May 13, 2025 • 47 mins
#220 In this week’s episode, I am joined by one of my closest friends at UPenn to discuss one of our favorite topics: being a psych major! In this episode, Olivia and I break down everything you need to know about majoring in psychology in college. We share all of our absolute best advice on what we wish we’d known before picking psychology as our major, including:
+ whether psychology is a competitive major
+ the different areas of psychology & career options for each
+ what psychology classes, homework, & grading are like
+ how to avoid burnout as a psych major
+ why getting research experience is so crucial
+ what your research timeline should look like as an undergrad
+ the importance of finding mentors
+ red & green flags when choosing your research lab
+ our favorite psych classes we’ve ever taken
+ and a fun bonus topic (hint: moral dilemmas!)
Olivia’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/olivia.nicastro/
MENTIONED
+ Center for Addiction Studies
+ Anara AI
SHOP GUEST RECOMMENDATIONS: https://amzn.to/3A69GOC
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Sheep Assisted, the Gen.
Z mental health podcast. I'm your host, Sadie Sutton.
Let's get into it. How would you describe
psychology for people who don't know what to expect?
What can I do with a psychology degree?
How much read it would you say you do for psychology classes?
What even is a research like study?
How? Important are grades.
What is the timeline for undergrad?
Who are the professors at my school?
(00:20):
What research are they doing? I'm curious, just like classes
you would recommend taking. I want to be a psych major,
should I take stat or Cal? What are the opportunities as
far as like what projects am I involved in?
What do you want to do research wise?
Why do we need? Research experience, any last
parting advice to psych majors? Hello, hello and welcome back to
another episode of She Persisted.
We have one of my closest friends, Olivia on the podcast
(00:41):
today, fellow psychology major, and we're going to give you guys
like a one stop shop overview ofeverything you need to know if
you want to major in psychology or you are majoring in
psychology because we are graduating next week as
psychology majors at Penn. If you couldn't tell by our
matching P sweatshirts, which you can see in video, we are
(01:03):
twinning Olivia, can you give uslike a little introduction and
so people can kind of understandif like their experience story
relates to you, if not, etcetera?
Yeah, well, my name is Olivia. I am from Lancaster, PA, and as
you mentioned, I will be graduating in about a week.
I'm also just crazy. It's.
Like I can't even imagine like how like quick it's gone.
(01:25):
And I'm interested in doing a PCin clinical psychology
eventually. I'm really interested in
addiction research. I'm looking at like genetic
influences and also adverse childhood experiences on like
the onset of substance use disorders.
And yeah, that's that's me. And we will talk normally not in
academia. If you guys heard Olivia's, I
(01:46):
don't understand anything she just said, which like me also,
even though I apparently am going to have a psychology
degree. Yeah, I never feel qualified to
do anything. It's that's the vibe.
But I do think what is so great about this is that Olivia and I
both want to get our pH DS in clinical psychology.
We both went through the application cycle together this
year. We're in the same seminar for
our honors thesis program and. It's not a competitive major
(02:08):
because research interests are so different.
Yes. And I love that.
Yeah. I like, I never feel like I'm
applying to the same things as like you or my friends because
like everything they want to do is like so different and it's so
diverse. And if anything, you love when a
friend kind of joins your orbit like is in a class or is in the
same lab as you. Because again, what you want to
do with these experiences varies.
(02:31):
You're not applying against eachother like you might feel like
in high school or definitely if you're pre Med.
I feel like that might be a concern or consulting.
We're at Penn, so like that is something that people are really
stressed about. Like where are you interviewing
for? You're going for the same roles
and psychology doesn't have thatvibe.
And so to give you like my very brief research interest, I'm
very interested in like adolescents, emerging adulthood,
(02:54):
mood disorders, but I'm really interested in like cognitive
attributions and interventions. Still need to figure out exactly
what I want to apply to grad school for, but I like the more
interventiony mood disorder space.
And so we're not going to be looking at like the same Pi or
the same research, but we can take the same classes, get the
same skills at the same time. So to kind of back things up for
(03:15):
people that are considering majoring in psychology, it is
the most popular major in the United States, which I didn't.
Know. I did not know that until right
now. It's like I think we should have
psychology classes in health andhigh school.
Like it's very relevant and general knowledge and you can go
a lot of places with a psychology degree.
You could apply to Med school, you could apply to get your PS
sheet, you could do a master's. So it's not just like you major
(03:37):
in psychology, you become a therapist.
So I thought we could kind of talk about the different areas
of psychology and then like vaguely the different paths you
could take so that people can understand if like that's even
aligned with their goals. So when I was thinking about
this, I was thinking about like school psychology.
There's organizational psychology, which is like
working with businesses. There's clinical psychology
(03:58):
where you're working with patients.
There's more general psychology where you're doing research and
you're not necessarily interacting with people as much
from like a clinical capacity. Think there's health psychology.
There's a lot of different domains that you could work in
if you want to get a psychology degree.
And then I'm also seeing all over my TikTok for you, Paige,
(04:19):
And I know you saw because I sawyou reposted people being like
graduate with psychology major cannot do anything with this
degree. Yes, yes, I feel like there's
that's always the concern. Everyone asks me like
underclassmen ask me like what can I do with psychology degree?
And my answer is always pretty much like Graduate School in
some way, whether it's like a PHDASID going to Med school, I
(04:40):
feel like everyone I know goes, or even a master's in like
social work. Yeah, which I would kind of say
like if you don't, you don't have to like studying.
I also saw Tech talk about this like psychology is you love
learning, not necessarily you love studying, which I love
that. I think if you love learning,
this is a good degree for you because you likely will need to
build on that with like a master's or some kind of
(05:01):
licensure, maybe grad school. It's not like you just can go
directly into industry once you graduate, but I think for both
you and I and you can tell me ifthis is wrong.
I'm excited to go to grad schooland keep.
Learning. No, me too.
I love school. I'm like sad that I'm not going
to be able to like go right intograd school.
I'm trying to like postpone getting a job as long as
possible. Exactly.
So it's like you, if you're here, like obviously there's
(05:24):
like, Oh my God, it's going to be so long until we're working
like that is an interesting experience.
But I think generally like the idea of a next step and like
learning more about this thing should excite you and that it
would be like a good indication that it's a good fit.
So we both want to do clinical. We want to work with people that
are maybe not as on a typical trajectory with regard to mental
(05:44):
health. We want to work individually
with people in that capacity. But you could also do psychology
and go more into business. Like how do you motivate
employees? How do you increase focus,
increase output? You could work in school, so you
could work with kids. You can work on improving like
Ieps, things like that. So when we say like clinical,
like we want to get a clinical degree, but you could also
(06:07):
graduate and you could work in like forensic psychology as an
interviewer immediately and you could get that job.
So like if you do want to do therapy, there are other paths
like you can be a licensed clinical social worker, you get
your masters in social work, youcould get a doctor in social
work. So you don't have to get a
doctorate in psychology or in clinical psychology, but a
psychology major help set you upfor those options where you do
(06:27):
work with patients or with people that like like clients in
that capacity. I want to talk about the general
experience for psychology classes because I feel like they
differ a bit from like I remember language classes.
It's like so different or a mathclass.
It's more like calm marketing writing vibes is kind of the
other classes I would say it wassimilar to.
(06:48):
Can you give your general like, how would you describe
psychology classes for people who don't know what to expect?
And then also, like, we'll also talk about tips for psychology
classes specifically. Yeah, I feel like it.
Really, definitely it depends onthe school that you go to.
We are at a smaller school than if you would go to like a large
state school. So the only like large seminars
(07:10):
are like the large lectures I feel like I've had have been
like maybe 102 hundred people and that's not the norm.
I feel like is big though, and huge and is huge because like so
many people take it to see if they're interested in it.
But that's definitely the largest psychology class you're
going to take. Like some of my seminars I've
taken have been like 10 people. I mean, our honors class is
(07:31):
what, like 8 or 10? People, yeah, I definitely think
it's, even though it is like such a popular major, I think
they do a good job, at least at Penn, of making it so you don't
feel like you don't have a relationship with your professor
and that you're not overwhelmed with the amount of people in the
class. I would say that the intro level
site classes, whether that's like social, developmental,
(07:52):
abnormal, general psychology forhere we have positive
psychology. Those are definitely test based.
Like you can expect like 3 testsa semester.
There is memorization of concepts.
I will say they do try incorporate like free response
if they do want to understand that you can kind of interact
with the material in an intellectual way.
(08:15):
I would say once you get more into the seminars, it's a lot
rarer that it's test based. It's instead projects or papers
and that's my favorite personally.
Like give me a paper over a testevery day percent.
Yeah. And I feel like if psych is the
right major for you, which like I am not someone who loves
studying and I didn't mind prepping for tests.
(08:38):
In psychology, yeah, I do reallylike that.
The psychology tests are mainly memorization.
Like I remember taking like AP chemistry in high school and it
was like you had to understand aconcept and be able to apply it
in many different contexts. And there is that to like some
degree in psychology. But do you?
Know nature versus nurture. Yeah, and like biopsychosocial.
Theory it's like mainly memorizethese like DSM disorders which I
(09:03):
personally prefer. I feel like it's easier to
prepare for. Yeah, no, 100%.
And then I want to talk about the level of reading because
this is a very reading heavy major and there are ways to
approach it more effectively, which we definitely want to give
tips on. The other thing that I'll
mention, which I didn't think about, in which I totally
screwed myself over with freshman year, is that you can
(09:24):
kind of burn out on psychology because the concepts overlap.
So freshman year I took Intro toPsych, I took a writing seminar,
which is unique to Penn, but I took children's language
acquisition and I took children in media.
And those don't necessarily sound like they would be the
same, but they were all talking about the stages of learning and
child development. How many times have we learned
(09:46):
like pre operational, operational, Yeah, how language.
Develops like. Just language in general is by
far my least favorite psychologyconcept.
I actually have negative interest in how people learn how
to talk. But it's an easy, it's easier
than if the neuroscience stuff, I will say in my experience
100%. So it's like one of those like
you pick your poison and linguistics could be worse.
(10:07):
It definitely could be worse, it's just painfully boring I
think. I would agree with that then,
but people love it. People do love it.
That's OK. Yes, that's.
OK, we need people for everything.
It's just not my niche. Yes.
And so I took those three classes and even though they
were in different departments with different teachers and one
was a seminar, 1 was a small lecture and one was a large
lecture, I was learning the samethings over and over again and I
(10:28):
was getting assigned readings for the same thing over and over
again. And I mentally was so like burnt
out and struggled with that. And so I think being aware of
like what your topics of classesare covering, interspersing or
general Ed requirements, becausethere is overlap with topics and
you will burn yourself out with like studying and writing things
(10:51):
if you're in a semester where you're learning the same thing
over like 3 different classes. Yeah.
And I could see that happening really easily with linguistics,
maybe some stats stuff if you'retrying to overlap with like your
math requirement, definitely childhood development because
that just like there's only one way to teach it.
