Tag Archives: APA

Reasons to Attend Convention 2016 (Denver, CO)

Going to APA Convention is an important graduate school experience (and not just to add another line or two to your CV!).  We all know the drill with presenting our research and beefing up our CVs, but Convention has much more to offer! Here are some of my top reasons to attend Convention.

  1. Permission to Dabble!

Graduate school is an odd combination of being indoctrinated by your advisor and learning to critically evaluate everything you think you know (or are told).  Sometimes our focus becomes pretty limited by our long-days and late-nights working on our own research – for me White racial identity development among academicians in psychology.  Convention provides opportunities to branch out and see what the rest of psychology is up to!  My Convention guilty-pleasures (i.e., not related to my own research) are sessions on mental health disparities, feminist roundtables, and racial injustice advocacy.  I encourage you to find your own guilty-pleasures and indulge!

  1. Networking
APA2012_115

An APAGS Member met Dr. Philip Zimbardo at an APAGS Food for Thought Breakfast.

Really, networking could be reasons 1- 5.  Regardless of where you are in your program, networking is crucial. As a second-year doctoral student, I met my future internship training director at Convention. I’m not saying that I matched solely because of this happenstance meeting, but I’m pretty sure I left a favorable impression! Now as I am transitioning to my first job-search as a psychologist, having THOUSANDS of potentials psychologists in one place feels like a dream! I am also always on the lookout for a celebrity psychologist sighting, so that I can have a fan-girl moment…

  1. Any Excuse to Get Out of [INSERT COLLEGE TOWN HERE]

Graduate students who have the luxury of going to school in New York City, Southern California, or Miami may not feel my pain, but I can always use an excuse to get out of Lexington, KY.  While the Horse Capital of the World boasts a cheap cost of living and mild winters, I find myself needing a break from the college town milieu.   Convention is a great way to double dip – professional development and mini-vacation!  Denver has a lot to offer budget-minded graduate students, such as several microbreweries, Colorado Rockies games, and several day-hikes right outside of the city.  Don’t forget to take some time for self-care and enjoy Denver!

  1. Sessions for Students, by Students

Faculty always say that they vividly remember the plight of graduate school… right before they give you a 48-hour deadline of reworking a manuscript and then go home for the evening at 5pm… However, faculty can forget all too soon that graduate students have unique struggles and concerns.  The APAGS Convention Committee provides student-focused programming in response to student feedback and needs.  In Denver, APAGS has prepared programs for stats-phobic students (Stats Phobia: Learn How to Learn Stats [and Work past Beginners Anxiety]), students who moonlight as parents (or maybe the other way around; Two P’s in a Pod: Balancing Parenthood with Psychology Training and Careers), and students from a variety of diverse identities and backgrounds (Connecting with our queerness: Four contemporary takes on being an LGBTQ(A) psychologist & Conducting Research on Marginalized Identities: When Research is “Me-Search”).  For the full APAGS Convention schedule, be on the lookout for the APAGS Convention Booklet that will be released closer to Convention or visit the APAGS Convention website!

The IDP: A Career Plan That Doesn’t End with Your First Job

Sometimes graduate school and postdoctoral training can feel like being in a long, dark tunnel. At the end is the escape. All you have to do is square your shoulders, pump your arms, and keep making progress towards the light at the end.  Once you burst through, you will find yourself basking in the happy, warm glow of…. Your. First. Job.

But a job isn’t a career.

You want a career – a progressive increase in responsibilities and daily activities that are rewarding, have impact, and make use of your current skills and the new ones you’ll gain along the way. You want a path, not a tunnel.

How much time have you really spent career planning?

One often neglected aspect of graduate school and postdoctoral training is career planning. A goal of your training should be about developing that career path – or more accurately, developing both a path and yourself.  You need to thoughtfully research the type of career options that interest you and that are available. Next you develop the skills, knowledge, abilities, and competencies to land those jobs along your career path.  Luckily you’re not alone and this career plan has a proven process. It’s called an Individual Development Plan, or IDP.

What’s an IDP?

An IDP is a career resource – designed by you – that helps map out your career path. I could spend more time explaining what they are, or how creating formalized plans in postdoctoral training improves outcomes, or how both NSF and NIH require career development plans for trainees.  But consider this, from 2009-2014 there was a 20% increase in psychology doctoral degrees.  Over that same time tenure track faculty positions did not keep up with PhD production. But, wait. The good news is, NSF says that the number of jobs that require science & engineering skills is outpacing the new job creation in the total workforce. This means that there are probably more job options and career paths than you thought.

