Tag Archives: graduate school

5 Tips to Start Your Graduate School Year Off Strong

By Ashley Wojcik

The beginning of a new school year can bring about a mix of emotions. It is normal to feel excited about the start of a new chapter, but also anxious for what is ahead. Graduate school specifically invites financial, social, personal, and intellectual challenges that can be difficult to manage. In this post, we have compiled some tips for surviving and thriving in a new year of graduate school.

Communicate With Your Support System Before Starting School

Before going into a new or stressful environment, it can be helpful to talk with your family and friends about how you are feeling and what they can expect in terms of your availability. Some people struggle to garner support from those around them in their pursuit of graduate education, so you should be prepared for those difficult conversations. Remember to be honest about why it is important for you to go back to school, what you hope to accomplish, and how they can best support you.

Prepare for a Busier Schedule

Going back to school as a graduate student can be a different experience than your undergraduate years. In many cases, you may have already spent time working and will have to readjust to the academic lifestyle. If you have a family or children, this can be another commitment to juggle. Even if you have gone straight into graduate school, you may find that the combination of research, courses, and other responsibilities such as being a TA is a heavier load than you experienced as an undergraduate. It is important to set realistic expectations so you can be kind to yourself. Forgive yourself in advance for the late nights and busy days, while also remembering to build in some time for self-care.

Give Yourself Grace in the Beginning

Summer breaks notoriously lead to some loss of information learned in the previous school year. This depletion only increases if you have taken more time off from school. When starting graduate school, you should be ready for an adjustment period academically. Prepare yourself to endure a learning curve in the beginning and to allow yourself time to review previous material before you can learn new concepts.

Understand That Student Life Has Changed

If you spent time out of school, you may quickly recognize that things have changed since you were last a student. Student culture, expectations, and resources are changing all the time. Additionally, the graduate student experience is inherently different from the undergraduate, so even if you went straight into graduate school, you should prepare for those differences before you begin. For example, many people complete their graduate degrees while working or juggling other things, so the schedule may be different than you are used to. Your curriculum may be more research-based, with smaller classes, and closer connections to your professors than you were used to at the undergraduate level.

Keep an Open Mind

Like anything else, your mind is subject to change in grad school, and you should be open-minded when going into graduate studies. Your area of focus may shift or change completely through your education, and you should be prepared for that and welcoming to it. After all, that is the benefit of a graduate education. The stress you endure is the cost of the knowledge you gain about yourself and the impact you want to have on the world.

June Pride Month Twitter Campaign… Presented by APAGS CSOGD

By Liz Deibel

The APAGS Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity is facilitating a Twitter campaign for Pride Month from June 5th to June 9th focusing on the positive aspects of being LGBTQ+. If you have something you want to share about what you’re proud of as an LGBTQ+ graduate student, feel free to post photos, affirmations, or anything else using the hashtags below. Show off areas of PRIDE, whether within graduate school or in everyday life!

Some ideas on how to celebrate Pride:

Create art about LGBTQ+ identity and joy
Read books about LGBTQ+ characters in positive contexts
Attend a Pride event or festivities in your local community
Listen to a playlist of music by LGBTQ+ musicians or podcasts by LGBTQ+ hosts
Host your own LGBTQ+ film festival with friends
Learn more about LGBTQ+ history

Ways to celebrate yourself for Pride:

Keep a gratitude log for the month (broad or tailored to your accomplishments)
Read over your CV or letters of recommendation to remind yourself of how hard you’ve worked
Journal about your growth and what you’re proud of yourself for
Connect with an art form or way of expression that makes you feel empowered
Take a day off and engage in self-care
Wear an outfit that makes you feel powerful and expressive

What are you proud of? Participate in our Twitter campaign using one or more of the following hashtags:

References:

Paying to Work: Ethicality of Unpaid Practicums

By Michael Deely, NCSP, BCBA, MEd

It is no secret that the cost of collegiate education in the United States is astronomically expensive. On average it takes 8-12 years of college to earn a doctoral degree in clinical psychology and, in the process, scholars typically accrue roughly 200,000 dollars in student debt. Keeping these daunting numbers in mind, unpaid practicum experiences make this bleak financial situation even more troublesome for doctoral students.

For example, the PsyD program I am attending mandates students earn 20-hours of practicum experience per week, for 2 consecutive years. This equates to one year of full-time unpaid work. Put simply, unpaid practicum models create a continuously revolving door of free doctoral student labor from universities to outside organizations.

Is this ethical?

