I worked full time during my undergraduate degree, so I essentially completed my degree at night time. It was pretty challenging, I think I was suffering from a bit of burn-out toward the end.

I am working full-time here in Switzerland now, and although I want to do my masters via distance studies, I'm putting it on hold for now, because I'm studying German. I'm a bit wary of taking on too much (especially as I'm finding the German quite challenging!).

In terms of technical issues, I think I was very lucky. I have heard horror stories (like c-ralu's!) where you close an exam window and that's it, you've failed! But honestly I didn't have any problems throughout mine. My main challenge was that exams had to be invigilated, they weren't online. So I had to go to my local university and ask one of the lecturers to invigilate for me 4 times a year. Fortunately they were happy to do it.

I would like to make a very important point. You can have different qualifications from studying psychology.
"Psychologyst" is the most generic one. In switzerland, and other countries, the term "psychoterapeut" and "psychoterapeut in own practice" its defined by law. It is important not only where you study but also the sequence in which you study.

Psychoterapeut in own practice is the highest to get because you can rent a room and basically you can work 1-1 with people on your own. Thats a big responsability.

Anyway we talk about bachelor and masters...
The study in the world is organised in 3 categories:
- online-for example Open University
-long distance- german fernstudium-example Fernuni
- in person-for example Basel Uni

You see a lot of masters in psychology, even in the uk. But if you pay close attention you will see the difference there.

If you want to be a psychoterapist, your master has to be at a in person university and it has to be in clinical psychology. So you cant do fernuni.

You can move to uk , due a masters in clinical psy there(you will see they are longer and harder to get in) and then come back here.

The lady that wrote the swiss law about psychoterapy adviced me against it. First of all, if you do a masters here, its easier to get the 2- 3 years hopital job that you require to be a psychoterapeut in own practice. Secondly, your german will improve. For example since starting studying here, in my own job(not related to psy) , i was able to do interviews in german and got a job in german. The third point is that it is easier to get the canton licence.

I dont see why you would not do a masters here. The masters doesnt have any more eliminatory exams(except the last oral exam) and its a masters in clinical psychology and neuroscience.so there are plenty of seminars about genes and neuroscience in english. And your german will improve fast...

All the universities equivaled my missing credits the same. The klausuren are those eliminatory exams that you can only do 2 times and then you cant study psy at that uni anymore and i think in ch. Since they are very though, i want to post how most of them got equivalated with ou credits...maybe someone can just do those credits there and just transfer them:
1. Propadeutische vorlesungen Forschungsmethoden und Statistik 1&2- 12 Kp
All equivalated with "exploring psychology"
2. Kongnitionspsychologie 1 &2- 8kp
Equivalated with Exploring psychology
3. Biologische grundlagen 1&2 -8kp
No equivalent (i didnt do a full ou degree but an open degree)
4. Sozialpsychologie 1&2-8kp
Equivalated with social psychology
5. Entwicklungspsychologie1&2-8kp
Equivalated with Psychology of childhood and youth
6. Klinishe psychologie 1&2 8kp
No equivalence

Basel uni has the following type of admisson:
1. Zulassung mit Auflagen (max 30 kp)
2. Zulassung zur Vorbereitung auf das Masterstudium- this is when they let you in bachelor because you have more than 30 missing credits

My last post on these details:
1. If you are studing with Ou (dont have a degree yet) , you can apply anytime and just transfer to the equivalent degree. Its much better to do it while your degree is open
2. Once you have your ou degree , they can accept you with those 2 conditions or reject you.
So anybody studing and thinking of applying to masters, its much better to do it while the degree is open because they can either tell you to do more credits with Ou or just transfer you in the equivalent program.

Hi c_ralu!!

I just stumbled over your thread by pure chance and I'm very happy I did.
I am currently looking into a psy degree at OU and will likely start next January.

My plan was to get my bachelor's from OU and then continuing my Masters at UZH - interestingly enough, also with he wish to eventually gain my psychotherapy license from the C. G Jung Institute in Küsnacht. Odd but amusing coincidence.

Anyway, I am in contact with the UZH and different institutions to make sure that my studies at the OU won't be in vain. Your story certainly gives me hope on that end.

