Anna Khieu (12) flips through her AP Psychology textbook, poring over its black-bolded words with Canva opened up on the laptop in front of her. This is for Psysoda, an Instagram account she co-founded that provides AP Psychology study resources for students. As she encounters terms she knows are commonplace on the AP exam, she summarizes them onto a slideshow.
“[Psysoda] makes Instagram posts for each topic in AP Psychology,” Khieu said. “It’s a resource [we made] for AP Psych students but also for people who are just interested in psychology.”
Every Friday, co-president Kayleigh Chow (12) creates an online pop quiz about the psychology topics Psysoda covers throughout the week. She said she found the process to be beneficial to her as she prepared for the AP exam last spring.
“I got a good review of every unit [while making the quizzes],” Chow said. “To make them, I looked online from a bunch of different sources covering all the units.”
As Khieu made the review posts, which broke down concepts such as memories, brain regions, and heredity, she said it was an effective method for her to revise as well.
“I’m in control of making the post, so I find information from the textbook and put it on Canva,” Khieu said. “It was good to recall because I found some things I missed from the textbook, and I was able to use my notes to summarize the content.”
During AP season, Chow said Psysoda became a popular resource for students reviewing for the exam, exceeding 600 followers. She said it was rewarding to see students seeking help.
“On the Instagram account, there were students who reached out to ask questions about psychology,” Chow said. “It was cool to be able to answer them and teach them about the concepts.”
As the organization gained recognition, Khieu said that peers from school began to bring it up to her in conversation.
“Some people would come up to me and ask, ‘Hey, you started Psysoda, right?’” Khieu said. “And I thought that it was cool to be getting that recognition, because I was worried it wasn’t going to be that successful. We also got recognized [in an article] about new organizations in San Diego by San Diego Voyager.”
This year, Khieu and Chow are looking forward to taking Psysoda a step further within Westview. They said they have applied to become a school-sanctioned club for the 2025-2026 school year.
“We are trying to move from just learning online through Instagram quizzes,” Khieu said. “[Students] can learn more in person. If they’re afraid to ask questions [online], they can ask us [in-person] and be more involved in psychology, which can give them more motivation to learn. We plan to do presentations on different psychology concepts that don’t have to [always] be all AP Psychology coursework. We can also do interactive activities that demonstrate psychological concepts.”
The Psysoda co-presidents said this is important because, to them, psychology is not just another academic subject on their transcript. Khieu said she appreciates how applicable it is to other fields.
“The field of psychology is very diverse,” Khieu said. “There are concepts like the brain and behaviors that apply to many different fields. For example, psychology can apply to law and other fields. [Personally], I think I could be a psychiatric nurse practitioner [in the future].”
Chow said she is grateful for the opportunities Psysoda has given her.
“As a freshman, I was really quiet,” Chow said. “I didn’t think of being able to start a club or having an entire executive team, so it’s definitely a step outside of what I’m used to. It was really exciting.”
Khieu also said the project has helped her grow.
“This is something I would never have done when I was a freshman or sophomore,” she said. “I was taking a step outside my comfort zone to create something I was passionate about.”