The table below is a series of arguments generally used by clinical psychology doctoral programs to justify unpaid practicum experiences. Followed by corresponding retorts responding to each argument individually.

Rationale opposing compensation	Response to raised concern
During the practicum experience candidates are considered “students” and not “employees,” thus should not be paid.	Moot point if external placement site agrees to pay the practicum student for their work output. “Students” are often paid for other experiences during collegiate coursework. Examples include: outside employment, work study, graduate assistantships, and student teaching positions.
Practicum experience is a learning experience where the student is “observing” more than conducting “work related tasks.”	This assumes practicum students conduct fewer professional work tasks than the external sites “employees.” This idea that practicum students watch and do less work is frequently not true. More often than not, they are completing the same job obligations as other employees but not getting paid. Putting students at an external site and asking them to “do less” work than their coworkers, limits their experience and dilutes their ability to put what they know into practice, which is the objective of a practicum placement. If a student possesses the experience to perform high-level work-related tasks which are generally compensated, they should be encouraged to do so, and reimbursed in the process.
Liability falls on the shoulders of the doctoral program, should a practicum student engage in an ethical violation.	To avoid this outcome, a liability waiver or, “hold harmless agreement” is signed by the student, university, and placement site. This explicitly indicates that should an ethical violation occur; the practicum student and site hold sole responsibility in handling such an instance. Ensuring that the doctoral program is in no way held liable or accountable.
Possibility of some students acquiring paid practicum experiences creates a tumultuous unequitable environment among students in doctoral programs.	No two students in the program enter with identical experiences and educational backgrounds. Equitability is celebrating students’ uniqueness and providing them with the opportunity to expand on their existing experience to ultimately achieve their professional goals. Equitability in this instance, is not establishing an equal un-individualized array of placement options, which all students can enter regardless of previous experience and interest. Rather, equitability is looking at each student’s situation individually when aligning them to a specific site and opportunity that plays off their existing strengths to improve their idiosyncratic professional development.
Unpaid practicum is generally the standard in doctoral programs.	The APA emphasizes improving ethicality through advocating for positive systemic change in the face of an unjust system. Moving toward paid practicum experiences is a demonstration of positive change.
Practicum placements are meant to help students expand upon existing skills. Placing students at sites where they could have been hired prior to any program involvement, does not grant students an opportunity to further their existing skill set.	Site responsibilities vary drastically depending on the type of placement: inpatient, outpatient, school, hospital, community non-profit, etc. It is a good thing when students entering a doctoral program have the requisite education, certification, and/or licensure to be hired at a given practicum site.Integration and application of knowledge is the objective of a practicum experience. Qualified students can bring the new skills they have learned in their doctoral program into previous professional roles. This indicates professional progress of the student, if they can take new skills learned during their doctoral coursework and implement them at a practicum placement conducive to mental health treatment.

I hope the arguments articulated above will nudge doctoral programs in the direction of allowing students to earn compensation during practicum placements when possible (granted scholars and sites are abiding by APA supervision guidelines as outlined in section C-12 D of the APA code). This subtle shift in program policy, although it does not solve everything, is a tangible step toward making programs more affordable for students. Paid practicum resolves the issue of students being volun-told by university faculty as to where they must work for a year without compensation. Instead, it places autonomy and power into students’ hands, and a year’s wages into their pockets.

Unpaid internships and practicum placements are a cross-disciplinary problem throughout academia. They propagate economic disparity, as only financially well-off students are able to work without pay for substantial durations of time. Through this cycle, affluent students’ resumes look more appealing than their middle- and lower-class peers, because their peers cannot afford to work without pay during internship or practicum experiences. This gives affluent students an upper hand in securing higher paying jobs in the future, due to the experience they can afford to gain. As mental health practitioners who advocate for equitable access to higher education, healthy work-life-balance, and mitigation of income inequality, there is no better space for this change to transpire than in our field.

About the author: Michael J. Deely, NCSP, BCBA, MEd

I am currently a doctoral student at Point Park University studying clinical psychology. Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you would like to view a more in depth version of the article which outlines additional arguments in support of paid practicum experiences and compares them directly to the APA’s practicum guidelines, please email me. I am happy to pass along more detailed information!

From the Editor: Thank you for reading the gradPSYCH Blog! Please note that the views and opinions expressed in each blog post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent positions or policies of APAGS or the APA. The information provided is for general informational purposes only.

Conducting Social Justice Research

While social justice topics in psychological research are not novel, sociopolitical changes in recent decades have perhaps illuminated the need for the incorporation of social justice research in psychological science and practice. Social justice and advocacy are woven into every corner of our professional experiences – from our didactic and academic competencies to our clinical training and ethics codes. Psychological science is no exception.

