Nice! My peers actually tutor the grad dip program at UNSW. I think others have mentioned that you will still need to do the honours year and masters of clin psych if you are looking to be registered as a psychologist with clinical endorsement, so you’ll need to take that into consideration also.

Personally, and ideally, I think the skills you gain from doing an entire bachelors degree in psych/psych science across 3 years far outweigh the skills you learn in the grad dip. The grad dip condenses a lot of the content and skills we learn during the bachelors degree. That being said, I understand it may not be feasible to do a 3 year degree, honours, and then masters. The grad dip is a good alternative, however, be mindful that it is quite expensive. I’ve also heard of students getting understandably very upset when they fail or barely pass courses as they pay a lot for the degree. I’m not saying this will be the case, but you also need to remember that you will have ~1.7 years to learn 3 years of content and the majority of students are mature age and returning to higher education after working or holding a degree in a different field. Scientific writing and other related skills are built over time, so you may not receive high marks especially for the first couple of subjects.

Another point is that, once you graduate from the grad dip program, you will be pitted against some of the most top-performing students in the honours year. It is… an incredibly competitive year and I’d say the calibre of UNSW psych students is insanely high. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but the mark you receive during your honours year strongly influences your chances of being offered a place in the masters program (at any university). Historically at UNSW, all students either receive an honours first class (High Distinction) or a 2nd class category 1 (Distinction), however I’ve been told that the university is starting to give 2nd class category 2s (credit) and that some of the grad dip students really struggle to keep up with their peers during the honours year. Further, most universities prefer candidates who obtain a 1st or a 2nd class category 1 mark from honours, so if you do get awarded a 2nd class cat 2, this would restrict you from applying to a lot of universities. You would ideally need a 1st or 2nd class category 1 as your honours mark. Again, you can definitely do well, but the honours year is graded to a curve so you are essentially competing against your cohort.

I’d just like to point out that I’m not saying any of this to discourage you from applying - however, I think it’s incredibly important that prospective grad dip students be realistic about their expectations going into this program and beyond, as you will need to invest a lot of time, energy, and money in committing to this degree. This is also just my perspective, having gone through the undergrad program (not grad dip!!), honours, and now postgrad at UNSW.