Having taken Psychology HL in my IB Diploma, my interest in the subject grew by a hundredfold. I wanted to keep myself engaged to this subject for the most amount of time possible, therefore I joined the Psychology Club. This was already a club for a month before I found out, so when I did, I joined it right away. There were a lot of fun sessions, and my favorite ones were where we psycho-analyzed popular characters from Marvel/DC/Sherlock etc. Overall, my time in the Psychology Club proved to be really fruitful and fun. Here is a screenshot of a session:
Components of CAS:
Creativity: These sessions were really creative, and brought out our creative and critical thinking skills by a multifold.
Learning Outcomes catered:
- I could identify my aptitude for psychology through the knowledge that I had gained over the years and also the way theories came to my mind. I could use my strengths in communication and research to accumulate more knowledge about certain psychological phenomenon, and then present them to the class in an effective manner.
- I had to stay focused during the sessions, and not veer too off topic for the organizer’s sake. `Moreover, I could develop my self-management skills by learning to organize my research, which could then more effectively be shared with groupmates and organizers working on the same topic.
4. I had basically attended every session with backed research in order to participate wholeheartedly in the session. This shows my commitment towards this club and the overall subject of Psychology. Moreover, I also carried out certain external research tasks in order to fully understand certain concepts, like Neuroplasticity and Neurotransmission.
5. Group Discussions brought a lot of new and interesting concepts to the table, things that we couldn’t know otherwise and were actually useful in real life too. A lot of our doubts were cleared, and we helped clear a lot of doubts too, especially the people from Grade 11 who were new to the subject.
6. We conducted several sessions on Mental Health awareness, discussing how different experiences in life can affect differently aged people. For example, a teenager can be affected by exam pressure, bullying, isolation etc. A young adult can be affected by job pressure, and a middle-aged person can be affected by family pressure. In certain parts of India, Mental Health is considered to be a taboo subject, as we often make the mistake of undermining it’s importance.
7. Several sessions were conducted discussing APA and other such organizations that look into the ethics used in psychological experiments. This contained topics like ethical considerations a researcher has to take, like consent, debriefing the participants etc. This also contained the concepts of deception and other ethical constraints. Finally, we discussed the use of animal research, and the need for humane sacrifice if it ever arises.