None taken. I see where you're coming from Badhaircut, and to be fair, I haven’t actually applied to any DClinPsy courses as yet. I figured since I've been facing only rejection for assistant places, based solely on my application form for the past four months, there was little point in skipping one rung on the ladder and applying directly for DClinPsy, knowing how competitive it is. You're not the first to suggest to me that I take other routes, which I have, and thanks, I'll keep on looking into them. I did have the view that it was unfair before I even started applying for assistant posts, based on others experiences and talks with lecturers. My use of 'unfair' was a little cloudy.

To be specific, I'm referring to the whole structure of the undergrad and post grad psy degrees. This might be a little controversial, but I think the whole thing should be taken apart from the beginning and made more vocational from the start, like social work- so you have the skills to go out into the community to practice at some level with people who are in need of care, and then the option to specialise further is there if you want it.

I do think that educational and forensic are a lot straighter forward, in terms of access, however, they all do require money, for which I believe government funding for edPsy has been removed, and although you work while you study, the fees are extortionate. This is why a lot of people who think about entering these areas choose to work for a while to save up a little beforehand, but the jobs which will also give you relevant experience, even those at the start of the ladder, ask for some kind of experience (!?).

DClinPsy hasn’t always been my first choice, and its great that there's so much overlap between the areas, that all are appealing in some way or another. I don't want to deter prospective students from entering the field as it's a rich(in terms of personal gain), fulfilling, and worthwhile area of study, that benefits whole communities, nationally and world wide, which is why I love it so much . Students just need to know that professional qualification isn’t as straight forward as many vocational courses where you are more likely guaranteed work in some capacity within your chosen field. I will keep my options open.

In ways I agree psyc degrees should be mre vocational, if only to help people decide what direction to go post degree, but i don't think this would help the situation of getting into a job afterwards as there would still be hundreds more graduates than there are jobs, the competition would just be harder as new graduates would have more experience. The currect situation seems arduous, but it does weedle out those who are not dedicated enough to stick with it (myself included) I have friends who have got onto DClinPsyc courses, one of whom spent her free time working with an autistic boy, when the rest of us were down the pub. In many ways rather than making the course more vocational, undergrads should be encouraged, if they're serious about going into clinical psychology, to gain work experience during their degrees themselves.

I can see why more vocational psychology courses may help some that want to be an applied psychologist afterwards.

However, there are many that just want to study psychology as a science (including me) and would think having to do a compulsory "vocational" element as a huge distraction from the main business of getting a good academic grounding in the subject. For me having to do extra work in a clinical or other setting would have really been a massive turn off, as it is entirely irrelevant, and may make my degree longer. Presumably this is also what those that go off to teach, into HR, etc would feel too.

Additionally, there are already courses that have a built in placement year where people do get vocational experience etc, but take 4 years to graduate. Thats fine but would be a nightmare if every psychology course adopted this (especially if you are not sure what you want to do). I guess a better choice would be to do a degree in counselling or social work, medicine etc if you want something more vocational from the off.

I can also imagine problems finding the psychologists to supervise these thousands of new graduates, if the problems in are psychology research are anything to go by (at one point my PhD supervisor had 7 people to supervise and none of us got much attention).

I agree that universities should be more open about the competitiveness of psychology careers, but then again no university is going to openly say "Hey come study here! You will find it difficult to find work afterwards though!".