Incorporating social justice topics into our research can seem like a difficult feat. Everywhere you look, there are systemic hurdles that may stand in your way of feeling comfortable and confident taking on social justice research. Maybe it’s the voice in your head telling you “this project isn’t going to be the one to dismantle oppression,” or perhaps it’s a belief that your research does not fit under the umbrella of social justice topics. In other cases, it may be a lack of formal training in conducting research that utilizes appropriate methodology to produce socially just outcomes and findings. However, as students in psychology, we hold the power to not only ask “what answers do we not have yet?” but to rephrase the question into “whose voice is missing from the narrative?”

Here are some starting points for the interested researcher who hopes to embark on social justice research.

Qualitative Methods

If you’re anything like me, digesting quantitative research may bring you comfort. Something about attaching numbers and statistics to your work can make your analyses feel supported and concrete. However, is hard to fully understand someone’s experiences, reactions, and thoughts through numbers alone. Narrative-based research, interviews, and other qualitative methods allow researchers to analyze participant perspectives and experiences through a richness of storytelling. Participants can provide context to their answers and can help develop insight around a phenomenon through exploratory methods, often imperative to social justice research. When the question is regarding whose voice has not been incorporated into the narrative yet, sometimes the best methods are the ones utilizing the voices themselves. After all, our research is what makes psychology a science, and qualitative methodologies are just as rigorous as quantitative.

In some qualitative methodologies, participating community members are welcomed as collaborators to contribute to the design, implementation, and outcomes of the research. Participatory Action Research (PAR) and Community Based Research are two such examples of this. These qualitative approaches to research emphasize the importance of community, understanding sociocultural structures, and action, making them excellent methods to utilize when conducting social justice research. Importantly, they empower the stakeholders of the community you are working with to be active participants in your research.

Me-Search

I first heard the term “me-search” when starting graduate school. The appeal of doing research on a topic that resonated with me, my experiences, and potentially the related experiences of others has since fueled my research endeavors throughout my academic career. I began to realize how disconnected I felt from the research I was digesting. Experiences I knew all too well were seemingly nowhere to be found in the existing literature. I have found that me-search has been a great way to incorporate social justice topics into my own research. As a biracial, queer, gender-expansive graduate student, researching topics and experiences I know first-hand provides me not only with an opportunity to ensure voices like mine are heard, but also allows me to feel connected with the research I conduct. To put it simply, sometimes when you consider whose perspective is missing from the narrative, the answer can very feasibly be “mine.”

However, it is important to emphasize the need for self-care when conducting me-search related to social justice topics. Not only does researching something you have personally experienced make it easier to bring your work home with you, but me-search can put you in the position to reflect on the ways in which you yourself are impacted by oppressive systems. Participating in self-care activities and avoiding burnout is important to ensure you are prioritizing your well-being and can approach your research with interest and enthusiasm. Whether it’s putting space between yourself and academia or finding comfort in the connectedness you feel with the communities you are researching, self-care is yours to define and is an important part of conducting socially just research.

Becoming a researcher and scientist in psychology can feel like a daunting task. Additionally, knowing your research can inform social change can feel intimidating. Our research has the potential to be utilized for advocacy, fight against oppressive forces, and promote well-being. I encourage you to keep looking for the holes in our current literature and to listen for those voices that call to you in need of being amplified.

Resources

Cokley, K., & Awad, G. H. (2013). In defense of quantitative methods: Using the “Master’s Tools” to promote social justice. Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology, 5(2), 26-41.

Fassinger, R. E., & Morrow, S. (2013). Toward best practices in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method research: A social justice perspective. Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology, 5(2), 69-83.

Frost, D. M. (2018). Narrative approaches within a social psychology of social justice: The potential utility of narrative evidence. In P. Hammack (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Social Psychology and Social Justice (pp. 83-93). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Kidd, S. A., & Kral, M. J. (2005). Practicing participatory action research. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 52, 187-195.

Levitt, H. M., Motulsky, S. L., Wertz, F. J., Morrow, S. L., & Ponterotto, J. G. (2017). Recommendations for designing and reviewing qualitative research in psychology: Promoting methodological integrity. Qualitative Psychology, 4, 2-22.

Paquin, J. D., Tao, K. W., & Budge, S. L. (2019). Toward a psychotherapy science for all: Conducting ethical and socially just research. Psychotherapy, 56(4), 491.