You mentioned you've done an open degree. Would you care to share what the Psy modules were that you have elected during your years at OU?

I'm interested in "Philosophy and Psychological studies", full time, which comes with 90 credits for Psy and 90 for Humanities (Philosophy). It's not BPS accredited which concerns me in terms of continuing my education in Switzerland. Based on your previous answers though, it looks like that this accreditation won't add much to being eligible for further studies in Switzerland?

I can see that someone you knew did the full psy honours degree at OU but was still denied from UZH. Was this rejection based on the nature of the OU degree or simply due to generic reasons such as no study placement available etc.?

When you caught up with the credits of Basel University, how long did that take you? I suppose you did that previous to starting your Master's at that Uni? Or was this simultaneously?

Anyhow, thank you so much for the details shared in this thread so far. It's been a big help in clearing up a lot of concerns and questions I had.
Especially the fact that an online master's wouldn't cut it to pursue psychotherapy education in Switzerland is great info.

If you have anything else to share that could help me, or anyone else for that matter, I'll be more than happy to receive your answer/message.

All the best,

Hello,

Sorry for my late reply. I will answer in general and then go into details. I can definitely answer all your questions.

You said you want to get your psychotherapy license. You might also think if you want to work in your own practice (psychotherapeut in eigener praxis - which is a special title in switzerland). But this is another topic.

First of all, because of the path you chose, you have to do a Masters with a specialization in Clinical Psychology. You can't do the other directions like work psychology or economic psychology. So you have to do a master's in person (not online or long distance) in Switzerland in clinical psychology. You can also do it in another country but getting it recognised would be difficult. And even in Uk, if you wanted to work there as a psychotherapist, you can't do it online.

My opinion is that studying at the OU or in the UK is a gamble. My situation worked out but it was 50% luck.

The way it works is like this. Universities in Switzerland have autonomy, meaning they have their own rule about who they let in and who they don't. Meaning they have a manual and they follow the rules from there. It's not like in the US where they look at reference letters and other things, it's purely mathematical. It's an advantage that not all unis in Switzerland are the same because if one rejects you, another may accept you. The process is straightforward (sorry for my English). They don't care about BP accreditation, as that is UK internal and they don't care about the type of degree, open or not. All they care about is credits. they look at everything you studied and they try to equivalate it.¨

I was the one that did an open degree and then applied at Zurich uni and got rejected. Then I applied in Bern and then In 2 other cities and they rejected me. Why they rejected me? They have this system, if you are missing a number of credits, they will let you in the Master and you can make it up until you finish the master. If you are missing more than the acceptable amount, they will admit you into the bachelor, and once you decrease a bit the number of missing credits, they will let you into the master's and you can still make up the missing credits until you finish the master's.

In my case, I was missing 70 credits, and by the rule of most universities, 70 credits is too much and you have to do the whole bachelor's again. Only Basel uni (which has different rules) allowed me to make up the missing credits. Now, some very important information for you. The problem was that I graduated, got my diploma, and then applied at Zurich Uni. Then, there was a done deal for them, my degree was not good. if I would've done it (applying for the masters at Zurich Uni) before getting my diploma from the OU, they would've let me in because they would've considered it a transfer from one bachelor to another. One is always allowed to transfer, if for example you move, you could do 20 credit in one country and the rest in another. This is under Bologna.
Another problem is that universities don't talk to you if you are not a student. They just don't have the resources and don't feel like it. Most universities, especially Zurich Uni are unfriendly. For example, they sent me the rejection letter but forgot to send me the last page. When I read the letter it felts like a conclusion was missing. I went in to talk to them and people from Sekretariat didn't even want to talk to me. when I sent them an email and insisted, they told me to contact their lawyers. Studying in Switzerland is elitist and they have enough students, so they will not make an effort. So, no matter which path you chose, 6 months before you graduate, apply to as many universities as possible to see which credits you are missing. I will summarize it again at the end. The reason to do that is that you can go with your modules from OU to the Secretariat (the only place non-students can go) but they can't give you good answers. Its not their job. The only people specialized to give you an answer is the admission commission which springs from the dekanat. The dekanat is only for students or people that officially apply. You will only get there if you officially apply. It will cost you 100CHF per university and you can take your file back at any time. You can apply at any stage in your OU studies and as often as you want.

