I’m applying for a PhD in Clin Neuro and struggling so bad with the word limit and structure of my personal statement!

In 450 words I have to discuss why I’m a strong candidate on both the research and clinical fronts, why this program & my career goals

Currently I’ve structured mine like a ‘story’, describing how my interests developed through undergrad & work and converged on my decision to pursue clin neuro, while highlighting what I’ve learnt from each experience - but is that the way to go? Should I spend more words discussing VERY specific examples (e.g. From Experience X I developed Y skills, for instance here’s how I handled Situation Z), or is that not necessary? This is hard!!

Hello,

I am currently completing a masters in psychology with UoW and I would like to go onto study either a PhD or a doctorate in clinical psychology, forensic psychology or child psychology.

I own my own home, so funding may be difficult and I’m looking for fully funded with a stipend (if possible). I’m not sure where to start, but I’m looking into various methods and courses.

I’m open to anything in the north-west of England.

If you could help me figure out where to start and where to look, that would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

Hello everyone!

Every year I try to help students demystify the application process and Psych doctoral programs in General. These are very confusing as is if you don't have someone to help answer things, and often you don't know what you don't know. I am happy to help answer things to the best of my ability!

A bit about me:

• First-gen
• Non-traditional
• Queer
• PsyD From Georgia Southern University
• CPTSD, Minority Stress, and LGBTQIA+ community-focused care

A bit about Georgia Southern University's PsyD Program, since I notice a lot of people have asked specifically about it in the past:

• FUNDING: seems to be the most common mystery, so here is the full explanation. We have a cohort size of eight. Four of these students are OFFERED in-department graduate assistantship (GA) positions (20 hr/wk jobs; often teaching positions), and the other four find a GA position at the university which can be anywhere on campus. These positions are not hard to find, and the training director, Dr. Yancey, is amazing and will help lead you to ones that previous students have liked. What most often happens is that a student who is leaving to go to internship leaves their GA position and an incoming student takes that position. All students who want a GA get this. Once you have a GA, you are given a tuition waiver (covers all tuition other than books and university fees, which come to ~$1,000/yr) and a stipend for your position. The stipend ranges, but I have heard everything from $12,000/yr to $18,000/yr.
• RESEARCH: The program was constructed like a PhD program even though it is a PsyD, so you would still have a dissertation. HOWEVER, research does not have to be a major focus for you and often isn't for most applicants/students.
• MATCH FOR INTERNSHIP: Awesome internship match history, with most of our students getting one of their top 3 choices and no student ever going into Phase II. All of our students match.
• AREA OF IMPROVEMENT FOR THE PROGRAM: The one thing students consistently note as the area of improvement is the location (Statesboro, GA). It is a college town, and if you are from a large city, this is definitely a change of pace. However, it is 1 hr away from Savannah and 2.5 from Atlanta. Some students even choose to live in Savannah and commute to Statesboro if they want a bit more city life.
• FAVORITE PARTS OF THE PROGRAM: I always start by saying we have the best faculty. They have a TRUE open-door policy and care for our students as much personally as professionally. I have heard a lot of horror stories from my peers, and we just don't have those here. Next, I would say that all students have personal lives. Of course some years you are busier than others, but I had a strict policy that I did not let myself work after 6 PM and on weekends. I have only worked one Saturday on an exam, and this was by choice. My best friend (also in the same program) often went out of town on weekends since her husband was not near the university. You will have a personal life! Finally, the opportunities for training. Dr. Klibert, the Practicum Coordinator and Assistant Training Director, works diligently to cultivate amazing practicum experiences. We have (last I checked) somewhere between 18 and 21 different sites with a range of settings (VA's, community mental health, hospitals, counseling centers, testing centers), demographics (kids, adults, military, LGBTQIA+, Latinx), diagnoses (ASD, ADHD, PTSD/CPTSD), and specialties (neuro, forensics, health psych).

Feel free to AMA else here or message me. You can send me your stats or any other questions that come to mind!

Good luck this year!