The other ones, like aren't thatbad, but I remember freshman
(11:11):
year being like, that was horrible.
Yeah. So going back to readings, yeah.
How much reading would you say you do for psychology classes or
like how much is assigned, we'llsay.
Like 2 to 3 hours a day. Because I don't do that.
Do you think? Yeah, that's probably accurate
for what is assigned. Like, yeah, academic papers,
(11:32):
textbook chapters. Other related readings that map
on to what you're learning about.
One of the biggest pieces of advice I give to high schoolers
is that you can't do all the readings, and not right now.
That's advice I got from one of my mom's friends my freshman
fall. I was freaking out.
I had. I was also taking the English.
Class I was up till 2:00 in the morning doing these readings
that I never would use. Again, Yeah, no, I was like I
(11:54):
was taking an English class, taking like 3 site classes.
I had so many readings and I'm just thinking like, there's a
zero chance I'm going to be ableto read all of this.
And then I, I was told like by my mom's friend, she was like,
you know, when I was in school, like you have to pick and
choose. Like if you have a class where
your exams are actually based onreadings, do those readings.
If you have a class where you'renever going to use those
(12:15):
readings, I'm not saying don't do that, but maybe like read the
conclusion, read the summary, like skim it because you like
literally will just you're goingto miss important things in your
other readings if you're doing these like. 70 page reading that
your one professor signed, that actually doesn't really matter
if you're grade like not all readings are created equal and
you're going to get better and better at being able to tell
(12:36):
which ones you have to do and which ones you just need to be
able to ask a question about or contribute to the discussion.
And I think it depends on the class.
I would say the intro courses, the textbook readings or at
least being able to answer all the textbook like practice
questions. That's important.
So like cognitive science, remember that was a big thing
(12:57):
like normal psych, social psych,because it's again these
memorization of concepts and youcould.
Learn them from like really working the lecture material,
teaching them to yourself. But you could also do that from
the textbook. Like my neuroscience classes
never touched a textbook and never needed to.
The professor, at least I had a really good professor for my
class and he just went over whatwas in the textbook and it's
(13:19):
like maybe I could have understood it a little bit
better if I read the textbook, but it's like 60 pages for like
1 chapter. It would have taken me a very
long time to read the textbook and it did not turn out to be
necessary. So I was like, I don't need to
read the textbook for my neuroscience classes.
I'm going to read the textbook for my psychology classes
because I need to write a paper or something.
Yeah, I would say that for the seminar style classes, you need
(13:41):
to be able to have a conversation about it, which.
Because your participation is usually always a big party of
grade for seminars. So you they will take what you
say like very seriously. Like you need to be able to say
something like I read this and Iunderstand what's going on.
Or like give a critique, which if you're good at like BS ING a
discussion, you'll probably be fine.
But just like go in knowing that.
(14:02):
And then one of my favorite finds this semester has been
Anara. Do you know about Anara?
Is that like AI? Yes.
So if you've ever tried to like give ChatGPT and summarize a
paper, it's not very good. And if you try and ask it
questions about the paper, it doesn't pull from the paper.
What a Nara does is you can upload any research paper and
you can ask it questions about one paper and it will only
(14:23):
answer from that paper and it'llgive you line by line citations.
Wait, I should have done. So if you were like, OK, like
what does this theory say about phonemes?
It will tell you the exact line where they talk about phonemes.
And so you can quote it directly.
And then what's even better is you can group papers together.
So I will upload the 30 papers that I've cited in my thesis and
(14:45):
say, what is the general consensus around emotional
dissertation? And this is the best psychology
major AI that I've found. Really.
It's so good. I have primarily used ChatGPT.
Yeah, no, I love chat. I use it all the time.
I use clod sometimes not as much.
But if you have readings, you can upload any reading to here.
(15:07):
I uploaded the entire APA style guide so I can ask you.
Questions about so like that needs to be talked about.
Like APA, like they just, I feellike sometimes we, we've never
gotten really a, a good like, overview of like we've had to
write many APA style papers and I've never been explicitly told
like this is how you do an APA style, you know, you just have
(15:28):
to Google. Yeah.
And then I'm on like the APA website and I'm like, well, you
have like 20 different editions,so which one am I supposed to be
writing? So that's really helpful.
Yeah. So if you are doing readings, I
would say doing like an AI summary or what does this person
think about X? That is a game changer for those
classes that you don't need to do all of the readings for.
Another one is Google notebook LM.
(15:51):
You can upload your readings andyou can get a podcast.
It's not perfect and it's not all-encompassing, but I send.
You the memory. For test prep.
And so I'll be like summarize mynotes from this lecture, make it
a podcast and it will talk you in like podcast conversational
manner, your academic notes and that's another.
But again, you have to remember that's not perfect and like
(16:12):
all-encompassing and Nara is. Yeah, like very, very good.
So I would say like using these other ways of learning and
distilling the information, but from like a mental burnout
perspective and a cheer time perspective, doing all the
readings is not feasible. It's not no.
How would you rank like the importance if you were taking
(16:32):
every type of class this semester and you don't have the
bandwidth to do the readings? Seminars definitely at the top
of doing the readings, especially because primarily
you're making like discussion posts and you're also writing
papers as opposed to doing like an exam.
So basically like my whole classwas centered around the readings
that we did and every day all wedid in class was talk about the
(16:53):
readings that we did. So I knew it was important.
I would say lectures are usuallymiddle, like a psychology
lecture, like social psychology,abnormal psychology.
It's it's important to do the readings I would say, but they
will be covering most of that inclass.
And then at the bottom is any like stats like I've never
(17:14):
touched a stats textbook. Oh it's so confusing.
I never. Put in a textbook, yeah.
And I just reading about math I think is pointless.
Yeah, you have to like try and do it.
Speaking of which, why do we need?
Research experience because I like when I applied to Penn, I
knew that they had great research, which is one of the
reasons I like great, but I didn't really know what that
meant. I really thought I wasn't gonna
have to do research. I didn't really when I applied
(17:38):
to Penn, I knew I wanted to be apsychology major and I like
applied as a psychology major, but I didn't really know what
that meant. Like I didn't know what I was
supposed to be doing as a psychology major.
Like outside of my classes, I didn't know.
Hopefully this podcast will tellyou.
I know I didn't know what I wanted to, like, do as a career,
so I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing.
(17:58):
And then I took a freshman seminar.
It was on addiction. And I had already had a lot of,
like, interest in addiction because of, like, addiction in
my family. So I took this class and I was
really interested in it. And I asked the professor.
I was like, I'm really interested in the work you're
doing. Do you have any openings?
And he didn't, but he set me up with someone at the Center for
Addiction Studies at Penn who was doing research and got me
(18:19):
involved, like, my first research at Penn, which was just
so helpful. But yeah, I didn't really know
what research was when he was like, what do you want to do?
Like, research wise? I had no idea.
I just, like, went to the Centerfor Addiction Studies.
And I met with Doctor Henry Kranzler, who was, like, my
mentor my freshman year, like one of my favorite people here
at Penn. And he just was like, you don't
(18:39):
need any background because I was worried.
I was like, I've never done research.
I have no idea what I'm doing. He was like, we'll like, tell
you, like, I will walk you through how to write an academic
paper, like how to be involved in a study.
What even is a research like study at Penn look like?
And I feel like Penn's been verygood with that, that just like
if you are coming in with no background, like they know that,
(19:01):
like they're expecting that fully.
And I feel like they're so welcoming to like even freshmen
getting involved in research. Yeah, it's a big part of how the
psychology program is structuredand how the labs work.
Like they will get so many inbound requests from non intend
students being like I'm a statistician, I am a senior at
Temple or Drexel or these other schools and they will choose to
(19:24):
hire the freshman to train and give it's like a big part of the
degree that you're getting. And then the mentorship process
is built into these programs. I also think like I agree with
you, where I knew that I wanted to be a psychologist, probably I
wanted a psychology degree but Ididn't understand that research
(19:44):
was how I would get there. Yeah, I agreed.
Like that just like was totally lost on me until sophomore year,
yeah. And so I think understanding
that when you hear people say like, oh, I have a master's in
social work or I have a PhD in clinical psychology, or I'm a
therapist, even if they don't doit now, how they got that degree
(20:04):
and how they got into those programs was research.
Everything in psychology is research.
And genuinely, e-mail us if you have an exception.
I would be shocked. I know.
Like, show me a psych major who's never done research.
Yeah, yeah. It is so it's like literally
synonymous to any work in psychology.
Even if you want to like completely split and do just
clinical down the line, you haveto get the degree passage of
(20:26):
research. And So what does research mean?
It means the final papers that you read that tell us like grit
makes you more successful or optimists have better outcomes.
Like these findings that we knowas a whole in psychology, the
day-to-day and especially what it means that at this level is
like collecting data with participants statistics, reading
(20:50):
the literature, lots of data, cleaning lots statistics.
That was like another big thing that I I.
Didn't think I would use that. I I was like a senior in high
school and I was like deciding between taking calculus and
statistics and I knew I wanted to.
Be a psych major, don't take. No and I like just googled like
I want to be a psych major. Should I take stat or calc?
(21:10):
And they were like take stat. I didn't know why they said that
but I was like OK and then no, it's actually necessary.
Like I have done so much coding in R If you had told me my
freshman. Year I didn't know what R.
Was of college. I would be coding, Yeah.
For psychology. I would have laughed in your
face. I would have been like, there's
no idea. You'll never catch me dead
coding an R And why would I needto?
Why would I need to? I want to be a psychologist.
(21:32):
I want to work with people. I don't want to work with
computers. Yeah, but it's like synonymous.
Like you do. And you don't know that.
Now you don't know that. Now you know that.
But yes, you didn't. So basically, like, you will
understand the more you get experience.
But like, if you want to go intopsychology, that means you're
going to do research. Yeah.
Unfortunately, and you also might be OK, I'd like to get
involved with psychology as an undergrad.
(21:53):
I'm ready to write papers. No, you're not.
That's not happening. So we're gonna like get later
into like, posters, papers, publishing what it's like
working in a lab, but just like also to clarify what research as
an undergrad looks like. It's.
Not that. Which is, I will say very weird
because that was my first experience really, like at the
Center for Studies of Addiction.Like when I was starting off,
(22:14):
the research was done. They were at the manuscript
writing process. And that's all I did.
Yeah. I work in a web like that.
And it's, if you can find that it.
Well, yeah. Because I didn't know at the
time how, like, invaluable publications were going to be.
And publications are the currency of psychology.
They literally are. And so I was just like, yeah,
like, I'll. I'll help write this manuscript.
I don't really know why I'm doing this.
(22:35):
Like, I don't really know much about it.
Yeah. And that was, like, so
important. But it was weird.
I had, like, a backwards experience where I, like,
started off writing the papers. And only until my junior year
did I ever actually do like a research study from like the
beginning of like actually collecting data.