Ponterotto, J. G. (2005). Qualitative research in counseling psychology: A primer on research paradigms and philosophy of science. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 52, 136-136.

Posted by Sarah Kohnen, an APAGS Science Committee member and counseling psychology doctoral student at Chatham University. Feel free to reach out to Sarah with any questions you may have!

APAGS-CSOGD: Advocating for LGBTQ+ Graduate Students in Psychology

by Liz Deibel

What is APAGS-CSOGD?

The American Psychological Association of Graduate Students (APAGS) has five specialized subcommittees: the Committee for the Advancement of Racial and Ethnic Diversity (CARED), the Advocacy Coordinating Team (ACT), Convention Committee, Science Committee, and last but certainly not least, the APAGS Committee on Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity (APAGS-CSOGD). APAGS-CSOGD works to advocate for LGBTQ+ graduate students in psychology as well as the LGBTQ+ community across the United States.

Ongoing Projects:

LGBTQ+ Mentoring program
Pride Month Events (more information coming soon!)
Networking Events for LGBTQ+ students at APA Convention
So Good Blog Series

Resources for LGBTQ+ Students:

A Guide for Supporting Trans and Gender Diverse Student s
Climate Guide for LGBTQ+ and Allied Students and Professionals
Proud and Prepared: A Guide for LGBT Students Navigating Graduate Training
LGBTQ+ Listserv

Who We Are:

Troy Kearse (he/him), APAGS-CSOGD Chair, is a Ph.D. Student in Social Psychology at Howard University. His research interests focus on understanding how cultural/contextual factors inform individual cognitive processes (stereotype activation) and larger psychological outcomes (stigma) that uniquely impact health of Black, gay/bisexual men using an intersectionality lens. As a member of the LGBT+ community and doing research that centers the voices and experiences surrounding those who are LGBT of color, he is in strong support of the mission and values of APAGS-CSOGD. He is thrilled to be able to help shape and move toward a more equitable and safe future of psychology for graduate students who are a part of diverse sexual orientation and gender communities.

JD Goates (they/them) is a 3rd year Ph.D. student in the counseling psychology program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Both their research and clinical areas broadly focus on identifying and addressing the impact of systems of power and oppression through multicultural-feminist and liberation psychologies. They are passionate about APAGS-CSOGD because it is one of many possible avenues to engage in critical movement for the overall well-being and joy of queer and trans graduate students.

Lexie Wille (she/her) is a 5th year counseling psychology Ph.D. student at The University of Texas at Austin. She has been serving as a member of APAGS-CSOGD since December 2021. Her clinical and research interests focus on improving the quality and accessibility of healthcare for LGBTQ+ people. She is passionate about APAGS-CSOGD because she believes the committee offers crucial support and resources for her fellow LGBTQ+ psychology trainees.

Tom Schlechter (they/them) is a 2nd year student in the counseling psychology Ph.D. program at Colorado State University. Their research interests include improving SOGI data collection methods, and examining informal and community help-seeking behaviors. Their clinical interests center on providing gender-empowering care informed by Liberation Psychology and Queer Theory. They are passionate about APAGS-CSOGD because they believe that building community and providing mentorship opportunities is essential to supporting the work of LGBTQ+ graduate students and other professionals in psychology.

Liz Deibel (she/her) is a 2nd year clinical psychology Psy.D. student at Roosevelt University in Chicago, IL. She began her work in the APAGS-CSOGD at the end of 2021 to continue her advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights, especially given the ongoing difficulties with accessible gender- and sexually-affirming care. Clinically, she is interested in conducting psychotherapy with LGBTQ+ individuals and relationship dynamics with a relational-cultural theoretical framework. She is proud of the work APAGS-CSOGD does to promote policy change, continuing education, and supportive environments for LGBTQ+ clients and graduate students.

Anna Maralit (she/her) is a 3rd year clinical psychology Ph.D. student at the University of Missouri. Her research interests focus on understanding how dynamic impulsive processes contribute to risky alcohol use. She also has an interest in gender-related diversity issues in the field of addiction. Her passion for APAGS-CSOGD because she believes strongly in elevating the voices and experiences of LGBTQ+ trainees to address long-standing issues of underrepresentation in the field of psychology.

Want to Know More?

If you are interested in becoming a member of APAGS-CSOGD, we will be accepting applications for 2024 in late summer, early fall. If you have any ideas regarding new projects or collaborations for CSOGD to consider, please contact Troy Kearse, the APAGS-CSOGD Chair. Click here for more information.