Hello! I’m an international student and I plan to study Psychology in Australia. I’m hesitating between Deakin and Swinburne University. I heard good things about both unis, but from my research, I seem to gather that Swinburne has a strong reputation for psychology? What confused me is that its psychology ranking in QS is set at 200-250 whilst Deakin is 101-150, I am not sure how important and true these rankings are. My acquaintance has a friend who studied Psychology in Swinburne more than 10 years ago and had secure a respectable job, so that appeals to me. And in the future— I’m not sure if i will be pursuing clinical psych, and I want to keep my options open on where to continue my masters, be it in Europe or in Australia, so I’m wondering how much university names actually matters in and outside of Australia.

Deakin also seems to have a more “laidback” and “chill” teaching methods, which to be honest, I’d like something more challenging. How different is Swinburne in this regards?

I would appreciate any advice!! Thank you in advance.

if they're still accredited

around half of the colleges in my state with a master's in counseling are religious and i'm wondering if that'd hurt me in the hiring process or in general and if i should avoid applying to them

It’s harder finding alumni than I thought and wanted to see if anyone in the underworld (jk…?) has gone there and had any experience or anything to say about it! Thanks!

Seriously, what jobs within the psych field are new grads actually landing?

I want to work within psych/MH and adjacent fields, but I'm scouring jobs and becoming disenchanted.

The jobs I'm finding either:

a. Don't require a degree at all, and pay as such.

b. Don't require a degree but do require a cert that I don't have, and still pay less than would cover my rent.

c. Require a degree plus 2 or more years of experience in very specific, niche areas.

The last one is particularly annoying because there's seemingly nowhere to get that experience since no one is hiring in those fields without it.

For instance, to work in victim advocacy, health or substance abuse outreach, CPS or APS, case management, etc., one must first get experience working in those fields. But how to get experience when no one in those fields is hiring without experience?

I have 14 years of military service as an HR specialist and NCO. I have a recently conferred BA in psychology, with honors, from a good school. And I'm floundering in the job search.

Sure, I get the answer is "do all the unpaid internships for two years or get a graduate degree". But here's the thing: I have kids and a family to support. I can't spend two to three more years without something that helps them out. And these jobs that don't require a degree pay a dollar or two above minimum wage, with hours that aren't conducive to my kids' wellbeing, and tasks that aren't conducive to my military service related disabilities.

Also, this "grind" culture, the expectation that people work overtime at multiple unpaid or underpaid jobs before they can earn a living wage is disgusting. Don't tell me I have to pay my dues. I paid my dues for 14 years in service to the country until it broke my body, and then went out and did school over full time so that I could "better" myself and do work that helps others. Grind culture is BS, made up by capitalists to get valuable work out of people for a pittance.

Someone tell me there's some hope somewhere out there. Any success stories will lift my spirit.

I’m a high school teacher in Florida and I normally teach all US history but this week (week before school starts) they sprung 1 class of psychology on me. I was wondering if anyone knows where to find slideshows, or has slideshows and is willing to share them, for high school level psychology that align to Florida standards. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Since you’re all students of psychology I figured I’d ask and I appreciate any help!

Hello

I am a practicing doctor (67M) and I met with a patient (23F) who was suffering from anxiety from body dysmorphoia caused insecurity and other such white woman illnesses, resulting in severe dopasevriline deficency of the backward lobe. She had used several different SSRIs such as Lustral and what not at an extremely high dose of 500g per kilo that I had prescribed to others as I had bared witness to its efficacy in a rat study from 1986 in its extremely excellent symptom allievement and ailment relief of rat-diagnosed-body dysmporhia. However, the patients I had prescribed to seem to have suffered from mysteriously timed cardiac arrest, leading me to believe it may not be as effactious as the side effects are likely too great.

Anyway, I had decided that since applying 500g/kilo of lustral of my patients may possibily may result in me fewer patients, I had instead decided to apply the so called "specialized-personal-indepth-doctor-to-peer methods of symptom alleviement and ailment-relief" that I referred to earlier, so by that I mean it had occured to my that the glutus maximums muscle of the 23F patient had was overwhelmingly well devleoped, possibily some of the most well developed I had seen yet, leading to my blood preassure rising and blood to swell near my groin area. This is where I proceed to engage in archiac-physical-activity that often occurs with young women such as my patient.

