Personnel Image

Written By

Katherine Kokkonen

College

College of Healthcare Sciences

Publish Date

10 May 2019

Related Study Areas

Could switching careers be the right move?

Monday morning has rolled around again and you drag yourself out of bed to slog it through another week. Traffic is bumper to bumper and every metre that takes you closer to the office tightens the knot of dread in the pit of your stomach.

Once you arrive, the day takes a turn for the worse. You have a mountain of work on your desk, your boss is breathing down your neck and your colleague is doing that annoying thing they do with their pen.

Stop. Life doesn’t have to be a constant grind.

It’s never too late to change tracks and do something that fires you up in the morning.

Going back to uni can be the turning point in your life. Studying can open doors to careers you never thought were possible, become your passport to travelling across the globe and — most importantly — it can lead to a life doing something that you are passionate about.

Psychological Science student Chris Ingham felt as though he had reached a ceiling in his career in the welfare sector. Intrigued by human behaviour, he thought human psychology would be an interesting field to enter.

“I chose a Bachelor of Psychological Science because I was very fascinated by cognitive neuroscience and as I’m going through my degree, I’m being provided with so many different perspectives,” Chris says. “You’ve got health psychology, environmental psychology, cognitive psychology, memory — all these different fields.”

Psychology student Chris Ingham
Statue of a head showing phrenology diagram

Life experience makes all the difference

He initially started studying an information technology degree straight out of school, but felt it wasn’t the right time in his life for tertiary education. After travelling and being in the workforce, he’s now ready.

“Coming back as a mature student has been a lot better for me because I’ve got all this world experience, I did a lot of travelling and I’ve spent a lot of time in the workforce, and I can use that experience at university,” Chris says. “I can see that doing assignments isn’t as hard or as daunting as it may seem.”

One of the things Chris likes most about his course is its focus on research and interpreting information, while giving students an overview of the discipline’s broad applications.

“Psychology is such an amazingly diverse field. I think JCU tries to get you to dip your toes as much as possible. I think one of the best things is statistics because it’s so important to be able to understand and interpret data.”

Chris says his time at JCU has been a lot of fun and he’ll be sad when it’s time for him to finish.

“I would highly recommend JCU to people no matter what sort of degree you want to do. I feel like they’re there for the students and they’re there to see the students succeed.”

Discover JCU Psychology

Follow your fascination for human behaviour and begin a rewarding career