Yeah. So if people are like, OK, I get
it. I have to do research.
(22:56):
I want to do research. What is the timeline for
undergrad? Because I feel like, I mean, we
are at a very pre professional schools.
There is this set timeline. There's this pressure for people
to have like summer jobs or internships.
I don't think that exists everywhere, but I do think it's
helpful to have like a rough timeline and framework that you
could follow because I feel likeI was kind of just doing choose
my own adventure. Yeah, my we can kind of like go
(23:19):
through this together and like give our thoughts freshman year.
I would say like freshman fall, take intro to psych if you don't
have the credit already, take one other site class if you can,
if you don't need the credit, like maybe a seminar that's kind
of related to what you want to do.
Just to confirm. Like OK, I like the style of
psychology classes. I could see myself doing this
for like decades to come. And then also core requirements
(23:40):
because getting those out of theway early is is helpful.
And then I would maybe try and like do some general poking
around on the university websiteof like what labs are there?
Who's collecting data? Just kind of like ask around but
AI have only seen probably like one person get hired as a
(24:02):
freshman two actually it's hard to 1st semester freshman get
hired and and by hired at least for me I mean volunteer and
working for. Free because that's the only
option. Yeah, unfortunately.
And B, you're just like adjusting and trying to survive.
Yeah. What would you say for a first
semester freshman year? I feel like my situation was a
little different just because I took that freshman seminar and I
(24:24):
found the person who was doing the research I wanted to do.
Which like is so incredible and if it hasn't happened to you,
it's OK. Yeah, I would say just like
figure out like what are you interested in, take classes, do
some research, look up like who are the professors at my school?
What research are they doing? Are they doing anything that I'm
interested in and cold e-mail them like?
(24:45):
Professors are so receptive to just emailing and saying I'm
interested in what you're doing.Do you have any positions?
Do you have any volunteering options or.
And it depends on the size of the, like, if you're going to
like a big professor at your school, they might say no, but
especially the ones that are still establishing their career,
being like, I'd love to understand what the process
looks like. I'm interested in what you're
(25:06):
studying. Can I come by one of your office
hours? Can I meet with you for 30
minutes? And the relationships with the
professors are so key. Literally everything.
Yeah. So every single class, even if
it's linguistics, go up the first day and introduce yourself
to the professor 'cause you can't redo that later in the
semester. Even if you never talked to them
again, at least you're setting yourself up for success in the
(25:27):
event that you like their area of research in them as a person
and. Then and you don't want any.
The relationships, the relationships you have with your
professors are the most valuablething you'll get out of
undergrad. And so anytime you can ask to
meet with someone and talk to someone, and then you'll decide
which relationships you want to pursue.
(25:49):
But just like before, you know, like the foundation is helpful
and that means sending thank youemails after the class has
ended, going to office hours, getting FaceTime.
Like if you think you wrote a good essay for their class or
you did well on the test or you wrote a good course review, they
don't know you. You have to see them and meet
them in person. That's what makes the difference
(26:10):
and moves the needle. I feel like I haven't been that
good at doing that to be honest.Like, unless this sounds like
awful, but unless I'm like interested in the work they're
doing, I usually don't. No, I agree it should only be
like if it's aligned. But if you're a freshman and you
don't know, you don't. Know what to do a freshman year
you want to keep your definitelyyeah.
I feel like once I narrowed in like what I want to do, I was
like, I'm I'm only gonna network.
(26:32):
With those professors, yeah, totally valid.
What do you think about freshmanyear summer?
Because I did nothing freshman year summer and I have no
regrets. I think that was totally fine.
I think it's totally fine. I did like a internship research
thing like this. Is why Olivia is on a podcast
because she's better at this? That's not true.
I literally just got so lucky with the Center for addiction
studies. Like I actually could not talk
(26:53):
better about that. They like kept me on throughout
the summer and during my sophomore year and they were
just so like, welcoming. I worked remotely.
I only came into Philly like once a week and they were just
so great. But like, that's not necessary.
Totally. And I do think This is why we're
harping on like labs and mentorsbecause I would say again, I
(27:15):
said the most valuable thing is the relationships, the
experiences you get in labs, finding the right one that sets
you up for success like that. It's amazing all the difference.
So if you want something to do freshman year, being a research
assistant at a lab over the summer is perfect.
And it doesn't have to be at your university.
If you're like, I am volunteering for free or I'm on
work study, I can't afford to rent somewhere over the summer.
(27:37):
You could do any university nearyour home.
There's virtual work that can bedone.
So be flexible. You open a different options.
I would say to start looking forthat like early ish put out
feelers spring semester because they do kind of hire early for
summer rolls. I also say that people will kind
of be resistant to a cold e-mailsaying I'd like to work for you
(27:57):
for three months because it's not worth it for them to train
you. I would definitely not specify
like I want to work with you just over the summer.
Like I would just feel out like I'm interested in your work.
Like do you have any openings? And then.
So that's like optimal to do at your university because then
it's like an ongoing relationship.
You'll get a better letter of rack.
It's worth it for them to train you and bring you onto the team.
(28:20):
However, if you've established arelationship with someone, they
probably will throw you three months of work over the summer.
But like general of them try andI'll keep it in the same lab for
at least two to three semesters.Yeah, it's hard to get a good
letter of rank without that, andmost labs will tell you they
want at least two semesters commitment, I think sophomore
(28:42):
year. So I would mean always if you
can find something to get paid. Do it.
You can get paid through work study.
Sometimes labs will have grants that allow them to pay you.
We're not in the best era as faras funding if you've been
following the. News, we are not you can.
Apply to grit for grants throughyour universities Research
Center. You could get independent
(29:04):
funding. There are a lot of ways to do it
if you feel you need to get paid.
The way that I've done the podcast and research is I've
subsidized that by doing social media work.
So having something where you like you have some income that
allows you to then volunteer these extra hours towards your
career goals is also an option. And I would not worry too much
about like the communication neuroscience lab for me was not
(29:25):
really the research I wanted to be doing.
And at first I was a little worried like it's just going to
look bad that I'm going a littleall over the place with my
research right now. But I, I don't think that's like
a bad thing at all. Like the more experience you
get, the more you will realize what you want.
Because if you only do one type of research, even if you're like
confident that's what you want to do, like you really should
(29:45):
have some other experiences. And grad schools are just
looking for, you have experience.
I don't think they really care that much.
Yeah, okay, maybe you did depression work your freshman
year and then sophomore year waslike schizophrenia and then
junior year was addiction. And only then did you realize
want to do addiction work. I think they'll pay attention to
what you write your thesis about, So what your interest is
for your independent project, ifyou do a job after graduating,
(30:08):
which we'll talk about what you chose to do for that.
But I would say as an undergrad,the best thing you can do is
diversify your experiences. So get some experience with data
cleaning, some experience with active data collection,
experience with different sizes of labs, experiences with
different styles of mentors. What type of data collection do
they do? Is it a Qualtrics survey or are
(30:28):
they like hooking people up to an EEG?
Yeah. And I think it's so much more
important what you're doing at alab than what the lab is
studying. Like they want to see that, like
you've been involved in every aspect of the research process,
like no matter what lab you're at.
OK. And related to that size of
research labs, just tell me likeyour experience with sides of
research labs and what you liked, what you did it?
(30:51):
I think there's only pros and cons, I don't know.
I would say there's pros and cons for each.
I think if you can expose yourself to both because a
smaller lab, that might be something you really love.
Really getting to know the people, you really understand
everything that's happening in the lab.
You have more input on what projects are going on.
You'll probably know the Pi better, a larger lab.
(31:13):
The benefits are that a, there'sa sense of community.
There's more scaffolding as far as mentorship.
So you have people that are sophomore, junior, seniors, and
you can ask some questions aboutwhat to do in undergrad.
You then have post backs who arepeople who have just graduated
and haven't yet gone to grad school.
You have grad students, you havethe Pi who's a professor.
(31:33):
No, sorry, before the Pi, you have postdocs, so people have
gone to grad school and are still doing research.
And then you have your Pi and your professor, so you're able
to see like what your future career will look like.
You can ask questions, you can get support for grad
applications, grant applications.
A lot of the times also larger labs will be doing more data
(31:55):
collection. So if you want to be like really
involved with a larger study, like for example, the lab I'm
starting at as a post back in June, 5 post backs are starting
at the same time. So like big larger lab, larger
study happening, tons of participants moving through.
There's not a good or a bad setup.
Like I would say that I see my Pi more in the larger lab than I
(32:17):
did my smaller lab, which is counterintuitive.
So I would say expose yourself to both so you know what you
like and then you can use that information to decide a what.
Kind of lab do you want to do your thesis at and what kind of
lab do you want to work at aftergraduating?
Yeah. And I think like almost more
important than the size of the lab is the type of professor
running the lab. Like as you mentioned, like you
(32:38):
could have a small lab, but if you don't have a hands on
professor, like it doesn't really matter if you have a
small lab, you're not going to see them.
But if you have a hands on professor, even if the lab is
large, you will see them. And for me personally, I'm very
much a person who likes a hands on professor 100%.
I want someone not even just forresearch, but like, I want a
relationship. Yeah.
I want like, my professor that I'm doing my senior thesis with
(33:01):
right now, absolutely adore her.She's like so hands on.
She asks me how I'm doing everyday.
Like she knows about my personallife and that's made me way more
productive in her lab than any other position I think I've had
just because of like building that relationship.
You're allowed to ask also when you interview for labs like.
Yeah. You're interviewing them as much
(33:23):
as they're interviewing you because there were lots of labs
on these campuses. What questions would you be
asking the lab manager? The post backs the other
undergrads the Pi to figure out if it's a good mentor fit.
Yeah, I, I think I forget where we were.
I think it was the ABCT conference where one of the
(33:44):
professors said don't ask me my mentoring style and which was
really good to hear 'cause I really took that and didn't ask
like during grad school interviews any of like the
professors about that. But I always ask the graduate
students when I interviewed withthem and they'll be honest and
they will be, they've been exactly where you're, I've
gotten such candid responses from like graduate students to
(34:05):
the point where I didn't end up even like applying to like these
programs. And so I think it's super
necessary to ask the graduate students or the kind of
professor or the undergrads, like what kind of mentor the
professor is. Like, are they hands on?
Do they give you good feedback? When is the timeline like for
their feedback? Do you see them often?
Do you know anything about theirlives?
Do they know anything about yourlife?
You want someone that you can like, actually have a
(34:27):
relationship with. I would say like green flags and
every lab is different. This might not be true for
everyone. Do they generally have an open
door policy? Like Doctor Rusio at Penn does
this really well where she has areally clear understanding and
hierarchy of who she's serving and supporting.
Where she's like my research assistants that have been in my
lab, they have dedicated hundreds of hours to my work.
(34:48):
If they need anything, I'm there.
She spent two hours on the phonewith me, help me, let me choose
my post back job. Then she's like my students that
are taking my class. It's my job to support them
through its curriculum. I'm there if they need me during
office hours. Then it's like other people that
she's like working with people that are in her class, etcetera.
