I have been advocating for such a course in my department for a while now, but without success. I see the need for our students because there is a tremendous misconception about psychology. Even the best and brightest come in senior year and say that they want to be a therapist and they do not like research, so they are applying to clinical psychology programs!?
In my department, we have two people who do course advising for our psychology majors. We are lucky that faculty do not do advising; however, the advisors do not have degrees in psychology and do not understand the field of psychology (although that might be sore subject). They ony have time to advise students as to what courses will count for graduation. It's a terribly hard job (there are 400-500) majors for 1.5 FTE advisors. By relying on this as the only advising in the department, we do short-change our students, in my opinion. A course early on that orients students to the major and to the field could help steer the most capable students toward activities that will ensure that they are able to gain entry into the most competitive graduate programs. Currently, I see first generation college students with very high standard test scores going into terminal master's programs that they are paying for out of pocket, simply because they do not know 1) that they are Ph.D. material and 2) that they do not need a master's to apply to a Ph.D. program. A course for majors could also help students who do not want to pursue graduate work to realize that the psychology major will not provide them with all the skills that they probably need to get a good job after graduation. They should seek out resources on campus to gain marketable skills (e.g., computer and/or technical skills, etc.). These folks could also benefit from the orientation course so that they can be better consumer's of the field of psychology in the future. They would be able to learn the difference between a master's level counselor of psych, MSW counselor, school psychology specialist, school psychology Ph.D., etc. There is just so much going on in psychology. I feel that it has taken me this long (15 years) to get a handle on it all myself. When we expect our students to learn it themselves, that is great. But where do they learn it? My two cents, Shelia Associate Professor & IRB Chair Department of Psychology 116 North Murray Hall Oklahoma State University Stillwater, OK 74078 (405) 744-7335 [email protected] http://psychology.okstate.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=95&Itemid=28 --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=9606 or send a blank email to leave-9606-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
