>Since I was about 16 I wanted to be a clinical psychologist. It was my main goal since then.

Ah, I think you misinterpreted my question. I was asking whether it lived up to your dreams. Is it as satisfying as you hoped?

I'll check out the course, thanks. And true, there's definitely various options to consider with careers, it's not all or nothing. I'd also consider applying to graduate entry medicine which is again super competitive but I think the experience I'd be gaining would tick a lot of the boxes for that. Did you go down the support worker -> pwp/ap -> doctorate route?

May I ask what you're planning to change careers to? Seems a shame to have gone through all that training only to do something else.

Thanks for the response! Whilst I've got you, could I pester you to answer a few more questions?

1. Is being a psychologist what you dreamed it would be?
2. If you could go back and give advice to yourself when you were younger, what might you say?
3. I'm a guy. I've noticed that most psychologists, and certainly people on my course, are women. Do you have any idea why this might be, and have you found this to be the case where you work? I'm kinda hoping this will make me stand out a bit amongst the hordes of candidates.
4. You mentioned data science. I've used a bit of R and psychology obviously involves some statistical analysis etc., but do you think that would've been an easy transition? What were your thoughts there? Sounds like maybe you had a similar back-up plan to me and my idea of a computer science conversion.

I'm definitely going to soldier on and hope to become a psychologist for now. But that voice at the back of my head does make me question it sometimes, especially since I'm a mature student, so spending another 6-10 years before I become a psychologist in the best of cases wouldn't be ideal. But it's hard to imagine being satisfied in life if I don't give it a shot.

Thanks again.

>Although just to warn you, the latter is associated with high levels of stress and burnout and there's some talk of "locking" trainees into the role, meaning they can't leave for 2 years post-qualification

I think they've already done this. It's as sad as it is funny, really: 'people are leaving this really stressful, underpaid job. How can we fix this? I know, how about we force them to stay?' Brilliant.

>be prepared for a really competitive field. I'd only recommend it if you are truly passionate and focused on it as a career. I'd say most people are looking at 3-4 years minimum of experience after undergraduate before they get onto the course, which is then another 3 years. I was fortunate to get onto the course with "only" 2.5 years of experience. Most of my colleagues have more.

What do you think helped you stand out to get on sooner than your peers? What do you think you might have done if you couldn't become a psychologist?

I'm passionate about it, but it's very depressing to read about how hard it is, and I can only imagine it's going to be harder than ever with the increased levels of graduates due to covid policy mess. Also my university seems to be stingier with 1sts; the number of people who get them supposedly goes up every year, and at my university 35% of people overall get firsts, yet for psychology in all the reports they have given out so far for any assignment I've done, only like 10% of people, max, are getting 1sts in their assignments. Very few people are going to be graduating with 1sts overall, and I'm not sure I'll be one of them. There's definitely the thought of saying 'screw it' and studying for a conversion course in computer science for an easier life, even though I'm not passionate about that.