And so I would say API that has an open door policy for people
(35:09):
who are in their lab. Like can you go to them and ask
about a summer opportunity or a project you want to work on or a
career choice? The answer should be yes.
The second thing is like, do they have fun Little like
celebrations like the well, I'vebeen written right now we have a
pizza party when we get to a certain number of failures to
like celebrate that like. Dropped out of the study.
No, no, no. Like, do we celebrate that?
(35:31):
Like it's not all wins. So we keep a list of people,
things of rejections. That's amazing.
Yeah. And we also do little
celebrations like Trader Joe's snack Hangouts when we meet,
like different goals as far as like data collection or cleaning
or there's like a semester and party.
I would say a professor that like this sounds weird but
invites you to their house is a green flag.
(35:52):
I've never been to any of my professors really, other than
like our honors seminar. Oh yeah, for like, that was the
only time I was at the professor's house.
I would say it probably depends on the university, but like
that. True.
That communicates that they wantyou to know them.
They want you to be a part of their life.
They also see you as an equal, which is really important.
Like I've definitely had experiences where I felt very
(36:15):
like, you see me as like a childand I've had experiences,
professors where I can tell, like you see me as someone who's
like potentially gonna be your colleague one day or even see me
as like a colleague now, which is like a completely different
experience. Yeah.
And then I would also say hearing from the people in the
lab that the professor listens to your research interests, yes,
and lets you have a little bit of leeway with what projects
(36:37):
you're doing. And then you're allowed to ask
all these questions in their interviews, ask them to
undergrads, ask them to post backs.
I would also definitely ask likewhat are the opportunities as
far as like what projects am I involved in?
Is there funding in your lab forconferences?
If they come to you with an ideathat they want you to go to a
conference, make sure that that conference is being paid for by
(36:58):
the lab. And if it's not, don't do it
because you will be out like $500 between like travelling to
that conference. Actually registering for a
conference is like at minimum like $300.00 expensive.
And especially for someone who'slike a first generation college
student. I had zero clue as to what it
was. I didn't.
Even know what a. Conference.
(37:19):
I mean, unless your parent literally does research, you
don't know what a conference is.You don't know the expectations.
And I feel like some more conversation about like, this is
what I can actually financially provide for you as my student is
necessary because you don't wantto be in a position where you
just found out that you have to register for a conference.
(37:40):
You don't have the money to register for a conference, but
you have to be at that conference because you submitted
an abstract for it. I would also say like.
You are helping them and they should be helping you.
They should be helping in the inthe event that it's free and
even if you're getting paid through work study or something,
you're still a full time student.
So I would say like 5 to 10 hours is very reasonable.
(38:03):
That is enough to contribute persemester, maybe more if it's in
the summer because you're not doing anything else and you
should be getting something in return because you're dedicating
those hours to whatever they need help with.
And so are you getting really great experience with data
collection and hands on stuff? Are you getting a great letter
of recommendation? What is going to go on your CV?
(38:24):
And we're going to talk about CVS, but I would say like you
are providing value to them. That's why they want you.
And also, what are you getting out of it?
Yeah. OK, I'm curious, just like
random quickly classes you love,classes you would recommend
taking? My favorite class that I took at
Penn was Into the Criminal Mind with Doctor Rebecca Waller.
I just recommend any seminar, like seminars are just far
(38:48):
superior to lectures. When you're in a lecture you
don't really make that great of a relationship with your
professor. I feel like it's less.
Interesting. It's less interesting.
You don't feel as engaged because let's be honest, if you
decide you want to just go on your computer and shop, like no
one's going to know. But if you're in a seminar, like
people will know you have to be engaged, which is like to your
benefit because you'll actually get something out of it even.
(39:08):
At Penn, there are some seminarswhere you're actually able to
like work with other people. Like I had one where we went to
an elementary school. There's somewhere you can go and
work and like volunteer contacts.
So that's really exciting. I would say my favorite class
was Grit Lab. If you're going to pen, you have
to take Grit Lab. Best class setup, best class
content. 10 out of 10. Angela Duckworth is the best
person I've ever met. She cuts coming on the podcast
(39:30):
we recorded this week. Wow, that's an honor for you.
I It's crazy. A full circle moment because I
wrote my pen essay about really yes wow.
So I was like. You made it.
You made it. You literally made.
It. Yes.
Yeah. So that one is incredible.
But I also loved Signs of well-being, which was with
Doctor Seligman, just because, like, it was Doctor Seligman,
like a retrospective of his whole life's work.
(39:52):
We have some books here by him. We also have grants somewhere,
Judgement and Decisions, if you're listening and you're at
Penn. The guy who does that, Ed
Roizman, is hilarious. I loved intro to positive psych.
That's again a pen thing. But if there's like a signs of
happiness, she's amazing. If there's like a signs of
happiness class at your university, a very interesting
(40:14):
lots of things you can apply to your own life.
I've never known anyone that hasn't enjoyed it.
As far as a class goes, Abnormalpsych great.
Abnormal Psych. Did you know that at?
Harvard they call it psychopathology because abnormal
psych is now like not as PC. True, because they don't want to
say something stumatized. Something's not normal.
Yeah, which makes sense. And psychopathology sounds
better. Totally.
(40:35):
Yeah. Biopsychosocial criminology.
See, that wouldn't end my mouth class, but love that for you.
But Doctor Andreen Rain, I think.
He's retired now. I think he'll show up and yes,
speak at some classes. But you might be right that.
He's not. I don't think he's teaching
anymore, which is a shame because his teaching, he's legit
amazing. He's so funny, he's so engaging.
(40:57):
He's. Like he is the SO.
Intelligent. He is so intelligent.
He's so, yeah. He just knows everything.
Like there were so many times inclasses where I would ask a
professor or something and you can tell they just really don't
know the answer. Never in his class.
Like he just knew like everything about this field.
And I learned so much about likeI'm really interested in like
(41:17):
criminal behavior. And you learned so much about
how like criminals think. That's another reason why I
loved Into the criminal Mind with Doctor Crawler.
And you just, there's so many, like, ethical dilemmas that come
with it, which has been, like, my favorite.
Like, yeah. Should we give the famous one?
Which famous one? If you're going on a hike with
your sibling. I don't know that 10.
(41:38):
My God this is like deep psychology lore.
You go on a hike with your brother who has a life
threatening condition where whenhe has low dopamine he dies.
He carries a pile of dopamine with him everywhere.
OK. You're on the hike and the vial
(42:00):
of dopamine breaks. The only way to save his life is
to have sex with him. There is no way this is the most
do you do it? There's no way zero you.
Haven't heard this. There's zero chance that's the
that's a real thing. It's not a real thing, it's a
moral dilemma. Why is that the only option?
That's the only option. And then it's like there's
after. There's no negative
consequences. You did it to save their life.
(42:22):
The relationship isn't isn't impacted.
Do you do it? And people can't make a
decision. Another one is like you're on a
vacation with your brother. You randomly decide to have.
Actually. It was fine, but you decide to
never. This is so white.
Lotus yeah, it's fine, but you decide to never do it again.
(42:46):
The relationship goes back to normal.
Is that morally unethical if no one was negatively impacted by
it and people can't just like yes, why?
Because I said so. No, but you're there's not a
reason why, which is what makes it so interesting.
I don't like that one. I like the I like the other more
ones. I love the railroad one because
(43:06):
I think the the answer's so obvious and I can't see another.
Side OK, give the railroad. One, well, it's like, OK, I'm
pretty sure it goes like if a train's like coming and it's
going to hit, I think it's like,what is it?
It's going to hit three people. Three construction workers or
three railroad? Workers and you have the option
to change its course for it to hit one person instead.
So you're killing like far fewerpeople.
(43:29):
Do you do it? But you are make.
You're not letting nature take its course.
You're intentionally. That's exactly what I say.
Like of course I'm letting them hit the three people because
they that would have happened regardless of me.
If I move its course so it hits the one person, like yes, less
people are dying, but that's directly my fault.
But then people say like is inaction like like, I'm sorry.
Yeah. What is the, what is that called
(43:51):
totalitarianism? Is that the theory of proceed?
So it's like, at what point do you value more lives rather than
less? And what if it's 100 people?
What if it's 1000 people? I'm just alive.
Whatever, like, but here's the one thing.
If it was like the train is barreling towards my brother and
on the other track is 20 random children, I'm hitting those
(44:15):
children. Yeah.
So it's. Like there's literally no but I
don't feel. That, but objectively.
You can't tell me a single person who disagrees.
I mean, OK, maybe they are better people than me out there
who do disagree, but I'm sorry. But like, it is our nature as
like animals that like. To protect our.
To protect our like family. Here's another one.
A family's dog gets hit by a car.
(44:36):
It's very sad. There's nothing that can be
done. They're curious what dog meat
tastes like. They decided to cook and eat the
dog. OK, Is that bad?
No. But that was their dog.
True. How's that different from
meeting your sibling? Have you ever had a dog?
No. OK.
She doesn't understand. Guys, we can't ask, say, a cat
someone. The family cat dies.
(45:01):
The family is curious what cat tastes like.
They cook and eat the cat. Is that wrong?
Legally, yes. Morally.
Why is it legally wrong? The cat was already dead.
Wait, isn't it legally wrong? I don't know.
I think it is, isn't it? I don't know.
Maybe it isn't, I don't know. So this is.
Like if you like these kind of conversations, take a seminar.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Like my into the criminal mind, we were constantly talking about
(45:22):
moral blame. Yeah.
And how, like, if someone is a psychopath, you can explain
their behavior, not excuse theirbehavior, but explain it based
on whatever psychopathology theyhave.
Like at what point are they no longer like responsible,
responsible or wait? My favorite one was in
biopsychosocial criminology. Dr. Adrian Rain talked about
(45:44):
this guy. I'll never forget it.
It was this guy who had like a wife and a stepdaughter.
And he was completely normal guyand he got a brain tumor and it
gave him like pedophilic thoughts and he.
Know this one? Yeah, and he started watching
like child porn. I don't know if he ever did
anything to the daughter or not.He.
Reported like thoughts. And then they removed the tumor.
(46:06):
All the thoughts were gone. And it's like, is that him where
though his where those his thoughts is that his personality
and there's not a clear cut. There's just.
Not I love those types of conversations, yeah.
If you also like that type of thing, I have loved taking
philosophy seminars. Yeah, yeah, I love a marketing
class and I loved communicationscourses.
(46:27):
So don't be afraid to go outsideof your major to take those
types of things. Like you might really like econ
every nice psychology. Yeah.
So even if you're like I love psychology, you can take similar
types of courses outside. Yeah, like mine was a chronology
course exactly, but it's like also psych.