Why not UK?
The problem with the UK education or better-said modules is that it doesn't correspond 1 to 1 to Europe mainland modules. From this point of view, it would be much better to study in Switzerland or some other country near. A degree from the Balkans would fit a lot better than UK.

No matter how well you plan your OU studies, swiss universities change their rules. For example in my case, the problem was not only that my OU modules didn't match very well, but that I only did a part of my OU degree in psychology, and the rest of the OU credits I equivalated with IT. I was planning on doing the masters at Zurich uni which required a major in psychology and a minor in IT. By the time I finished the OU, they completely eliminated the minor, so I needed a lot more credits in psychology than planned.

If I were in your case, I would do a bachelor's somewhere in Europe, probably online. fernuni is one option and it is recognized by all universities here. Any other country near would work.

Another option is to do what someone else did. She did the accredited full psychology degree with OU but then she didnt apply at the university but at Hochschule. You can get your psychotherapeutical licence also with a hochschule. I think she got into the Zürcher Hochschule. Downside is that you can never do a phd after and also that the Hochschule has an admission test you have to do a year before...

Sorry, I have to list yet another problem, but this time with the Open Degree. So concretely an open degree will match a lot less with what is required at the universities in CH. The psychology-accredited one matches a lot more. I couldnt do the open degree and chose the modules from the accredited one becase when i joined OU, that was not allowed anymore.

So you have 3 options:
Option 1: Study the bachelor at Fernuni or france or whatever (but then you have the language issue)
Option2: Apply at Hochschule and not at University with your OU degree (as long as it has a lot of OU credits in psychology)- because of that I would not do a philosophy + psychology degree
Option3. Do the OU degree (again the full psychology one) and apply before you graduate (before you ask the OU to give you the degree). If credits are missing (as a result of the prüfungskommision report from any university here), you can continue the OU with those credits (if too much is missing).

Let me look at your other questions:
"You mentioned you've done an open degree. Would you care to share what the Psy modules were that you have elected during your years at OU"
I can do more than that. I can send you from all 4 swiss universities the equivalation: on one side my modules and on the other side theirs and what they equivalated and what not. For me, I was missing all the ugly ones like methodology and a lot of statistics.

"I'm interested in "Philosophy and Psychological studies", full time, which comes with 90 credits for Psy and 90 for Humanities (Philosophy). It's not BPS accredited which concerns me in terms of continuing my education in Switzerland. Based on your previous answers though, it looks like that this accreditation won't add much to being eligible for further studies in Switzerland?"
Yes, accreditation doesn't matter, but I would do full 180 credits in psychology. To do a masters here, you need 180 credits in psychology Because education in Ch is 20 times harder than OU, I would even try to do the extra statistics modules that OU are offering...But you can do that at the end if they reject you because you are missing enough credits. If they let you in, you can also ask them to do a couple of missing statistics at OU. So if you are registered in switzerland, you can do I think 2 semesters in another counry for some credits...inception, i know,.

"I can see that someone you knew did the full psy honours degree at OU but was still denied from UZH. Was this rejection based on the nature of the OU degree or simply due to generic reasons such as no study placement available etc.?"
Reason was: I dont remmember, sorry. Multiple people told me along the years. But reason is always that more than 50 credits are missing after side by side comparison.

"When you caught up with the credits of Basel University, how long did that take you? I suppose you did that previous to starting your Master's at that Uni? Or was this simultaneously?"
Good question: I would say 2 years but I am working full time but also I caught the corona part in the middle where everything was online.
So with me was like this: they let me in Bachelor with 70 missing credits. They said, you have to reduce to 25. Once i reduced to 25, they let me in the masters. So I would say 4 years to do the bachelor missing credits plus the whole masters while working full time and doing the 2 praktikum in parallel.


Another thinkg they didnt recognise (besides the statistics and bachelor arbeit) was the praktikum. For bachelor and masters, you have to do 3 months full time practice in psychology (one for bachelor and one for masters). In my case, i had to do it in parallel with working full time and studying.

let me know where do you want those papers. i will not post it on the public forum.

To reiterate, even if people from uni tell you that the modules you chose are ok, whatever they say is under no responsibility to be correct. So I think the best thing is to apply at the uni, even after a couple of years. You can apply as often as you want. 100chf will give you access to prüfungskommision and they are the ones that know and have the right to equivalate.

