Page 15 - ADU Voice Volume 4 Issue 2

Spring 2025 | Voice 14

The Bachelor of Arts in Psychology

Dr. Smitha Dev
is the assistant Professor of Psychology and the program leader for this
upcoming bachelor’s degree. She has her master’s and PhD in Psychology;
furthermore, Dr.Smitha has over 20 years of work experience in India and the
Gulf region. When asked about her love for the subject, she explains, “My
interest in psychology started from my childhood…reading psychological
articles and magazines, listening to radio and TV shows regarding psychology.
I also love to work with people…understanding human problems, helping
them solve their problems...” Our psychologist relays that incidents she has
seen with her own eyes, whether as a young child or throughout her career,
have shown her “how important it is that we can play with the human mind
and the connection between reality and fantasy”,

he psychology program has been in a trial- where they (students) can do laboratory
and-error circumstance since 2016 and has experiments … they can do internships in different
Thad copious amounts of effort put into it industries, schools and clinics, come up with
by everyone from the department, especially our amazing psychological products.” Going on, she
esteemed Dean, Dr. Sreethi. Unfortunately, it was strongly highlights “the career opportunities” that
delayed multiple times, most likely due to “societal come from the subject: “It is again, a very wide
taboos” as per Dr. Smitha’s inference. However, and diversified experience, because our graduates
one fateful day in 2024, Dr. Smitha receives the can work in mental health … in education as an
call from Dr. Sreethi: the Psychology program was educational psychologist; work in law as a forensic
finally approved. That was when the degree was psychologist; in sports as a sports psychologist; in
changed from a Bachelor of Science to a Bachelor business with Human Resources (HR); they can
of Arts. work in every field…but unfortunately people are
not realizing this.”
From there on, our Program Leader expresses, “I
came up with new specializations in psychology… A “pure psychological background”, one where
we made it a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology a person has pursued psychology for their
with a lot of the latest schools of thought…such undergraduate and graduate degrees, is a rarity in
as cyberpsychology, artificial intelligence in the UAE’s job market, according to Dr. Smitha.
psychology.” Dr. Smitha’s intention for doing so Moreover, she continues that “…nowadays, we
is to give the future students “a strong foundation” are talking too much about mental health, but
which can be built upon diversely through their people are not changing; even youngsters are not
choice of Masters. Essentially, “… they (students) changing.” She hopes that the implementation of
can specialize in clinical, counseling, forensics, this degree will lead more towards “acceptance” of
or any other different fields,” as put by the psychological issues. Notably, she also mentions
psychologist. the potential of a future master’s degree, which
would center around making students “ABA
Dr. Smitha directly refers to the students, stating (Applied Behavior Analysis)” specialists that
that “If you are a student who is fascinated to help “children with developmental disorders”, as
understand human behavior; keep in mind, this told by Dr. Smitha. All in all, the program leader
program and ADU is the right place for you.” In hopes that this degree, and future degrees in the
addition to the versatility of psychology fields and psychology department, will spark real change
specializations, the BA of psychology is “purely within the community’s biases against mental
experimental, health awareness.