Grades how important are grades Oh my gosh, you guys Olivia and
(46:50):
I had so much to say that we're going to split this into two
episodes so you guys can get allthe psychology advice and
information and it's not 2 hourslong if you want to keep
listening to our psychology advice and all things classes,
research, work life balance, grad school and more, go ahead
and TuneIn later this week for episode 221, Part 2 of this
(47:10):
conversation with Olivia. See you in Part 2 If you enjoyed
this episode. If she persisted, make to leave
a review, subscribe and share with a friend or family member.
Follow along at at She purses topodcast on TikTok, Instagram,
YouTube and more for bonus content.
Thanks for listening and keep persisting.
Welcome to Sheep Assisted, the Gen.
Z mental health podcast. I'm your host, Sadie Sutton.
Let's get into it. How would you describe
psychology for people who don't know what to expect?
What can I do with a psychology degree?
How much read it would you say you do for psychology classes?
What even is a research like study?
How? Important are grades.
What is the timeline for undergrad?
Who are the professors at my school?
(00:20):
What research are they doing? I'm curious, just like classes
you would recommend taking. I want to be a psych major,
should I take stat or Cal? What are the opportunities as
far as like what projects am I involved in?
What do you want to do research wise?
Why do we need? Research experience, any last
parting advice to psych majors? Hello, hello and welcome back to
another episode of She Persisted.
We have one of my closest friends, Olivia on the podcast
(00:41):
today, fellow psychology major, and we're going to give you guys
like a one stop shop overview ofeverything you need to know if
you want to major in psychology or you are majoring in
psychology because we are graduating next week as
psychology majors at Penn. If you couldn't tell by our
matching P sweatshirts, which you can see in video, we are
(01:03):
twinning Olivia, can you give uslike a little introduction and
so people can kind of understandif like their experience story
relates to you, if not, etcetera?
Yeah, well, my name is Olivia. I am from Lancaster, PA, and as
you mentioned, I will be graduating in about a week.
I'm also just crazy. It's.
Like I can't even imagine like how like quick it's gone.
(01:25):
And I'm interested in doing a PCin clinical psychology
eventually. I'm really interested in
addiction research. I'm looking at like genetic
influences and also adverse childhood experiences on like
the onset of substance use disorders.
And yeah, that's that's me. And we will talk normally not in
academia. If you guys heard Olivia's, I
(01:46):
don't understand anything she just said, which like me also,
even though I apparently am going to have a psychology
degree. Yeah, I never feel qualified to
do anything. It's that's the vibe.
But I do think what is so great about this is that Olivia and I
both want to get our pH DS in clinical psychology.
We both went through the application cycle together this
year. We're in the same seminar for
our honors thesis program and. It's not a competitive major
(02:08):
because research interests are so different.
Yes. And I love that.
Yeah. I like, I never feel like I'm
applying to the same things as like you or my friends because
like everything they want to do is like so different and it's so
diverse. And if anything, you love when a
friend kind of joins your orbit like is in a class or is in the
same lab as you. Because again, what you want to
do with these experiences varies.
(02:31):
You're not applying against eachother like you might feel like
in high school or definitely if you're pre Med.
I feel like that might be a concern or consulting.
We're at Penn, so like that is something that people are really
stressed about. Like where are you interviewing
for? You're going for the same roles
and psychology doesn't have thatvibe.
And so to give you like my very brief research interest, I'm
very interested in like adolescents, emerging adulthood,
(02:54):
mood disorders, but I'm really interested in like cognitive
attributions and interventions. Still need to figure out exactly
what I want to apply to grad school for, but I like the more
interventiony mood disorder space.
And so we're not going to be looking at like the same Pi or
the same research, but we can take the same classes, get the
same skills at the same time. So to kind of back things up for
(03:15):
people that are considering majoring in psychology, it is
the most popular major in the United States, which I didn't.
Know. I did not know that until right
now. It's like I think we should have
psychology classes in health andhigh school.
Like it's very relevant and general knowledge and you can go
a lot of places with a psychology degree.
You could apply to Med school, you could apply to get your PS
sheet, you could do a master's. So it's not just like you major
(03:37):
in psychology, you become a therapist.
So I thought we could kind of talk about the different areas
of psychology and then like vaguely the different paths you
could take so that people can understand if like that's even
aligned with their goals. So when I was thinking about
this, I was thinking about like school psychology.
There's organizational psychology, which is like
working with businesses. There's clinical psychology
(03:58):
where you're working with patients.
There's more general psychology where you're doing research and
you're not necessarily interacting with people as much
from like a clinical capacity. Think there's health psychology.
There's a lot of different domains that you could work in
if you want to get a psychology degree.
And then I'm also seeing all over my TikTok for you, Paige,
(04:19):
And I know you saw because I sawyou reposted people being like
graduate with psychology major cannot do anything with this
degree. Yes, yes, I feel like there's
that's always the concern. Everyone asks me like
underclassmen ask me like what can I do with psychology degree?
And my answer is always pretty much like Graduate School in
some way, whether it's like a PHDASID going to Med school, I
(04:40):
feel like everyone I know goes, or even a master's in like
social work. Yeah, which I would kind of say
like if you don't, you don't have to like studying.
I also saw Tech talk about this like psychology is you love
learning, not necessarily you love studying, which I love
that. I think if you love learning,
this is a good degree for you because you likely will need to
build on that with like a master's or some kind of
(05:01):
licensure, maybe grad school. It's not like you just can go
directly into industry once you graduate, but I think for both
you and I and you can tell me ifthis is wrong.
I'm excited to go to grad schooland keep.
Learning. No, me too.
I love school. I'm like sad that I'm not going
to be able to like go right intograd school.
I'm trying to like postpone getting a job as long as
possible. Exactly.
So it's like you, if you're here, like obviously there's
(05:24):
like, Oh my God, it's going to be so long until we're working
like that is an interesting experience.
But I think generally like the idea of a next step and like
learning more about this thing should excite you and that it
would be like a good indication that it's a good fit.
So we both want to do clinical. We want to work with people that
are maybe not as on a typical trajectory with regard to mental
(05:44):
health. We want to work individually
with people in that capacity. But you could also do psychology
and go more into business. Like how do you motivate
employees? How do you increase focus,
increase output? You could work in school, so you
could work with kids. You can work on improving like
Ieps, things like that. So when we say like clinical,
like we want to get a clinical degree, but you could also
(06:07):
graduate and you could work in like forensic psychology as an
interviewer immediately and you could get that job.
So like if you do want to do therapy, there are other paths
like you can be a licensed clinical social worker, you get
your masters in social work, youcould get a doctor in social
work. So you don't have to get a
doctorate in psychology or in clinical psychology, but a
psychology major help set you upfor those options where you do
(06:27):
work with patients or with people that like like clients in
that capacity. I want to talk about the general
experience for psychology classes because I feel like they
differ a bit from like I remember language classes.
It's like so different or a mathclass.
It's more like calm marketing writing vibes is kind of the
other classes I would say it wassimilar to.
(06:48):
Can you give your general like, how would you describe
psychology classes for people who don't know what to expect?
And then also, like, we'll also talk about tips for psychology
classes specifically. Yeah, I feel like it.
Really, definitely it depends onthe school that you go to.
We are at a smaller school than if you would go to like a large
state school. So the only like large seminars
(07:10):
are like the large lectures I feel like I've had have been
like maybe 102 hundred people and that's not the norm.
I feel like is big though, and huge and is huge because like so
many people take it to see if they're interested in it.
But that's definitely the largest psychology class you're
going to take. Like some of my seminars I've
taken have been like 10 people. I mean, our honors class is
(07:31):
what, like 8 or 10? People, yeah, I definitely think
it's, even though it is like such a popular major, I think
they do a good job, at least at Penn, of making it so you don't
feel like you don't have a relationship with your professor
and that you're not overwhelmed with the amount of people in the
class. I would say that the intro level
site classes, whether that's like social, developmental,
(07:52):
abnormal, general psychology forhere we have positive
psychology. Those are definitely test based.
Like you can expect like 3 testsa semester.
There is memorization of concepts.
I will say they do try incorporate like free response
if they do want to understand that you can kind of interact
with the material in an intellectual way.
(08:15):
I would say once you get more into the seminars, it's a lot
rarer that it's test based. It's instead projects or papers
and that's my favorite personally.
Like give me a paper over a testevery day percent.
Yeah. And I feel like if psych is the
right major for you, which like I am not someone who loves
studying and I didn't mind prepping for tests.
(08:38):
In psychology, yeah, I do reallylike that.
The psychology tests are mainly memorization.
Like I remember taking like AP chemistry in high school and it
was like you had to understand aconcept and be able to apply it
in many different contexts. And there is that to like some
degree in psychology. But do you?
Know nature versus nurture. Yeah, and like biopsychosocial.
Theory it's like mainly memorizethese like DSM disorders which I
(09:03):
personally prefer. I feel like it's easier to
prepare for. Yeah, no, 100%.
And then I want to talk about the level of reading because
this is a very reading heavy major and there are ways to
approach it more effectively, which we definitely want to give
tips on. The other thing that I'll
mention, which I didn't think about, in which I totally
screwed myself over with freshman year, is that you can
(09:24):
kind of burn out on psychology because the concepts overlap.
So freshman year I took Intro toPsych, I took a writing seminar,
which is unique to Penn, but I took children's language
acquisition and I took children in media.
And those don't necessarily sound like they would be the
same, but they were all talking about the stages of learning and
child development. How many times have we learned
(09:46):
like pre operational, operational, Yeah, how language.
Develops like. Just language in general is by
far my least favorite psychologyconcept.
I actually have negative interest in how people learn how
to talk. But it's an easy, it's easier
than if the neuroscience stuff, I will say in my experience
100%. So it's like one of those like
you pick your poison and linguistics could be worse.
(10:07):
It definitely could be worse, it's just painfully boring I
think. I would agree with that then,
but people love it. People do love it.
That's OK. Yes, that's.
OK, we need people for everything.
It's just not my niche. Yes.
And so I took those three classes and even though they
were in different departments with different teachers and one
was a seminar, 1 was a small lecture and one was a large
lecture, I was learning the samethings over and over again and I
(10:28):
was getting assigned readings for the same thing over and over
again. And I mentally was so like burnt
out and struggled with that. And so I think being aware of
like what your topics of classesare covering, interspersing or
general Ed requirements, becausethere is overlap with topics and
you will burn yourself out with like studying and writing things
(10:51):
if you're in a semester where you're learning the same thing
over like 3 different classes. Yeah.
And I could see that happening really easily with linguistics,
maybe some stats stuff if you'retrying to overlap with like your
math requirement, definitely childhood development because
that just like there's only one way to teach it.
The other ones, like aren't thatbad, but I remember freshman
(11:11):
year being like, that was horrible.
Yeah. So going back to readings, yeah.
How much reading would you say you do for psychology classes or
like how much is assigned, we'llsay.
Like 2 to 3 hours a day. Because I don't do that.
Do you think? Yeah, that's probably accurate
for what is assigned. Like, yeah, academic papers,
(11:32):
textbook chapters. Other related readings that map
on to what you're learning about.
