A brief workshop was organized by the Department of Psychology for the third year students regarding career and skill development on March 10, 2018, 14 final year students participated in this workshop. The resource person for the workshop was Ms. Shwetha K.T, from Anirvedha-Resource Centre for Psychological wellbeing, Mangalore.
The session began with interactive activity where each student was asked to write two traits that qualified them to be a good psychologist and two traits that caused a hindrance. Once everybody had written for themselves, the students were asked to circulate their paper so that each of them could give their feedback pertaining to the individual. This activity proved to be very helpful as it paved a way for introspection and realization that favoured making desired changes.
After the successful completion of the activity, Ms Shwetha then familiarized us with varied career options that a student of psychology could pursue. She mentioned a few such career options as child psychology, adult psychology, organizational psychology and
their rising scope.
Ms. Shwetha emphasized the core qualities required by a person to be a good psychologist. First and foremost, she said it is necessary for a psychologist to be non-judgmental and unbiased as this would help the psychologist to comprehend any dilemmas faced by the patients/cases. The second most important factor was to be knowledgeable and excel in theory as it was essential to have a strong base. She encouraged students to read a lot of books in order to broaden their perspectives.
Apart from academics, one had to be aware about different cultural and social norms to facilitate communication as rapport is the key. Besides it would help to deliver culturally appropriate services and interventions. Ms. Shwetha spoke of the importance of being a good listener. She taught students a few etiquettes that were expected of a psychologist during an intervention such as maintaining a good posture, ensuring that a patient feels that one is paying attention by nodding appropriately, pacifying when required and other decorum.
The interaction ended with a short question answer session where all the questions and doubts pertaining to psychology based careers were answered. Overall it was an inspiring session that gave the participants a deeper insight to the field of psychology and motivated us to work harder towards our goals.
