October 2011 Archives

Week 1: Getting Started...

By maclink on October 12, 2011 3:42 PM | 0 Comments


"I discovered that I did not actually find these assignments to be 'work'--the assignments I was doing were actually things I would use in real life"


Welcome to the Careers in Psychology Course!


Overview:

This course is NOT a review course on various career options (which I have found is most people's expectation). This course helps you DECIDE what it is you want to do with your life and you will prepare the materials you need for the many career possibilities after graduation. This course is focused on DOING more than on receiving information (though don't worry, you will receive a ton of information!). This course provides you the tools and opportunity for self-reflection to make important life decisions, helps you get work done that you need to get done anyway, provides you access to the information necessary to do that work, and you will receive individualized feedback from me on the documents you'll need to use for job placement or graduate school application. 


This course is intense. There is a lot of work to be done, in a short amount of time. Further, there is a lot of self-reflection that can be anxiety producing and uncomfortable for some. 


Types of Assignments:


 In 8 weeks, you will have completed for yourself 18 assignments from 4 basic categories:


Course Information: 3 assignments--Getting Started (this blog post you are reading now, and the activities outlined at the end of this post); Psychology Info (where you will learn about the major, department, and discipline as a whole); and the Reflection (summary of your experience and course evaluation).


Self-Exploration: 5 assignments--Who are you? (two questionnaires to evaluate goals and personality traits); Digital Identities (a guided exploration of your digital footprint); What Kind of Life? (a guided exploration of your life and goals); Timeline (and outline of all tasks you need to complete before graduation); and Professional Interview (you will interview a professional who has the job you want to ultimately have as a career).


Graduate Programs: 5 assignments-Vita (the academic resume); GRE (taking a practice graduate placement exam); 10 programs (you will research and decide on 10 graduate programs you could apply to); 3 references (you will reflect and decide on 3 faculty references you could use as your references for entrance into graduate school); Personal Statement (you will write the entrance essay required for graduate applications).


Jobs: 6 assignments--Career Services (exploring the information and resources available at career services); Resume (employment resume); 10 jobs (you will research and decide on 10 jobs you could apply for with your BA in Psychology); Cover Letter (you will write a cover letter for one of those jobs); Real Jobs (you will evaluate actual jobs that our own Psych Dept alumni have); 3 references (you will reflect and decide on 3 references to use for employment purposes). 


Even if you are pretty certain about which track you are going to take, you still need to do all the assignments. I regularly have students ask to opt out of a particular assignment because they "know" they don't need it. Sorry :) not going to happen. I have seen students stumble on a job that changed what they thought they were going to do, and I have had many students take a practice GRE exam and get a great score which encouraged them to think about graduate school when they hadn't before. 


That said, you can and should tailor assignments to your interests (so if you want to go to a physical therapy grad program, your grad school assignments should be geared toward that).


Required Materials:


There are three required books for this course. Some assignments will direct you to read a particular chapter, but mostly, these are reference books that you will refer to as you need them throughout the course. Some people feel irritated that we don't 'use' the books very much in this course. Most students feel like they get a great deal of information from the books even when they aren't directly used in an assignment.


Kuther & Morgan's Careers In Psychology: Opportunities in a Changing World (referred to as K&M)


APA's Getting In: A Step by Step Plan for Gaining Admission to Graduate School in Psychology (referred to as APA)


Landrum's Finding Jobs with a Psychology Bachelor's Degree (referred to as L)


All of the course material is here on this site (NOT eLearning). You DO NOT need to register for this blog site or login to do ANY assignment. Each blog post provides you with the information, instructions and links necessary to do the assignments. You may still need to review information on the "Resources" tab for additional information, and occasionally might find it helpful to google for additional information.


Some assignments have some additional information under the heading Explore! these are optional (though helpful) resources for you to consider.  


Some blog posts have an FAQ at the bottom to help clarify points that seem to always crop up. Another reason to make sure you are reading each blog post carefully PRIOR to starting that work.