One of the biggest pieces of advice I give to high schoolers
is that you can't do all the readings, and not right now.
That's advice I got from one of my mom's friends my freshman
fall. I was freaking out.
I had. I was also taking the English.
Class I was up till 2:00 in the morning doing these readings
that I never would use. Again, Yeah, no, I was like I
(11:54):
was taking an English class, taking like 3 site classes.
I had so many readings and I'm just thinking like, there's a
zero chance I'm going to be ableto read all of this.
And then I, I was told like by my mom's friend, she was like,
you know, when I was in school, like you have to pick and
choose. Like if you have a class where
your exams are actually based onreadings, do those readings.
If you have a class where you'renever going to use those
(12:15):
readings, I'm not saying don't do that, but maybe like read the
conclusion, read the summary, like skim it because you like
literally will just you're goingto miss important things in your
other readings if you're doing these like. 70 page reading that
your one professor signed, that actually doesn't really matter
if you're grade like not all readings are created equal and
you're going to get better and better at being able to tell
(12:36):
which ones you have to do and which ones you just need to be
able to ask a question about or contribute to the discussion.
And I think it depends on the class.
I would say the intro courses, the textbook readings or at
least being able to answer all the textbook like practice
questions. That's important.
So like cognitive science, remember that was a big thing
(12:57):
like normal psych, social psych,because it's again these
memorization of concepts and youcould.
Learn them from like really working the lecture material,
teaching them to yourself. But you could also do that from
the textbook. Like my neuroscience classes
never touched a textbook and never needed to.
The professor, at least I had a really good professor for my
class and he just went over whatwas in the textbook and it's
(13:19):
like maybe I could have understood it a little bit
better if I read the textbook, but it's like 60 pages for like
1 chapter. It would have taken me a very
long time to read the textbook and it did not turn out to be
necessary. So I was like, I don't need to
read the textbook for my neuroscience classes.
I'm going to read the textbook for my psychology classes
because I need to write a paper or something.
Yeah, I would say that for the seminar style classes, you need
(13:41):
to be able to have a conversation about it, which.
Because your participation is usually always a big party of
grade for seminars. So you they will take what you
say like very seriously. Like you need to be able to say
something like I read this and Iunderstand what's going on.
Or like give a critique, which if you're good at like BS ING a
discussion, you'll probably be fine.
But just like go in knowing that.
(14:02):
And then one of my favorite finds this semester has been
Anara. Do you know about Anara?
Is that like AI? Yes.
So if you've ever tried to like give ChatGPT and summarize a
paper, it's not very good. And if you try and ask it
questions about the paper, it doesn't pull from the paper.
What a Nara does is you can upload any research paper and
you can ask it questions about one paper and it will only
(14:23):
answer from that paper and it'llgive you line by line citations.
Wait, I should have done. So if you were like, OK, like
what does this theory say about phonemes?
It will tell you the exact line where they talk about phonemes.
And so you can quote it directly.
And then what's even better is you can group papers together.
So I will upload the 30 papers that I've cited in my thesis and
(14:45):
say, what is the general consensus around emotional
dissertation? And this is the best psychology
major AI that I've found. Really.
It's so good. I have primarily used ChatGPT.
Yeah, no, I love chat. I use it all the time.
I use clod sometimes not as much.
But if you have readings, you can upload any reading to here.
(15:07):
I uploaded the entire APA style guide so I can ask you.
Questions about so like that needs to be talked about.
Like APA, like they just, I feellike sometimes we, we've never
gotten really a, a good like, overview of like we've had to
write many APA style papers and I've never been explicitly told
like this is how you do an APA style, you know, you just have
(15:28):
to Google. Yeah.
And then I'm on like the APA website and I'm like, well, you
have like 20 different editions,so which one am I supposed to be
writing? So that's really helpful.
Yeah. So if you are doing readings, I
would say doing like an AI summary or what does this person
think about X? That is a game changer for those
classes that you don't need to do all of the readings for.
Another one is Google notebook LM.
(15:51):
You can upload your readings andyou can get a podcast.
It's not perfect and it's not all-encompassing, but I send.
You the memory. For test prep.
And so I'll be like summarize mynotes from this lecture, make it
a podcast and it will talk you in like podcast conversational
manner, your academic notes and that's another.
But again, you have to remember that's not perfect and like
(16:12):
all-encompassing and Nara is. Yeah, like very, very good.
So I would say like using these other ways of learning and
distilling the information, but from like a mental burnout
perspective and a cheer time perspective, doing all the
readings is not feasible. It's not no.
How would you rank like the importance if you were taking
(16:32):
every type of class this semester and you don't have the
bandwidth to do the readings? Seminars definitely at the top
of doing the readings, especially because primarily
you're making like discussion posts and you're also writing
papers as opposed to doing like an exam.
So basically like my whole classwas centered around the readings
that we did and every day all wedid in class was talk about the
(16:53):
readings that we did. So I knew it was important.
I would say lectures are usuallymiddle, like a psychology
lecture, like social psychology,abnormal psychology.
It's it's important to do the readings I would say, but they
will be covering most of that inclass.
And then at the bottom is any like stats like I've never
(17:14):
touched a stats textbook. Oh it's so confusing.
I never. Put in a textbook, yeah.
And I just reading about math I think is pointless.
Yeah, you have to like try and do it.
Speaking of which, why do we need?
Research experience because I like when I applied to Penn, I
knew that they had great research, which is one of the
reasons I like great, but I didn't really know what that
meant. I really thought I wasn't gonna
have to do research. I didn't really when I applied
(17:38):
to Penn, I knew I wanted to be apsychology major and I like
applied as a psychology major, but I didn't really know what
that meant. Like I didn't know what I was
supposed to be doing as a psychology major.
Like outside of my classes, I didn't know.
Hopefully this podcast will tellyou.
I know I didn't know what I wanted to, like, do as a career,
so I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing.
(17:58):
And then I took a freshman seminar.
It was on addiction. And I had already had a lot of,
like, interest in addiction because of, like, addiction in
my family. So I took this class and I was
really interested in it. And I asked the professor.
I was like, I'm really interested in the work you're
doing. Do you have any openings?
And he didn't, but he set me up with someone at the Center for
Addiction Studies at Penn who was doing research and got me
(18:19):
involved, like, my first research at Penn, which was just
so helpful. But yeah, I didn't really know
what research was when he was like, what do you want to do?
Like, research wise? I had no idea.
I just, like, went to the Centerfor Addiction Studies.
And I met with Doctor Henry Kranzler, who was, like, my
mentor my freshman year, like one of my favorite people here
at Penn. And he just was like, you don't
(18:39):
need any background because I was worried.
I was like, I've never done research.
I have no idea what I'm doing. He was like, we'll like, tell
you, like, I will walk you through how to write an academic
paper, like how to be involved in a study.
What even is a research like study at Penn look like?
And I feel like Penn's been verygood with that, that just like
if you are coming in with no background, like they know that,
(19:01):
like they're expecting that fully.
And I feel like they're so welcoming to like even freshmen
getting involved in research. Yeah, it's a big part of how the
psychology program is structuredand how the labs work.
Like they will get so many inbound requests from non intend
students being like I'm a statistician, I am a senior at
Temple or Drexel or these other schools and they will choose to
(19:24):
hire the freshman to train and give it's like a big part of the
degree that you're getting. And then the mentorship process
is built into these programs. I also think like I agree with
you, where I knew that I wanted to be a psychologist, probably I
wanted a psychology degree but Ididn't understand that research
(19:44):
was how I would get there. Yeah, I agreed.
Like that just like was totally lost on me until sophomore year,
yeah. And so I think understanding
that when you hear people say like, oh, I have a master's in
social work or I have a PhD in clinical psychology, or I'm a
therapist, even if they don't doit now, how they got that degree
(20:04):
and how they got into those programs was research.
Everything in psychology is research.
And genuinely, e-mail us if you have an exception.
I would be shocked. I know.
Like, show me a psych major who's never done research.
Yeah, yeah. It is so it's like literally
synonymous to any work in psychology.
Even if you want to like completely split and do just
clinical down the line, you haveto get the degree passage of
(20:26):
research. And So what does research mean?
It means the final papers that you read that tell us like grit
makes you more successful or optimists have better outcomes.
Like these findings that we knowas a whole in psychology, the
day-to-day and especially what it means that at this level is
like collecting data with participants statistics, reading
(20:50):
the literature, lots of data, cleaning lots statistics.
That was like another big thing that I I.
Didn't think I would use that. I I was like a senior in high
school and I was like deciding between taking calculus and
statistics and I knew I wanted to.
Be a psych major, don't take. No and I like just googled like
I want to be a psych major. Should I take stat or calc?
(21:10):
And they were like take stat. I didn't know why they said that
but I was like OK and then no, it's actually necessary.
Like I have done so much coding in R If you had told me my
freshman. Year I didn't know what R.
Was of college. I would be coding, Yeah.
For psychology. I would have laughed in your
face. I would have been like, there's
no idea. You'll never catch me dead
coding an R And why would I needto?
Why would I need to? I want to be a psychologist.
(21:32):
I want to work with people. I don't want to work with
computers. Yeah, but it's like synonymous.
Like you do. And you don't know that.
Now you don't know that. Now you know that.
But yes, you didn't. So basically, like, you will
understand the more you get experience.
But like, if you want to go intopsychology, that means you're
going to do research. Yeah.
Unfortunately, and you also might be OK, I'd like to get
involved with psychology as an undergrad.
(21:53):
I'm ready to write papers. No, you're not.
That's not happening. So we're gonna like get later
into like, posters, papers, publishing what it's like
working in a lab, but just like also to clarify what research as
an undergrad looks like. It's.
Not that. Which is, I will say very weird
because that was my first experience really, like at the
Center for Studies of Addiction.Like when I was starting off,
(22:14):
the research was done. They were at the manuscript
writing process. And that's all I did.
Yeah. I work in a web like that.
And it's, if you can find that it.
Well, yeah. Because I didn't know at the
time how, like, invaluable publications were going to be.
And publications are the currency of psychology.
They literally are. And so I was just like, yeah,
like, I'll. I'll help write this manuscript.
I don't really know why I'm doing this.
(22:35):
Like, I don't really know much about it.
Yeah. And that was, like, so
important. But it was weird.
I had, like, a backwards experience where I, like,
started off writing the papers. And only until my junior year
did I ever actually do like a research study from like the
beginning of like actually collecting data.
Yeah. So if people are like, OK, I get
it. I have to do research.
(22:56):
I want to do research. What is the timeline for
undergrad? Because I feel like, I mean, we
are at a very pre professional schools.
There is this set timeline. There's this pressure for people
to have like summer jobs or internships.
I don't think that exists everywhere, but I do think it's
helpful to have like a rough timeline and framework that you
could follow because I feel likeI was kind of just doing choose
my own adventure. Yeah, my we can kind of like go
(23:19):
through this together and like give our thoughts freshman year.
