Introduction to Heath Psychology (PSYC 1111) at UoPeople

I feel Introduction to Health Psychology (PSYC 1111) at the UoPeople was a blessing in disguise for me. I have been dealing with health issues in my life since late last year, and this class helped me a lot in understanding and coping with the illness. Health Psychology is an elective course. I thought it would be lightweight, but it wasn’t as light as I had speculated. You need to write a bit to get a decent grade in all aspects of the class. In the course, you basically learn about the health of men and women from the perspective of psychology, and it involves various theories, frameworks, and researches on the subject.

It was a huge class initially, like over 40 students. However, the number shrunk to only 24 by the end of the course. Bear in my that for health science students, it is one of the first courses they study. I am in the 2nd year of my business degree. What this means is that if you’re taking this course in the second or later year, then expect to see a great deal of unfair grading. My first discussion post was given a grade of 6 only. The greatest thing about the class was my instructor. She had a PH.D. in Human Development and was on top of everything in the class. She checked all the submissions in the course, responded to students, and changed the grade on her own if there were any discrepancies. I must say she was probably the most hardworking instructor at the school I’ve encountered so far.

The discussion posts, written assignments, and learning journals require a lot of critical thinking, effort, and research. Some of the questions involve asking about your experience with illnesses and diseases from psychology’s perspective. As I said before, you learn and read various theories, frameworks, and researches regarding the health of men and women from the standpoint of psychology. There is only one book that is given to you, which is more like PDF notes. It contains 8 chapters and you read one each week. You also read several research papers and watch videos related to the topic in each unit.

As for the graded quizzes, most of the questions come from the readings and non-graded quizzes. So, as always make good notes, do your readings and non-graded quizzes before taking the graded ones. Each graded quiz had 20 questions and you’ve to do it in 30mins. The final exam was 1hr long and had 35 questions. The final review quiz prepares you well for the final exam. Before taking the final, I would suggest going through your notes, graded and non-graded quizzes, and the final review quiz as most of the questions come directly from them. I ended up getting an A+. When you put effort into something, it always reaps you with rewards. So, I’m pleased with my progress and what I’ve learned in the course.

Overall, it’s an awesome course that not only helps you learn about health, but also why we do things the way we do it. I was told by peeps on Facebook that it would be a lightweight course, but in my experience, that didn’t turn out to be the case. Be wary of the dishonest/incorrect peer grading in the course as for many health sciences students, it’ll be their first course at UoPople. I was blessed to have an awesome instructor who checked all the submissions and changed the grades herself when something was off. It’s possible to get a very good grade in the course if you do your work diligently.