Turning in Your Work, Grading & Feedback


In order to alleviate the natural anxiety that this course often elicits, the grade you earn will be based on the number of assignments you complete. Complete them all, and you'll get an A. This is designed so that you can focus on the process and content of the assignments without worrying about the grade. You will get individualized feedback on your vita, resume, GRE assignment, personal statement, and cover letter. If your assignment is poor or incomplete you will not get credit for it and I will ask you to redo it. 


You should expect that those assignments that require reflection or explanation of an activity should be around 300-500 words. Other assignments that are of a specific document (like a resume) don't have a word limit, but should be complete.  You will turn your assignments in hard copy to me during class time.


Time Management:


Many of the assignments are time consuming, requiring planning time, writing time, and thinking time. I recommend that you read through ALL of the assignments NOW so you know what is required and when they are due so that there are no surprises. Due dates are always Thursday at class time. Most weeks you have MULTIPLE blog posts, activities, and assignments due. I have carefully spread them out so that more intensive weeks have fewer assignments to do. However, do not be surprised by this --check these assignment dates NOW. You can always turn stuff in early! 


Q&A


Asking questions is a CRITICAL part of this course; it is literally one of the main ways that I dispense information to you. You WILL miss important content if you don't ask the questions you have during class time. There is really no such thing as not having a question. If you are being serious about this course you should have many questions as you work through each assignment. 


What To Do For This Week:


Familiarize yourself with the blog, and the resources tab (nearly all of the links on the course resources tab are dispersed into the various blog posts..however, I also have them listed there in case there is a topic you are looking for and you're not sure what post it might be in). 


Read and do the work in the Who Are You? and Psychology Major/Department/Discipline Posts.


All Week 1 materials are due by Thursday class time.


FAQs:


Do I really need all of these books? Yes. You will refer to them specifically for a few assignments, but will refer to them generally for many more. Most students report that these books are ones they do not sell back. They are good resources for you even if we don't cover everything in them.


Wait. What do I go to eLearning for? You will only go to eLearning to check that your scores are getting posted (1 for doing it, 0 for not), and at the end of the course, the course evaluation will be there too. That's it. Everything else is here, and our discussion group is on FB. 


Will all of these posts be so damn long? Yes :)  I have to give you the information you need somehow. These are definitely not some simple instructions that you can skip. You must read these posts.


Why on God's green earth is this course only worth 1 credit? The workload for this course is heavy and intense. Every course I teach many people wish it was worth 3 credits and was a full semester long. I don't disagree. However, this type of course is considered "non-content" (which is ridiculous, but there ya go), and non-content courses are only allowed to be 1 credit long, and 8 weeks long. Maybe some day in the future I will be able to convince the powers that be that this course is integral to a student's understanding and participation in the discipline, but for now, there ya go. You will work hard and you will get A LOT out of this class. 



Week 1: Who Are you?

By maclink on October 19, 2011 6:35 PM | 27 Comments

"This course pushed me to learn. It got me out of my comfort zone and gave me a head start on the rest of my college career and beyond."

What do you want to be when you grow up? This is something most people have heard over and over again their whole childhood...this mantra ramps up in college and becomes a frequently asked question as you approach graduation. 

It is completely, utterly, and absolutely normal to not have a good idea (or any idea) of what you want to "do".  It's also actually helpful to have an understanding of what you DON'T want to do, too. Part of what this class will do is help you come to some of those decisions, or at least narrow down some options.

As a psychology major you need to start thinking about at least two main categories of employment (because making this broad distinction early on can guide the whole rest of your thinking and planning). 

Clinical Careers---"Clinical" means to observe, and treat disorders, problems, or disease in people. Do you want to engage in some way in a 'helping' profession, working with clients or patients in some way? Do you see yourself as a therapist or counselor, regardless of the setting (school, group home, clinic, hospital, prison, private practice, etc, etc). Then a clinically oriented career is what you want.

Non-Clinical Careers--pretty much everything else! This does not mean you don't work with people..as a professor, I am in a non-clinical career, and the people I interact with are students. As a legal consultant, I work with people (attorneys, defendants, judges, juries, police officers) but not in the capacity of treatment. A non-clinical career could still be very much psychological in orientation (like a psychology instructor at a community college, or a professor at a university; using psychological techniques and principles like in IO psychology, or in a research capacity); or it could seem completely outside of psychology (but where you are still using your degree (business/management, law, criminal justice, etc, etc).