I would say like freshman fall, take intro to psych if you don't
have the credit already, take one other site class if you can,
if you don't need the credit, like maybe a seminar that's kind
of related to what you want to do.
Just to confirm. Like OK, I like the style of
psychology classes. I could see myself doing this
for like decades to come. And then also core requirements
(23:40):
because getting those out of theway early is is helpful.
And then I would maybe try and like do some general poking
around on the university websiteof like what labs are there?
Who's collecting data? Just kind of like ask around but
AI have only seen probably like one person get hired as a
(24:02):
freshman two actually it's hard to 1st semester freshman get
hired and and by hired at least for me I mean volunteer and
working for. Free because that's the only
option. Yeah, unfortunately.
And B, you're just like adjusting and trying to survive.
Yeah. What would you say for a first
semester freshman year? I feel like my situation was a
little different just because I took that freshman seminar and I
(24:24):
found the person who was doing the research I wanted to do.
Which like is so incredible and if it hasn't happened to you,
it's OK. Yeah, I would say just like
figure out like what are you interested in, take classes, do
some research, look up like who are the professors at my school?
What research are they doing? Are they doing anything that I'm
interested in and cold e-mail them like?
(24:45):
Professors are so receptive to just emailing and saying I'm
interested in what you're doing.Do you have any positions?
Do you have any volunteering options or.
And it depends on the size of the, like, if you're going to
like a big professor at your school, they might say no, but
especially the ones that are still establishing their career,
being like, I'd love to understand what the process
looks like. I'm interested in what you're
(25:06):
studying. Can I come by one of your office
hours? Can I meet with you for 30
minutes? And the relationships with the
professors are so key. Literally everything.
Yeah. So every single class, even if
it's linguistics, go up the first day and introduce yourself
to the professor 'cause you can't redo that later in the
semester. Even if you never talked to them
again, at least you're setting yourself up for success in the
(25:27):
event that you like their area of research in them as a person
and. Then and you don't want any.
The relationships, the relationships you have with your
professors are the most valuablething you'll get out of
undergrad. And so anytime you can ask to
meet with someone and talk to someone, and then you'll decide
which relationships you want to pursue.
(25:49):
But just like before, you know, like the foundation is helpful
and that means sending thank youemails after the class has
ended, going to office hours, getting FaceTime.
Like if you think you wrote a good essay for their class or
you did well on the test or you wrote a good course review, they
don't know you. You have to see them and meet
them in person. That's what makes the difference
(26:10):
and moves the needle. I feel like I haven't been that
good at doing that to be honest.Like, unless this sounds like
awful, but unless I'm like interested in the work they're
doing, I usually don't. No, I agree it should only be
like if it's aligned. But if you're a freshman and you
don't know, you don't. Know what to do a freshman year
you want to keep your definitelyyeah.
I feel like once I narrowed in like what I want to do, I was
like, I'm I'm only gonna network.
(26:32):
With those professors, yeah, totally valid.
What do you think about freshmanyear summer?
Because I did nothing freshman year summer and I have no
regrets. I think that was totally fine.
I think it's totally fine. I did like a internship research
thing like this. Is why Olivia is on a podcast
because she's better at this? That's not true.
I literally just got so lucky with the Center for addiction
studies. Like I actually could not talk
(26:53):
better about that. They like kept me on throughout
the summer and during my sophomore year and they were
just so like, welcoming. I worked remotely.
I only came into Philly like once a week and they were just
so great. But like, that's not necessary.
Totally. And I do think This is why we're
harping on like labs and mentorsbecause I would say again, I
(27:15):
said the most valuable thing is the relationships, the
experiences you get in labs, finding the right one that sets
you up for success like that. It's amazing all the difference.
So if you want something to do freshman year, being a research
assistant at a lab over the summer is perfect.
And it doesn't have to be at your university.
If you're like, I am volunteering for free or I'm on
work study, I can't afford to rent somewhere over the summer.
(27:37):
You could do any university nearyour home.
There's virtual work that can bedone.
So be flexible. You open a different options.
I would say to start looking forthat like early ish put out
feelers spring semester because they do kind of hire early for
summer rolls. I also say that people will kind
of be resistant to a cold e-mailsaying I'd like to work for you
(27:57):
for three months because it's not worth it for them to train
you. I would definitely not specify
like I want to work with you just over the summer.
Like I would just feel out like I'm interested in your work.
Like do you have any openings? And then.
So that's like optimal to do at your university because then
it's like an ongoing relationship.
You'll get a better letter of rack.
It's worth it for them to train you and bring you onto the team.
(28:20):
However, if you've established arelationship with someone, they
probably will throw you three months of work over the summer.
But like general of them try andI'll keep it in the same lab for
at least two to three semesters.Yeah, it's hard to get a good
letter of rank without that, andmost labs will tell you they
want at least two semesters commitment, I think sophomore
(28:42):
year. So I would mean always if you
can find something to get paid. Do it.
You can get paid through work study.
Sometimes labs will have grants that allow them to pay you.
We're not in the best era as faras funding if you've been
following the. News, we are not you can.
Apply to grit for grants throughyour universities Research
Center. You could get independent
(29:04):
funding. There are a lot of ways to do it
if you feel you need to get paid.
The way that I've done the podcast and research is I've
subsidized that by doing social media work.
So having something where you like you have some income that
allows you to then volunteer these extra hours towards your
career goals is also an option. And I would not worry too much
about like the communication neuroscience lab for me was not
(29:25):
really the research I wanted to be doing.
And at first I was a little worried like it's just going to
look bad that I'm going a littleall over the place with my
research right now. But I, I don't think that's like
a bad thing at all. Like the more experience you
get, the more you will realize what you want.
Because if you only do one type of research, even if you're like
confident that's what you want to do, like you really should
(29:45):
have some other experiences. And grad schools are just
looking for, you have experience.
I don't think they really care that much.
Yeah, okay, maybe you did depression work your freshman
year and then sophomore year waslike schizophrenia and then
junior year was addiction. And only then did you realize
want to do addiction work. I think they'll pay attention to
what you write your thesis about, So what your interest is
for your independent project, ifyou do a job after graduating,
(30:08):
which we'll talk about what you chose to do for that.
But I would say as an undergrad,the best thing you can do is
diversify your experiences. So get some experience with data
cleaning, some experience with active data collection,
experience with different sizes of labs, experiences with
different styles of mentors. What type of data collection do
they do? Is it a Qualtrics survey or are
(30:28):
they like hooking people up to an EEG?
Yeah. And I think it's so much more
important what you're doing at alab than what the lab is
studying. Like they want to see that, like
you've been involved in every aspect of the research process,
like no matter what lab you're at.
OK. And related to that size of
research labs, just tell me likeyour experience with sides of
research labs and what you liked, what you did it?
(30:51):
I think there's only pros and cons, I don't know.
I would say there's pros and cons for each.
I think if you can expose yourself to both because a
smaller lab, that might be something you really love.
Really getting to know the people, you really understand
everything that's happening in the lab.
You have more input on what projects are going on.
You'll probably know the Pi better, a larger lab.
(31:13):
The benefits are that a, there'sa sense of community.
There's more scaffolding as far as mentorship.
So you have people that are sophomore, junior, seniors, and
you can ask some questions aboutwhat to do in undergrad.
You then have post backs who arepeople who have just graduated
and haven't yet gone to grad school.
You have grad students, you havethe Pi who's a professor.
(31:33):
No, sorry, before the Pi, you have postdocs, so people have
gone to grad school and are still doing research.
And then you have your Pi and your professor, so you're able
to see like what your future career will look like.
You can ask questions, you can get support for grad
applications, grant applications.
A lot of the times also larger labs will be doing more data
(31:55):
collection. So if you want to be like really
involved with a larger study, like for example, the lab I'm
starting at as a post back in June, 5 post backs are starting
at the same time. So like big larger lab, larger
study happening, tons of participants moving through.
There's not a good or a bad setup.
Like I would say that I see my Pi more in the larger lab than I
(32:17):
did my smaller lab, which is counterintuitive.
So I would say expose yourself to both so you know what you
like and then you can use that information to decide a what.
Kind of lab do you want to do your thesis at and what kind of
lab do you want to work at aftergraduating?
Yeah. And I think like almost more
important than the size of the lab is the type of professor
running the lab. Like as you mentioned, like you
(32:38):
could have a small lab, but if you don't have a hands on
professor, like it doesn't really matter if you have a
small lab, you're not going to see them.
But if you have a hands on professor, even if the lab is
large, you will see them. And for me personally, I'm very
much a person who likes a hands on professor 100%.
I want someone not even just forresearch, but like, I want a
relationship. Yeah.
I want like, my professor that I'm doing my senior thesis with
(33:01):
right now, absolutely adore her.She's like so hands on.
She asks me how I'm doing everyday.
Like she knows about my personallife and that's made me way more
productive in her lab than any other position I think I've had
just because of like building that relationship.
You're allowed to ask also when you interview for labs like.
Yeah. You're interviewing them as much
(33:23):
as they're interviewing you because there were lots of labs
on these campuses. What questions would you be
asking the lab manager? The post backs the other
undergrads the Pi to figure out if it's a good mentor fit.
Yeah, I, I think I forget where we were.
I think it was the ABCT conference where one of the
(33:44):
professors said don't ask me my mentoring style and which was
really good to hear 'cause I really took that and didn't ask
like during grad school interviews any of like the
professors about that. But I always ask the graduate
students when I interviewed withthem and they'll be honest and
they will be, they've been exactly where you're, I've
gotten such candid responses from like graduate students to
(34:05):
the point where I didn't end up even like applying to like these
programs. And so I think it's super
necessary to ask the graduate students or the kind of
professor or the undergrads, like what kind of mentor the
professor is. Like, are they hands on?
Do they give you good feedback? When is the timeline like for
their feedback? Do you see them often?
Do you know anything about theirlives?
Do they know anything about yourlife?
You want someone that you can like, actually have a
(34:27):
relationship with. I would say like green flags and
every lab is different. This might not be true for
everyone. Do they generally have an open
door policy? Like Doctor Rusio at Penn does
this really well where she has areally clear understanding and
hierarchy of who she's serving and supporting.
Where she's like my research assistants that have been in my
lab, they have dedicated hundreds of hours to my work.
(34:48):
If they need anything, I'm there.
She spent two hours on the phonewith me, help me, let me choose
my post back job. Then she's like my students that
are taking my class. It's my job to support them
through its curriculum. I'm there if they need me during
office hours. Then it's like other people that
she's like working with people that are in her class, etcetera.
And so I would say API that has an open door policy for people
(35:09):
who are in their lab. Like can you go to them and ask
about a summer opportunity or a project you want to work on or a
career choice? The answer should be yes.
The second thing is like, do they have fun Little like
celebrations like the well, I'vebeen written right now we have a
pizza party when we get to a certain number of failures to
like celebrate that like. Dropped out of the study.