It all starts with knowledge of IDPs and then yourself. But before you start, here are some helpful tips to help you along your IDP Journey:

  1. Get the big picture first, then attack each step:  Resist the urge to just jump in and spend next weekend doing nothing but career exploration. Make a schedule to watch our five videos and go back and re-watch.  Next spend maybe a week (or two) assessing your skills, and searching for a mentor.  Re-watch the videos as many times as needed to feel ready to move to the next step.
  2. Make a schedule:  Make a regular time to do IDP work – every Wednesday right after a lab meeting, or every Friday after your last patient or client.  Or the first Sunday of each month, when all is still and quite and peaceful.  Whatever works for you, but make it a priority.
  3. IDPs are both curricular and extracurricular: We stress that IDPs shouldn’t pull you away from your current training and work obligations.  Quite the contrary – they help you integrate career opportunities day-to-day, and plan for those you need to find outside the lab, clinic, or office.  A plan will balance your demands and help you progress.

So, what are you waiting for? Get started!

Editor’s Note: This post was written by Garth Fowler, PhD, Associate Executive Director of Graduate & Postgraduate Education and Training in the Education Directorate at the American Psychological Association.

 

Students, Join Division 31 for FREE!

Did you know that Division 31, the State, Provincial & Territorial Affairs division of APA, provides FREE membership to students?  Along with appreciating anything with the ‘FREE’ moniker, there are several reasons why students, especially those interested in advocating for their profession, might join Division 31:

  1. Receive information about new initiatives affecting our profession (Psypact, ASPPB specialization, laws for Applied Behavioral Analysis, APA-PO, etc.)
  2. Serve on a student taskforce to address these issues  
  3. Be a part of conversations about how your SPTA can help with student debt, securing accredited internships, and more
  4. Network with professionals already in practice through listserves and at conferences
  5. Get a jump start on a career in private practice by gaining exposure to business of practice, licensure laws, reimbursement rates, and other issues

Get more information about  Division 31 and  check out their Student Taskforce blog.

8 Habits That Make Millennials Stressed, Anxious, and Unproductive

Article originally posted on Forbes.com by Caroline Beaton

Preview:

“According to the American Psychological Association (APA), millennials experience more stress and are less able to manage it than any other generation. More than half of us admit to having lain awake at night during the past month from stress.

“Not surprisingly, millennials are also more anxious than older Americans. The APA reports that 12% of millennials have a diagnosed anxiety disorder—almost twice the percentage of Boomers. On a non-clinical scale, a BDA Morneau Shepell white paper discovered that 30% of working millennials have general anxiety, while a 2014 American College Health Association (ACHA) assessment found that anxiety regularly afflicts 61% of college students.

“Anxiety not only harms our wellbeing but also sabotages our productivity. The ACHA assessment found that the top two tolls on students’ academic performance were stress and anxiety. Two-thirds of millennials interviewed by BDA  attribute declining work performance to anxiety.

“Sources of millennial anxiety may include a tough job market and student debt as well as psychological causes I’ve covered previously such as ambition addiction, career crises and choice-overload. But even our day-to-day behaviors can incite anxiety.”

Finish the story!

Head to Forbes.com to read the full article on eight common habits that instigate stress and compromise our potential.

Deadline Extended to Join APAGS Leadership!

Pictured are members of the 2014-2015 APAGS Committee, and staff liaisons

You could be here! Pictured are members of the 2014-2015 APAGS Committee, and staff liaisons.

Great news: Are you interested in joining APAGS leadership? The APAGS Committee is still accepting applications for a Member-at-Large position. This position would focus on a number of issues affecting APAGS members, and in particular serve as the point person for Membership Recruitment and Retention issues.

Timeline: If you apply and get slated for this position, you’ll run an election during the month of April by trying to get the online vote of fellow APAGS members. Your term of service would begin this August and you’d serve for two years, through August 2018. You must be in school through at least Spring 2017 to be eligible.

Next steps: For information on eligibility and application materials, please go to our website. All applications must be submitted to apags@apa.org by 11:59PM EST on 2/15/16.