DAVID MCLAUGHLIN

Founder of Brothers Autism

Why did you study Psychology at Queen’s?

I returned to university as a mature student and I knew that I wanted to complete a degree within the field of social sciences. I applied for Social Work, Psychology, and Sociology, as I had initially focused on working toward becoming a social worker. However, as I waited on my offers, I further investigated the psychology module options and the available content in more detail. I opted against the Social Work degree, declined the offer, and instead commenced my degree in psychology, a somewhat unknown subject to me.

To this day, I remain very happy I made that particular choice as the subjects were incredibly interesting and I learnt so much throughout my degree, especially in relation to behaviour psychology, cognitive development, childhood adversity, and atypical cognitive development; all of which have since become a personal passion of mine that I read on a lot, and they are all highly related concepts that have positively influenced my chosen career path.

David completed his final year modular placement with Invest NI

My placement was with Invest NI within their Human Resource department. I was warmly welcomed and provided with wonderful support and encouragement throughout the duration of my placement. As a mature student, I had at this stage, already an extensive past career within a corporate working environment; having left a very successful career within British Telecom to return to education, therefore the transition to Invest NI was actually quite easy for me. However, irrespective of that, I still valued the experience at Invest NI, as I had been provided with the opportunity to implement my recently acquired theoretical psychological insight into working practice within the workplace. I really believe that any younger psychology students without much work experience and are interested in the placement opportunity, would benefit greatly, as they will have the chance to develop some excellent transferable skills and gain practical working experience to help ensure that they have a greater chance of being successful in their own chosen career path.  

Your career journey to date.

Since I graduated in Psychology with a 2.1 (2014), I have since completed two postgraduate degrees, including, MSc in Early Childhood Cognitive (2015) and Behavioural Development, and a PG.Dip in Autism Spectrum Disorders (2021) at Queen’s.  I recently commenced my PHD research degree at Queen’s investigating ‘Autism behaviours experiences throughout a bereavement’ and I am currently enjoying the process of that and have two wonderfully supportive supervisors to direct me accordingly. 

I have my own accredited autism training business, BROTHERS | autism and have recently trained staff at The Prince’s Trust, The Rainbow Project, the NI Civil Service, with other organisations lined up for autism training throughout 2023; and it’s great to watch the business developing.

Since graduating in Psychology, I have worked in several support worker roles through Queen’s Disability Services Team supporting students at the university. However, more recently I have focused on my role(s) as an autism and mental health tutor and as a Disability Needs Assessor at Queen’s. Up until recently I worked as an autism intervention officer with The Cedar Foundation; however, since creating my own business BROTHERS | autism, and commencing my PHD, I decided to leave that position and transferred over to Cedar’s Communications Team; which involves autism training, Website and social media content and management, organising award and recognition events, photography, engaging with the media, using creative computer software, and much more. It was without question my psychology degree that has positively steered my career path in relation to my current roles; as an autism and mental health tutor, a disability needs assessor, an business entrepreneur, a communication’s officer, and as a researcher.     

Happiest memory at Queen’s Psychology

I knew I needed to get minimum of >70% in my very final exam to complete my degree in psychology and come out with the overall classification that I had aimed to achieve from the beginning. I recall nervously opening my final exam paper and looked at the questions one by one, expecting the worst as I scanned through them … and I remember smiling and feeling relieved on the realisation that I could actually answer several questions as most were directly related to my favourite topics within psychology – I believe that I got lucky that day!   

My advice for current students

Do not depend on luck! Plan, organise, and prioritise your workload, and commence all your academic tasks with enough time to review effectively prior to the submission deadline.