No, no, no. Like, do we celebrate that?
(35:31):
Like it's not all wins. So we keep a list of people,
things of rejections. That's amazing.
Yeah. And we also do little
celebrations like Trader Joe's snack Hangouts when we meet,
like different goals as far as like data collection or cleaning
or there's like a semester and party.
I would say a professor that like this sounds weird but
invites you to their house is a green flag.
(35:52):
I've never been to any of my professors really, other than
like our honors seminar. Oh yeah, for like, that was the
only time I was at the professor's house.
I would say it probably depends on the university, but like
that. True.
That communicates that they wantyou to know them.
They want you to be a part of their life.
They also see you as an equal, which is really important.
Like I've definitely had experiences where I felt very
(36:15):
like, you see me as like a childand I've had experiences,
professors where I can tell, like you see me as someone who's
like potentially gonna be your colleague one day or even see me
as like a colleague now, which is like a completely different
experience. Yeah.
And then I would also say hearing from the people in the
lab that the professor listens to your research interests, yes,
and lets you have a little bit of leeway with what projects
(36:37):
you're doing. And then you're allowed to ask
all these questions in their interviews, ask them to
undergrads, ask them to post backs.
I would also definitely ask likewhat are the opportunities as
far as like what projects am I involved in?
Is there funding in your lab forconferences?
If they come to you with an ideathat they want you to go to a
conference, make sure that that conference is being paid for by
(36:58):
the lab. And if it's not, don't do it
because you will be out like $500 between like travelling to
that conference. Actually registering for a
conference is like at minimum like $300.00 expensive.
And especially for someone who'slike a first generation college
student. I had zero clue as to what it
was. I didn't.
Even know what a. Conference.
(37:19):
I mean, unless your parent literally does research, you
don't know what a conference is.You don't know the expectations.
And I feel like some more conversation about like, this is
what I can actually financially provide for you as my student is
necessary because you don't wantto be in a position where you
just found out that you have to register for a conference.
(37:40):
You don't have the money to register for a conference, but
you have to be at that conference because you submitted
an abstract for it. I would also say like.
You are helping them and they should be helping you.
They should be helping in the inthe event that it's free and
even if you're getting paid through work study or something,
you're still a full time student.
So I would say like 5 to 10 hours is very reasonable.
(38:03):
That is enough to contribute persemester, maybe more if it's in
the summer because you're not doing anything else and you
should be getting something in return because you're dedicating
those hours to whatever they need help with.
And so are you getting really great experience with data
collection and hands on stuff? Are you getting a great letter
of recommendation? What is going to go on your CV?
(38:24):
And we're going to talk about CVS, but I would say like you
are providing value to them. That's why they want you.
And also, what are you getting out of it?
Yeah. OK, I'm curious, just like
random quickly classes you love,classes you would recommend
taking? My favorite class that I took at
Penn was Into the Criminal Mind with Doctor Rebecca Waller.
I just recommend any seminar, like seminars are just far
(38:48):
superior to lectures. When you're in a lecture you
don't really make that great of a relationship with your
professor. I feel like it's less.
Interesting. It's less interesting.
You don't feel as engaged because let's be honest, if you
decide you want to just go on your computer and shop, like no
one's going to know. But if you're in a seminar, like
people will know you have to be engaged, which is like to your
benefit because you'll actually get something out of it even.
(39:08):
At Penn, there are some seminarswhere you're actually able to
like work with other people. Like I had one where we went to
an elementary school. There's somewhere you can go and
work and like volunteer contacts.
So that's really exciting. I would say my favorite class
was Grit Lab. If you're going to pen, you have
to take Grit Lab. Best class setup, best class
content. 10 out of 10. Angela Duckworth is the best
person I've ever met. She cuts coming on the podcast
(39:30):
we recorded this week. Wow, that's an honor for you.
I It's crazy. A full circle moment because I
wrote my pen essay about really yes wow.
So I was like. You made it.
You made it. You literally made.
It. Yes.
Yeah. So that one is incredible.
But I also loved Signs of well-being, which was with
Doctor Seligman, just because, like, it was Doctor Seligman,
like a retrospective of his whole life's work.
(39:52):
We have some books here by him. We also have grants somewhere,
Judgement and Decisions, if you're listening and you're at
Penn. The guy who does that, Ed
Roizman, is hilarious. I loved intro to positive psych.
That's again a pen thing. But if there's like a signs of
happiness, she's amazing. If there's like a signs of
happiness class at your university, a very interesting
(40:14):
lots of things you can apply to your own life.
I've never known anyone that hasn't enjoyed it.
As far as a class goes, Abnormalpsych great.
Abnormal Psych. Did you know that at?
Harvard they call it psychopathology because abnormal
psych is now like not as PC. True, because they don't want to
say something stumatized. Something's not normal.
Yeah, which makes sense. And psychopathology sounds
better. Totally.
(40:35):
Yeah. Biopsychosocial criminology.
See, that wouldn't end my mouth class, but love that for you.
But Doctor Andreen Rain, I think.
He's retired now. I think he'll show up and yes,
speak at some classes. But you might be right that.
He's not. I don't think he's teaching
anymore, which is a shame because his teaching, he's legit
amazing. He's so funny, he's so engaging.
(40:57):
He's. Like he is the SO.
Intelligent. He is so intelligent.
He's so, yeah. He just knows everything.
Like there were so many times inclasses where I would ask a
professor or something and you can tell they just really don't
know the answer. Never in his class.
Like he just knew like everything about this field.
And I learned so much about likeI'm really interested in like
(41:17):
criminal behavior. And you learned so much about
how like criminals think. That's another reason why I
loved Into the criminal Mind with Doctor Crawler.
And you just, there's so many, like, ethical dilemmas that come
with it, which has been, like, my favorite.
Like, yeah. Should we give the famous one?
Which famous one? If you're going on a hike with
your sibling. I don't know that 10.
(41:38):
My God this is like deep psychology lore.
You go on a hike with your brother who has a life
threatening condition where whenhe has low dopamine he dies.
He carries a pile of dopamine with him everywhere.
OK. You're on the hike and the vial
(42:00):
of dopamine breaks. The only way to save his life is
to have sex with him. There is no way this is the most
do you do it? There's no way zero you.
Haven't heard this. There's zero chance that's the
that's a real thing. It's not a real thing, it's a
moral dilemma. Why is that the only option?
That's the only option. And then it's like there's
after. There's no negative
consequences. You did it to save their life.
(42:22):
The relationship isn't isn't impacted.
Do you do it? And people can't make a
decision. Another one is like you're on a
vacation with your brother. You randomly decide to have.
Actually. It was fine, but you decide to
never. This is so white.
Lotus yeah, it's fine, but you decide to never do it again.
(42:46):
The relationship goes back to normal.
Is that morally unethical if no one was negatively impacted by
it and people can't just like yes, why?
Because I said so. No, but you're there's not a
reason why, which is what makes it so interesting.
I don't like that one. I like the I like the other more
ones. I love the railroad one because
(43:06):
I think the the answer's so obvious and I can't see another.
Side OK, give the railroad. One, well, it's like, OK, I'm
pretty sure it goes like if a train's like coming and it's
going to hit, I think it's like,what is it?
It's going to hit three people. Three construction workers or
three railroad? Workers and you have the option
to change its course for it to hit one person instead.
So you're killing like far fewerpeople.
(43:29):
Do you do it? But you are make.
You're not letting nature take its course.
You're intentionally. That's exactly what I say.
Like of course I'm letting them hit the three people because
they that would have happened regardless of me.
If I move its course so it hits the one person, like yes, less
people are dying, but that's directly my fault.
But then people say like is inaction like like, I'm sorry.
Yeah. What is the, what is that called
(43:51):
totalitarianism? Is that the theory of proceed?
So it's like, at what point do you value more lives rather than
less? And what if it's 100 people?
What if it's 1000 people? I'm just alive.
Whatever, like, but here's the one thing.
If it was like the train is barreling towards my brother and
on the other track is 20 random children, I'm hitting those
(44:15):
children. Yeah.
So it's. Like there's literally no but I
don't feel. That, but objectively.
You can't tell me a single person who disagrees.
I mean, OK, maybe they are better people than me out there
who do disagree, but I'm sorry. But like, it is our nature as
like animals that like. To protect our.
To protect our like family. Here's another one.
A family's dog gets hit by a car.
(44:36):
It's very sad. There's nothing that can be
done. They're curious what dog meat
tastes like. They decided to cook and eat the
dog. OK, Is that bad?
No. But that was their dog.
True. How's that different from
meeting your sibling? Have you ever had a dog?
No. OK.
She doesn't understand. Guys, we can't ask, say, a cat
someone. The family cat dies.
(45:01):
The family is curious what cat tastes like.
They cook and eat the cat. Is that wrong?
Legally, yes. Morally.
Why is it legally wrong? The cat was already dead.
Wait, isn't it legally wrong? I don't know.
I think it is, isn't it? I don't know.
Maybe it isn't, I don't know. So this is.
Like if you like these kind of conversations, take a seminar.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Like my into the criminal mind, we were constantly talking about
(45:22):
moral blame. Yeah.
And how, like, if someone is a psychopath, you can explain
their behavior, not excuse theirbehavior, but explain it based
on whatever psychopathology theyhave.
Like at what point are they no longer like responsible,
responsible or wait? My favorite one was in
biopsychosocial criminology. Dr. Adrian Rain talked about
(45:44):
this guy. I'll never forget it.
It was this guy who had like a wife and a stepdaughter.
And he was completely normal guyand he got a brain tumor and it
gave him like pedophilic thoughts and he.
Know this one? Yeah, and he started watching
like child porn. I don't know if he ever did
anything to the daughter or not.He.
Reported like thoughts. And then they removed the tumor.
(46:06):
All the thoughts were gone. And it's like, is that him where
though his where those his thoughts is that his personality
and there's not a clear cut. There's just.
Not I love those types of conversations, yeah.
If you also like that type of thing, I have loved taking
philosophy seminars. Yeah, yeah, I love a marketing
class and I loved communicationscourses.
(46:27):
So don't be afraid to go outsideof your major to take those
types of things. Like you might really like econ
every nice psychology. Yeah.
So even if you're like I love psychology, you can take similar
types of courses outside. Yeah, like mine was a chronology
course exactly, but it's like also psych.
Grades how important are grades Oh my gosh, you guys Olivia and
(46:50):
I had so much to say that we're going to split this into two
episodes so you guys can get allthe psychology advice and
information and it's not 2 hourslong if you want to keep
listening to our psychology advice and all things classes,
research, work life balance, grad school and more, go ahead
and TuneIn later this week for episode 221, Part 2 of this
(47:10):
conversation with Olivia. See you in Part 2 If you enjoyed
this episode. If she persisted, make to leave
a review, subscribe and share with a friend or family member.
Follow along at at She purses topodcast on TikTok, Instagram,
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