>> So I am in my 5th year in grad school
and sort of preparing for a career
in clinical psychology but the nice thing about
graduate school is that it's not just classes.
It's also seeing clients and doing research
so you're actually getting the
real experiences of the career.
So every year of graduate school
you do what's called a practicum
and I just did outpatient therapy
with lots of different clients.
[audio feedback] I am especially interested
in kids who have trauma history so I saw a lot
of kids who have been abused or neglected.
Luckily most of them with in like new homes
and really good healthy foster families
and just kind of helping
them sort of transition.
Also saw kids who had issues
like depression or ADHD.
Kind of a really wide variety which
was a really good training experience.
Typically a session is about 50 minutes.
Some families I kind of go over if I was going
to spend some time with the child individually
and then also see the family as a unit.
In a clinical psychology graduate program
you learn a lot of very structured sort
of approaches to therapy and so I use
[inaudible] called trauma focus cognitive
behavioral therapy and it starts by
providing the kids with some coping skills
and then also sort of helping them to address
what the experience was for them sort of head on
and kind of deal with it in a healthy way
and understand that it wasn't their fault,
you know and kind of deal with any sort
of issues they're having related to that.
So it's about a third for each.
So a third of your time is spent doing research,
a third of your time is doing clinical
work and a third of it is in classes.
The thing I really like about the program is
it is so varied in what you do from day-to-day.
So some days I can come in in, you know,
sweatpants and I'm just working, you know,
going to class and working
on research at my desk.
Other days I'm seeing clients and that's
really interesting and some days you have kind
of a little bit of both and it's
really nice because if you get sick
of one thing [laughter] you have
something else to look forward to.
It really does make a difference when you
have to get up in the morning and you're tired
and you don't want to go to work, to know
that you're actually going to help somebody.
Whether it's doing research and you're trying
to figure out better ways to help families
that have problems like trauma or you know,
families where depression is an issue,
those kinds of things, it makes
it easier to get out of bed
to know you're actually making a difference
and the fact that people sort of let you
into their lives into sort of the most sort
of core part of them is really a privilege
and it's also just really interesting.
People are complicated and interesting
and just getting to know more
about how we work is fascinating.
Sort of knowing how to balance being empathetic
and really being there and being a part
of the process but also sort
of keeping your distance enough
that you don't completely
[laughter] fall apart is hard.
It's something you have to learn but it's
actually something that they really teach you
in graduate school and is actually
I think easier to do when you go
into it knowing what your role
is so that's kind of challenging
and also just time commitments
is hard because you know,
if you're doing research you have all
these projects going on and you want
to be getting your dissertation done so
you need to be spending time doing that
and then obviously if you are doing clinical
work, if something comes up with a patient
and they need you, like you have to drop
everything you're doing in some cases,
and then also you know class
work is demanding and you know.
So just finding a way to balance and
manage your time can be a challenge.
First and foremost you have to be
a really curious person especially
for the research side of things.
And I think that you have to be someone who is
really interested in kind of getting into sort
of the muck of life with other people
and I think that's not for everybody.
I think being someone who likes
to listen and is empathetic.
Tip -- a lot of people in my program are the
kinds of people that their friends go to first
when they just need to talk to someone
but it's interesting because there's a lot
of different personality types
in my program I've noticed.
So like I'm kind of an extrovert.
I love people, I love being around people
but there are people in my program who,
you know are more introverted but they still
sort of love both the clinical side of things
but also the research so I think it
kind of appeals to a variety of people.
So I actually went to undergrad at
Vanderbilt and I was a psychology major
and then I had all these other
things that I was interested in.
Didn't minor in any of them but came close
to it in several things but really found
that I loved the psychology part of things
and I took a job at the national institutes
of health doing what's called the
intramural research training award program.
It's for people in between undergrad and
either graduate school or medical school
and you can go there and you work there for --
my program was two years and I worked with kids
with bipolar disorder in their families.
And really got some really good
hands on full time experience
and got paid, not much, but I got paid.
I got to live in D.C. and that was really fun.
And then when I applied to graduate school I you
know had that experience which really spoke well
for me as a candidate and ended up back
at Vanderbilt and really happy about it.
I would tell them to start early.
I think it's really good to just get involved.
If you're university or if you live near a
hospital offer sort of volunteer work even
if just being involved doing sort of
doing volunteer work at a hospital
or you know doing like a research assistantship.
It's really good to get an idea about whether
or not you like it because it is a commitment.
You know, I'm in my 5th year of grad school.
I have loved it to be really honest,
I know that's really dorky [laughter]
but I really enjoyed it but I think
it is a long road and before you make
that commitment it's good to kind of have
a little bit of experience just to kind
of know what you're getting into.