I always consider Psychology as a mysterious discipline
since when I was small, I believed that I could read people's minds after
studying it. Moreover, I have watched a police serial drama called "Every
Move You Make", which is produced by TVB. It talks about the police using
the knowledge of applied psychology in assisting solving criminal cases. For
examples, when your eyes are moving to the left while you are talking with
someone, it implies that you are telling lies. Also, when your legs are crossed
while there is someone standing beside you, it means you are having a good or
even close relationship with that person. Therefore, by observing people's
pattern, I can know the implications behind those behaviours. It is so
fascinating to me, so that's why I want to study Psychology.
At the same time, I like words and
languages. I really appreciate those people who have invented words to
facilitate communication among people, and it acts as a function for our
ancestor to record their lives and knowledge, so as to pass on to future
generations to learn their history and wisdom to avoid making the same
mistakes. In addition, I have a habit to do language conversion. For example,
when I am watching TV, I will convert those Chinese words into English in my
mind to see if it suits the official English subtitles. On one hand, I find
that this process is a very good way for me to get away from boredom. On the
other hand, it can enhance my language ability in terms of reading, writing and
speaking. As a result, I want to learn Translation since it is also a special
technique with its own formula to covert words and languages.
In order to make it easier to choose my
major, I am going to sort into some perspectives to compare and contrast these
two majors.
From the career prospect, studying
Translation is better than Psychology. Language skills are very important to
many employers and companies. They will have a good impression on me if they
know I studied Translation as I am going to be a proficient communicators
capable of helping them to build up a good relationship with companies in other
countries. Moreover, there are a variety of translation studies for me to choose,
such as legal, commercial and media translation, etc. so I can participate in
various professions. Furthermore, I can be a primary school teacher in teaching
languages if I really cannot find any job occupations related to translation.
However, in Hong Kong society, unless I got a PhD in Psychology, it is very
hard for me to become a psychologist, such as clinical or counselling
psychologist. I am not sure if I am able to study PhD with heavy workloads.
In the view of my ability, I have the
comparative advantage of studying Translation instead of Psychology. For
translation, it emphasizes on thinking analytically and critically because
Translation is not only about language conversion, it discusses Chinese and
western culture as well, so as to help ourselves be more culturally diverse and
confident when working with international people. We need to appreciate others'
cultures and customs in order to communicate more effectively. Nevertheless,
Psychology is to investigate humans' minds and behaviours from the functions of
brains by having scientific research. Studying theories is not enough, the
biggest challenge for me is to do calculation and analyzing data and having
experiments in laboratories, which is I am very weak in.
However, studying Psychology can help me
to face people with different personalities, so it will avoid conflicts in a
certain extent, but Translation may not have this kind of effect. For example,
by studying a lot of psychological cases with patients having abnormal
behaviour, we can have some remedies to talk to these people appropriately.
Moreover, by observing humans' actions and the ways they talk, we can know
their characters to minimize the unnecessary quarrels. It could be very useful
in our future workplaces. But for Translation, it doesn't have a systematic way
to categorize human's behaviours, it only teaches us how to communicate in a
more fluent and beautiful way.
Furthermore, with
the knowledge of Psychology, I can help people to face their psychological disorder
and finally overcome their obstacles, but studying Translation cannot equip
myself with this kind of professional knowledge. Recently, my junior, Zoe, would
probably be diagnosed as a patient of “mood disorder”. She said she could not
control her emotions effectively. She could cry alone suddenly in her own room
without any reasons. I believe the factors that contribute her to have this
mental illness are her own studies and relationship problem. I don’t know how
to help her because I am not well-trained in the area of Psychology, but I
suggest her to seek help from the social workers or teachers at school.
Therefore, I think I will be very proud of myself if I can use the applied
psychology to give advice to people who have close relationship with me but
suffered from mental illness, like my friends, even my family.
From the above, there are both pros and
cons on choosing these two majors. I may not make up my mind yet, but at least
I think I know more about what kind of people I am.
