When I first started my psychology degree, I remember finding myself in unfamiliar territory juggling statistics and wrestling with APA formatting late into the night. I learned a lot in my first year, most of which came from some completely avoidable mistakes that stung in the moment but taught me some hard lessons. So in the spirit of embracing my not-so bright moments and maybe helping others to avoid such mistakes, here are my top 10 mistakes that I made in my first year. And yes, some of these still make me cringe a year onward…

1. Not Sorting Out Class Timetables Early (Yes, it will bite you)

At the end of my first semester I heard whispers of other students discussing their classes for the next semester. I shrugged it off. After all, we hadn’t even started break yet, surely I would have time to organise it a bit later.

Fast forward a couple weeks and I finally remembered I needed to enrol in my classes. To my dismay I clicked onto my class planner and saw class after class struck out in red. FULLY BOOKED.

I ended up with all my classes jammed onto one day with multiple lectures occurring at the same time as tutorial classes, forcing me to watch them online in my own time.

So learn from me, and find out early when enrolments open. Freedom of choice is always worth a little earlier inconvenience.

2. Not Triple Checking Statistical Analyses

This one stings. It was my first statistics unit and I was writing my first major report. Up until that point I had genuinely enjoyed statistics and felt I had a good grasp of the content. Having received a decent grade for my draft which included my introduction, abstract and references, I was feeling relieved. Surely my final grade couldn’t be worse than my draft. It was only up from now. Or so I thought.

Confused when my final mark returned significantly lower than my draft I opened up my feedback and my heart sank. I hadn’t triple checked and run all my statistical tests before submitting my report and had missed a mistake in one of my interpretations of a p value. I had completely missed that a result was statistically significant. Even though the rest of my report was well written and backed up with thorough research, my marker couldn’t move me beyond a credit.

I learned my lesson the hard way: always triple check the results and statistical analyses section of your report.

3. Leaving The Exam Too Early

One of the perks of university exams is that once you’ve sat through the mandated time slot you may leave early. As soon as the minute hits, 1/3 of the room makes a mass exodus. You will feel tempted to leave, even if you haven’t thoroughly checked all your answers.

Resist the peer pressure.

It will be tempting to rush and get out to avoid being the group of stragglers at the end. However, it’s really important in psychology to take your time reading through every option. Psychology multiple choice questions are notoriously riddled with trick options that are technically correct but not the most correct answer.

It’s only half an hour more of your life. Check your answers.

4. Not Reading Marking Rubrics Thoroughly

Learning to thoroughly comb through the marking rubric is something I had been taught to do since high school but never really took seriously until university. See in high school, more often than not the rubric contained very generic information and bands based on “writes well” and “writes really well to a high degree”.

However in university I learned that marking rubrics contain lots of valuable information sometimes including the exact essay structure and components markers are looking for. In one case, only by looking at the rubric last minute did I realise my assignment called for a very specific structure completely at odds with how I had intuitively set up my essay. It’s a great first step when planning any assessment. Really have a look at the marking criteria and map out what requirements you’ll need to hit.

5. Writing Like An English Student, Not A Scientist

This was probably the biggest learning curve I faced coming from high school to my psychology degree. I had done science subjects in high school, but my primary experience of essay writing was in English subjects. I knew how to write an essay. But writing a psychology report? Completely different skillset.

While high school English might have taught me the foundations of grammar and structuring arguments, I still found I lacked skills in proper paraphrasing and concise writing required for excellent psychology reports. Learning how to summarise a 38 page research paper into a couple sentences was a whole journey.

So whether you did English Standard or Extension 2 English, it’s well worth reading up on how to write a psychology essay and paying attention to your introductory writing classes. You might be surprised at what you learn.

6. Not Setting Aside Time For Formatting

One whole day. Yep you heard me. My biggest regret from my first year is not setting aside one whole day just before submitting my assignments to go through and check that my formatting matches the APA requirements. This is the number one place psych students lose marks. It could be references, page numbers missing, incorrect header sizes, italics in the wrong spot…seriously there are so many bits and pieces it’s all too easy to miss a component.

Let yourself write uninterrupted first. Get the ideas out and nail the content. Then before you submit, set aside one whole session to go through and perfect the formatting without the stress of finishing the assignment clouding your judgement.

Luckily, it doesn’t need to be a total pain in the neck. For my fellow Aussie students, I made a free downloadable pre-formatted APA 7th edition Word template that you can use. It’s got margins, font size, page numbers, title page and indentation all set up so you can focus on writing instead of fighting APA every step of the way.

7. Not Speaking Up In Group Work

As a socially anxious person who hates speaking to baristas and hairdressers, this one was hard for me. But trust me, if you have questions or if you feel like someone isn’t pulling their weight? Speak up early. Everyone hates group work, but it’s really hard to make changes once the initial expectations and planning stage has passed. Issues won’t magically resolve on their own, as much as I wish that were the case as a conflict averse person myself. More often than not, your other members were just waiting for someone else to start the conversation first.

8. Falling Behind On Notes

It’s a pretty common dilemma. The first few weeks you’re on top of everything and motivation is high. But as the semester fills up it’s easy to fall behind and tell yourself you will catch up on notes closer the exam. May as well do it in one lot, right? Making notes counts as revision anyway right? Right? Sigh…I think we all know the answer to that. As with most things in life, short term temporary suffering is always better than delayed compunded suffering. Same thing with notes. Make a system, a template or set aside a day to get them done. You’ll thank yourself later.

9. Ignoring The Readings

I have to admit I am still guilty of this a lot of the time. Honestly, sometimes I think universities don’t understand their students to have lives, jobs, responsibilities outside of reading 10 assigned chapters in dry academic vernacular.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend like I do all my readings. Sometimes there is genuinely just an unreasonable amount set. But. I will say, examiners love to test annoyingly specific things from the readings. Just something to keep in mind. Maybe you might not read it word for word…but it’s worth skimming through and scanning for any examples or additional detail missed in lectures that may be assessable.

Struggling to organise your notes for your readings? Check out my lit review/ article reading template so you only need to read a paper once.

10. Not Spacing Out Revision

I think we all know cramming isn’t the best study strategy. Your brain needs time to consolidate new information and move it from short term to long term memory. This tip dovetails with point 8 on keeping up with notes. The benefit of having notes up to date is that it frees up time to implement spaced study sessions throughout the semester instead of rushing to memorise months of content over last the two weeks.

And that’s a wrap! My first year taught me that studying psychology is as much about learning how my own brain works as well as other people’s. Finding your own rhythm and system is essential to finding a study method that works for you. Hopefully some of these tips are helpful and allow you to avoid some of the mistakes I made. Good luck!

-T.