate your own community!

CCSU will be hosting their Welcome Fayre on Wednesday 17 September 2025. Make sure you keep checking the CCSU website for further details and how to get involved.

We understand that you may be nervous about your first few weeks on campus but rest assured - you'll be joining a nurturing and supportive environment where diversity, equality and individuality are part of everything we do.

Find out more about our welcoming community and making friends

If you are an International Student joining us then please see our International Student Support pages for further information and guidance.

Pre-course reading

Suggested Reading

Please see below some for some optional reading for you to do before the course starts.

These are not mandatory texts, but you may find them a helpful place to start and to have as a reference as you begin the course. They are intended to help you to start thinking psychologically and support the development of key skills for Psychology students.

Thinking Psychologically:

  • Beech, J. R. (2008). How to write in psychology: A student guide. John Wiley & Sons
  • Huff, D.. (1991). How to lie with statistics. Penguin
  • Stanovich, K. E. (2013). How to think straight about psychology. London: Pearson.

Skills for Psychology:

  • American Psychological Association (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychology Association: The Official Guide to APA Style. 7th Edition. Washington, US
  • Field, A. (2018). Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS Statistics. 5th Edition. SAGE. London. UK.

Popular texts and applications of Psychology:

Also please follow our online psychology community at CCCU and join in the conversation via our social media channels:

International student success programme

International students: don't miss out! Make sure you register for our international student success programme which provides practical advice on preparing to live and study in the UK.

Contact details

Have a question?

Speak to our friendly team for support