First, I'd like you to fill out this questionnaire, located here.

Next, go to www.talentoday.com. You can login in by clicking on the facebook, twitter, or linkedin buttons (if you already have one of those accounts). Otherwise, you can create an account. Take the test..it's fairly long (about 20 minutes). Review your results (both your graphs and the narratives provided).

Next, bring a copy of your questionnaire filled out, and a summary of your experience taking the test and reviewing your results (you do not need to send me your results from the talentoday site) to class.

All Week 1 materials are due by Thursday class time.

Explore!
The Buy Nothing Year, article and blog

Week 1: The Psychology Major, Department, & Discipline

By maclink on October 27, 2011 12:05 AM | 22 Comments


"When I first heard I had to take this course I had originally thought that it was going to be a class basically telling us all the jobs we could get with a psychology degree. I did not expect it to be a class on teaching us how to go get those jobs nor did I think that it would also be helping me figure out just what career I actually want."

Even though you likely already are a psychology major, there may be a lot you don't know about the major, the department, and the psychology discipline as a whole.  This assignment will give you a few sources of insight into all of these things.

Please read K&M's Chapter 1; APA Chapter 3

Please browse the department website. This is a resource that a lot of people forget about! There is course information, information about what research faculty members do, links to Psychology Club and other resources, as well as graduate program information for our department. http://www.uni.edu/psych/

Review the content here: Psychology: Science in Action 

Check out the Facebook group: University of Northern Iowa Psychology Alumni -

Check out this excellent page: Careers in Psych

After reviewing all of this information, please write up a summary of what you learned, anything that surprised you, and bring to class.

All Week 1 materials are due by Thursday class time.

FAQs:

Aren't you kind of killing us with all of these assignments right away? Yes. I'm sorry! But these assignments really aren't that time consuming, and to make sure that you have enough time to do more comprehensive assignments, we really need to stack up the easier ones up front. 

Explore!

Info about Psych Areas

6 Important College Experiences

Time Management

College Success

What Therapists Want You To Know

Possible Minors (this is not an exhaustive list..you can minor in something just because you like it! and you can minor in something that will ultimately help you in your future endeavors):

Educational Studies Minor

Criminology Minor

Sociology Minor

Spanish Minor

Biology Minor

Family Studies Minor

Gender & Women Studies Minor

Political Science Minor

Honors in Psychology

You can graduate with Honors in Psychology if you have at least a 3.5 GPA and complete an Honors Project. Basically, an honors project is a research study that you design, carry-out, and write-up in your senior year with the help of one primary faculty member. You will learn how to design an original study, write an IRB proposal, collect and analyze your own data, write a real research paper, and present your work to others. This is a great way to stand out when you apply to grad school! Please see this website for more specifics: http://www.uni.edu/csbs/psych/psychology-department-honors-program

 The most typical timeline for doing a project like this is:

 Fall of Junior Year - work with a professor on their research. Get to know the professor well, and learn how to conduct a study by helping with an ongoing project.

 Spring of Junior Year - continue working with a professor (or start working with a new professor to learn about another type of research). Decide which professor you'd like to be the Chair of your project, ask if he/she will supervise you, and pick a topic you'd like to study for your project. Meet with Dr. Lefler, the Honors Coordinator, to discuss the rules and requirements. Fill out a Declaration Form.

 Summer between Junior and Senior Year - write the Introduction/Literature Review section of your paper, the Methods section of your paper, and the IRB proposal with the help of your Chair.

 Fall of Senior Year - continue writing your paper based on feedback from your Chair, and secure IRB approval for your study. Collect your data. Your Chair should be working with you every step of the way.

 Spring of Senior Year - analyze your data and write the final draft of your research paper. Schedule a "defense" of your paper with your committee (the Chair and two other professors), and present your research at a conference. Notify Dr. Lefler before Finals week that you have completed all requirements, and fill out the Completion Form.

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