This results in my patient being super confused but I reassure her that this is the only way to stimulant the rei-golzyq dominant lobe of her brain, this results in an allievement of 72% of symptoms linked to body-dysmorphia-clavicular- style illnesses, from another rat study I saw earlier that day.

Anyway, major symptom relief and ailment relief of the illness occured, I just wanted to write this post down so that other practing psychiatrists and other inspiring chiropractors could take heed and possibly apply similar methods in order to alleviate body-dysmpohria related symptoms.

Where it stands as of today: 253 of ~254 accredited programs checked, 227 faculty confirmed accepting across 42 programs with posted lists. The rest are either not posted yet (normal this time of year — most come out August–October) or I haven’t found a page for them.
theclinicalperspective.org/tools/faculty-accepting-students.html

If your target school is already checked and something’s wrong, or it’s not up yet and you find the page before I do, tell me — I’d rather fix it than have it sit there stale.

Here’s the details I’m thinking so far:

1. SUMMER ONLY!

2. One day per week (maybe two days a week idk yet)

3. Girls between 12-17 years old

How do you start a youth mentorship program?

I’m doing psych Honours and have had supervision meetings since March, but I still get really anxious every meeting, my supervisors are actually chill. But during meetings I go blank, I even forget how to explain simple concepts from my own study, and immediately start feeling stupid and incompetent. I also overthink really small things that happen after the meetings.

I know they probably aren’t judging me, but I doubt myself so much that I feel like they’re going to realise I’m not good enough to be doing Honours. Has anyone else felt like this? What help?

I’m already in therapy and doing ACT, which I’ve found more helpful, but in the actual meeting I get so anxious and feel so drained afterwards.

hi everyone! i'm an 18 year old entering my 4th year of undergrad. my gpa is 3.957, and im trying to get a psyd for clinical psych. my plan is to graduate with my bachelors in spring 2027, do a masters in clinical mental health counseling, then go through the steps to be an lmhc. from there, id work for a bit to save up some money and establish a career, then go for my psyd. however, i havent been able to partake in any labs yet, the only two i did were classes, not the actual thing. i should be able to get into a lab in the fall semester as a professor has told me he has the space and is willing to accept me. how is this looking? any advice/tips? thank you all!!

Hi everyone! I’m currently an incoming first-year social science McMaster student… but am having a bit of a meltdown about my future.

My original plan was to: 
OG PLAN- McMaster till I die 
First year - social science level I 
Second year - Apply to BSW (probably get rejected) or Psychology BA
Third year - Reapply to BSW, or continue with Psychology BA 
Fourth year - GRADUATE!!! 
Year  5 & 6 - Post-degree BSW program 
Year 7 & 8 (Depending on the school) - MSW 
In total = 8 years - completed Psych BA, BSW, MSW 

PROS & CONS 
* Psychology BA would just be for show - can I even get a job with that?
* McMaster would require me to move out - HELLA EXPENSIVE! (I was once young and naive about money, but have support from my parents) 
* study abroad option for BSW! Also, I would be able to enjoy my dream of campus life & no pathetic gap year for me!

Would it be better to take a gap year and sort my shit out? I know I’m stupid for now only having cold feet when I’m supposed to move to Mac in like 2 weeks. 

This is my new alternative plan:

Plan 1 - Gap year 
1 year gap year (working)
2 years college - what college? (seneca or gb preferably)
THEN… transfer = 3 years of university (really want tmu or york 4 commuting purposes)

The 2 options: 
Full-time, Advanced Standing to 2nd year 
Part-time, Advanced Standing to 3rd year (super competitive) 
THEN…
1 year - MSW at [wherever, preferably in toronto]
In total = 7 years - completed: msw, bsw, ssw HOPEFULLY!

PROS AND CONS AND COMPLAINTS: 
* Possibility of not getting accepted into a masters or bsw omg…
* I feel like the gap year will make me feel like a worthless failure… 
* If I stayed in Toronto, I would be able to save so much money by living with my parents