In conclusion, you can try the OU if you make sure you get at least 180 credits in psychology. Sorry i dont remember who told me she got rejected or if she applied or just asked? I know one of the people only wanted to do the Hochschule as its easier.

Hi c_ralu. This is Alexis from a new account. The other one was deleted for some reason by the admin..? No idea why though, they haven't bothered to answer my email.

Anyhow, thanks a lot for the elaborate answer. I couldn't thank you enough for this. This helps me a lot.

I am actually a Swiss citizen, I just happen to live abroad for the major part of every given year making studying in Switzerland a little problematic. I did read about FernUni, problem is its requirements - such as any other school in Switzerland. I don't fancy spending 25'000.- CHF on a BMS + Passarelle or Matura, just to be able to go to uni in Switzerland. Hence the idea to go over the OU.

To be fair, if worse comes to worst ZHAW, I suppose, would suffice, although I would certainly prefer a "real" uni. Your story proves it to be possible although with some luck and detours involved. This gamble seems seems reasonable to take.

Also, thanks for being upfront about how going for a major in Psy at OU is likely the better option for my plans. However, I don't think I'll compromise on the philosophy aspect. It's another risk and gamble I am willing to take for the sake of my passion for philosophy.

Even though I, too, had mostly bad experiences with institutions in Switzerland, UZH was very kind, and patient, and provided valuable info about what it takes to transfer OU credits to their institution. It's just like you described. According to the email sent by the UZH a few days ago, to be eligible for a master's in Psy, the credit difference must not be over 60 credits, and the Grades avg. must not be under 5 (Swiss Grading).

Planning to only finishing the bachelor's with them is actually a pretty good idea. I concluded as much. However, after having inquired about that, UZH answered with the following. Other users might find this useful too...

"Man kann während des Bachelors an unsere Universität wechseln. Dann gelten die Zulassungsbedingungen für den Bachelor. Siehe hier: https://www.uzh.ch/cmsssl/de/studies.../bachelor.html
Aber auch das ist nicht attraktiv. Denn nur ein kleiner Teil der Leistungen kann i.d.R. angerechnet werden. Bei einem Wechsel während des Bachelors müssen Sie zunächst das erste Jahr bei uns komplett absolvieren. Wenn Sie dort alles bestanden haben, dann würde man schauen, ob Sie noch Leistungen von der Universität, von der Sie herkommen, haben, die bei uns im Aufbaustudium des Bachelors anrechenbar sind. Zudem müssten Sie ein Nebenfach bei uns absolvieren (60 ECTS), da dies Teil unseres Bachelorstudiengangs ist. Gemäss RVO müssen ausserdem mindestens 60 ECTS an der UZH erbracht werden, um den Abschluss bei uns machen zu können."

I think 18-24months are reasonable to expect when opting to finishing the bachelor's with them, independent of previous credit accumulations and studies.

However, FernUni might be a fine choice to do just that? I'll see what they are willing to share with me in the coming days. I'll certainly keep this option in mind.

BTW, I'd love to see the side by side comparison of the modules and the Swiss Unis. I'm hoping this account won't be arbitrarily deleted again.. Not sure if PMs are possible but I'll do my best to contact you one way or another about this. Thanks for the offer!

Hello,

I just emailed you. I was not able to reply to your private message. If your account gets blocked again and you don't get my email, I will just post a link here with the documents on Monday.

So, I am a bit confused about your reply, about two points.

I agree that it's much easier to go over OU to avoid the Swiss restrictions.

The first confusion is when you said you will not compromise on philosophy. But that means you will only get 90 credits in psychology. As far as I know, Zurich Uni Bachelor is "monofach", so you need 180 credits. If you only do the OU degree with 90-90, you will be under 90 credits. And this is the case if they accept all credits. In my case, there was quite a lot they didnt accept and some they were generous on. Maybe they accepted 70%. So you will not be accepted and you will have to transfer.

If you think you will just transfer, let say if you are 90 credits under (you will probably be 110 under or 120) and you transfer, you have to check again the requirements. Did I understand that you don't have a matura? Because for a transfer, I think you would need the matura. Not sure, but just as open point. To do 120 at Zurich uni is at least 3 years (part tiem).

