St Andrews’ aMAZEing new psychology journal

Freshers week can all be a bit of a blur, and not just because of the alcohol. St Andrews has tonnes to offer, and this week you’ll have been bombarded with fliers, freebies and Facebook invitations every society under the sun. Inevitably, you will cave under the pressure of the freshers fayre and sign up to every society that approaches you (trust me that’s a lot of emails you are going to receive).

Whilst societies are there for you to have fun and socialise, they can also provide you with experience and skills that could help with your future career. If you are looking to join a society that can give you journalistic, event organising or advertising skills, you might be interested to read further about who MAZE are and what they have to offer.

MAZE is a student-led Psychology and Neuroscience newsletter which was set up by a keen bunch of students, aiming to give students and lecturers the opportunity to write about psychology without the constraints of academic guidelines. MAZE has steadily grown in both content and goals, developing from a newsletter to a termly printed magazine. We now have a website where issues are posted, a Facebook page where interesting stories, research and cool phenomena are posted weekly, and we are now on twitter too!

The magazine has a lot of potential, and perhaps its biggest asset is that it is well supported by the psychology and neuroscience department. Past and present members would agree it is a great medium to get to know the lecturers better as well as find out more about current research both within and beyond St Andrews. It also gives you the chance to investigate the things in psychology that interest you, which could literally be anything given how broad a subject Psychology is!

Last Spring, MAZE held a preliminary Psychology conference at the University, where lectureres got the chance to talk about their areas of interest and students were invited to deliver a talk on areas of psychology they felt passionate about. We want to run this event again but on a much bigger scale. The potential for events like these is exciting, as not only does it give students valuable skills and experience but it also brings the department and students closer together.

Now is the time to join MAZE. Your future could hold being the editor of the magazine, or head of events, or in charge of a position that hasn’t even been created yet! They are ever growing and always on the look out for new ideas and fresh writing skills, so if you join now you can have a say on how they progress and develop. There is no joining fee, no interview process and no life long commitment.

Find them on Facebook (MAZE Magazine) and twitter @MAZEst-andrews, or email any questions to [email protected] .