English Studies and Psychology

English studies and psychology is a combination that brings together two disciplines concerned, in different ways, with how human beings make meaning and experience the world. English studies asks how language and literature work, how texts produce their effects and meanings, and what questions about culture, history, identity and value literature raises and explores. Psychology applies scientific methods to the study of the mind and behaviour, asking how people perceive, think, remember, feel, relate and act, and investigating the biological, developmental and social forces that shape human experience.

Together the two disciplines develop an unusually wide range of analytical, creative and empirical skills.

At the University of Stirling you will study both disciplines across a four-year full-time programme, reflecting the Scottish honours degree structure, with a year abroad that extends the full course and gives you the opportunity to experience both disciplines in a different national and academic context. You will engage with literary analysis and creative reading alongside psychological science, research methods and the core areas of psychological knowledge. Stirling's research strengths in both English and psychology support a rich academic environment for this combination.

You will develop skills in close reading and textual analysis, critical argument, psychological research design, statistical analysis and the communication of complex ideas across both humanistic and scientific modes of writing. This combination of analytical frameworks is genuinely unusual and makes for a distinctive graduate profile.

Graduates from English studies and psychology programmes pursue careers in publishing, journalism, education, research, clinical and counselling support roles (with further training), communications, human resources, social research and the wide range of sectors where both analytical and interpersonal skills are valued. Postgraduate study in psychology, English, education, counselling or research is also a natural route for those seeking specialist expertise.