Zainab is an MSc Clinical Health Psychology student within the Department of Psychological Sciences & Health at Strathclyde
Zainab Mohammed
It was during my Highers at secondary school that I discovered my passion for Psychology and the way the subject explores the intricacies of human behaviour.
My teacher wrote a list of random words on the board and asked us to memorise them over a span of five minutes. When the time was up, the words were erased and we were asked to recall as many words as we could.
When I looked down at my list, I was amazed to realise just how little I could remember – or maybe the list hadn’t seemed as long in my mind when my teacher wrote them back on the board.
I may not have won the challenge of recalling as many as some classmates – but I learned something more valuable. My teacher had adapted a famous study by Hermann Ebbinghaus that illustrated the transience of memory when you don’t have a lot of time to retain information.
This was a singular moment that made fall in love with studying how the mind works.
Psychology study at University
I went on to study Psychology at the University of Strathclyde. Throughout my undergraduate, I took classes on Mental Health, Psychological Assessment and the Neuroscience of Facial Recognition.
These further helped me to develop my passion for exploring human behaviour. I also aspired to positively impact people’s lives through clinical health psychology, a field that blends mental health expertise with medical care to improve overall wellbeing by addressing both mind and body.
I got to explore how psychology related to medical conditions and investigated the “detective” side of the subject by putting together pieces of a case to discover possible diagnosis.
Being of Pakistani heritage, mental health wasn’t openly discussed in my community. But I learned to recognise the importance of breaking this silence through my studies.
I now aim to bridge the gap on mental health awareness as an aspiring Clinical Health Psychologists and create a space where individuals can navigate their mental health freely, without stigma, and receive the assistance they deserve in creating positive changes in their lives.
More than a degree
During my time studying at Strathclyde, the university has always provided support for my passions.
My undergraduate dissertation topic rekindled my original passion for psychology by focusing on attention bias on social media, which allowed me to explore memory and selective attention in the world of technology.
Supportive staff members helped me every step of the way by answering questions with informative and insightful responses that further fostered my love of this study.
Having thoroughly enjoyed my undergraduate experience, I decided to continue my educational career by pursuing a Masters in Clinical Health Psychology with Strathclyde and have found it to be a truly rewarding experience.
Throughout my journey here, I have learned that psychology is more than just earning a degree; it’s about understanding human mature and about building up communities by making meaningful contributions to individual lives.