The other point which is important. If you go this route, 90 credits and then transfer, the person said "Bei einem Wechsel während des Bachelors müssen Sie zunächst das erste Jahr bei uns komplett absolvieren. ". Not sure why she said that. I can explain how it is at Basel Uni. They didn't tell me but found out the hard way. At Basel Uni, the first year is eliminatory. That means they have a series of 6 Klausuren (Lectures) which are supposed to eliminate maybe 50% of people. These exams you can only take 2 times and if you fail twice any of them, you will be excluded from Uni and then will not be allowed to study psychology in Switzerland. Again, that's the Basel Uni rule. In my case they equivalated 4 and left me with 2. The dekanat told me the exams are very easy, you dont have to study much. 2 months before exams, I realized how hard it was. One of them was neuroscience, 500 pages and they didn't teach brain functions the classical way, they were teaching the brain functions/structures from embryo until adult and how they change. crazy, I know. Anyway, because of Corona, it was able to take it 3 times. But I passed them both from the beginning with some luck and studying. I am trying to say that if you transfer, you want to do these lectures with the OU. That should be your number one priority. But you have to find out if Zurich Uni has this system. It looks like they do from the way the person formulated that sentence. You have to ask her/him what it means to pass the first year. It looks to me that what she is saying is that they would not equivalate any of the first year courses and you have to do it anyway.

If you really want to do the psychology/philosophy degree, you can do a number of modules with open uni from their open degree. Keep in mind that its much faster and easier to do extra modules with OU than to have to do it at Zurich Uni. For example, at Basel Uni you have to pass with 60% and if you fail, you cant take the exam again but you have to take the course again next semester or year.
So maybe do 90-90 + 90 in Open Degree? No idea, see how you feel.
Or: do the 180 in psychology, get admitted at masters and while you do the masters (which is much easier) or during the jung institute study, go back to ou and do an Open Degree in Philosophy. I understand your point about philosophy, but I got trapped in doing so many bachelor courses like statistics and methodology that I have no time for philosophy...So it's less painful to do the bachelor courses at OU than at Zurich Uni. OU teaches about critical thinking while in Switzerland its about methodology and statistics and studies.
Btw there is the Jungian conference happening next weekend and there are still online tickets available if you are interested.

But maybe I didnt get your point correctly about the transfer.
Also, if something fails, please consider Basel Uni ... Its quite flexible how you can arrange things and some can be done online.

Hi there!

Yes, I've received your email. Looks like this account has not been suspended though. Hopefully it stays like that.

I didn't know that if transferred, I have to have the matura.. But thinking about it it does make sense. Thanks for bringing that up. Perhaps sur dossier might be an option however that would difficult to anticipate. I believe my path will be similar to yours - finishing at OU and then somehow trying to get into an uni in Switzerland, irrelevant of which it will be.

Allow me to reiterate the other points made.

Firstly, the psychology bachelor at UZH encompasses 120 credits only. It's a major degree and one must take another minor subject encompassing 60 credits. Therefore, technically, there will be only a 30 baseline credit difference between my OU degree selection and the UZH.

I'm quite surprised they acknowledged 70% of your credits. That's much more than I thought. To be fair, any Uni in Switzerland would suffice for my aspirations, UZH is just a tad more emotionally important to me - which is pretty unimportant.

Anyway, to you second point - Yes, exactly. I believe they call this "Propädeutikum". I think it's a federal thing and goes just like you have described. That you only had to take part in 2 of those Klausuren is astonishing.
Do you remember what those 6 Klausuren were and which you had to take and which not? Apart from neuroscience of course.
Good for you that you successfully got through them! Must be extremely stressful knowing that failing there twice is basically the end of it...

To your last suggestion. Yes. I think that would be a good idea too. Doing the Philosophy/Psy degree and then top it up with open degree psychology modules to compensate might be worth it, despite the extended study time. I think once I receive the credits comparison from you it will be easier to visualise this whole thing.

May I ask you if you are currently still in your Master's or already finished and moving on with the Jung institute studies soon?

Also, thanks for sharing that conference, much appreciated. Would like to join but I'm currently overseas.