When did you master the successful journal article search? During the course of their undergraduate studies, many students have to write a course paper that involves finding primary sources such as journal articles, particularly during junior and senior year. Undergraduate honors students almost always need primary sources for writing their thesis. Graduate students obviously also need to hunt down journal articles for course papers, comprehensive exams, and theses/dissertations throughout their time in graduate school (and after), though some begin graduate school already having developed strong skills in this area.
 
I’ve learned over time that the preparation students receive from their instructor in advance of having to track down articles varies widely. Some instructors fully prepare students for this task, particularly in honors seminars. Others, particularly by graduate school, expect students to know how to perform a successful literature review. So, my advice on how to do an effective literature search may be useful for students toward the second half of their undergraduate career, or early in their graduate career.
 

• Starting with a textbook: If you’re early in the process – let’s say, trying to narrow down a topic for a review paper for a course or your thesis, looking at your textbook for that course, or other courses, can be useful. Textbook writers spend a lot of time tracking down articles on a huge range of topics.  You can see what articles the textbook cites, and track down those original sources. For instance, if you're interested in sexual behavior, you can look in the sexual behavior section of your adolescent development textbook and track down the papers that the textbook author cited.
• Review articles: In many areas of research, someone (or multiple someones) has published review articles or meta-analyses. Review articles can be very useful because they summarize a fair bit of past work. However, there is a lot of information in one paper, so you will have to spend a lot more time reading it than an empirical article that summarizes only one study. To find review articles, you can check the titles of articles during your searches for ones that include “meta-analysis" or "review" in the title. The reference list of the review article will help you find other relevant articles (though they obviously will be older than the review article). You can also look at some specific journals that carry review articles, including Psychological Bulletin, Psychological Review, Human Development, and Developmental Review. 
• Searching in databases: Use Psychinfo, Google scholar, or other journal database to find articles on a specific topic. Learning to choose the right search terms can take time. You may need to spend a fair bit of time practicing and trying out a range of different terms before you find the right articles. If a search gives you < 10 articles, you need broader search terms. If it gives you > 1000 articles, you probably need narrower terms. If you’re using google scholar, using quotation marks can be really important. Let’s use an example. We recently wrote a paper on long-distance relationships. Here are some things I could try:
  • LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIPS: Without quotation marks, there are 4,740,000 results. Obviously that won’t work. Though, when I look at the first page, it is clear that they are likely some of the most relevant ones.
    

• Snowballing: If an article you read cites another article to make a specific point relevant to your interests, look it up. Researchers use this approach a lot.
• Forward searches: This technique is one of my favorites, because to me it feels like detective work. In psychinfo and google scholar, you can find all the articles that cite a specific article. So, if you find a great article on your topic, you can find all the articles published subsequently that refer to the great article. Some may not be relevant to your topic, but many likely will be.
• Don’t stop at first page of results: When you do a search, go beyond the first page. I have had students come to me with a reference list where everything was published in the past 2 years, and some are only tangentially related to their topic. The student often then tells me that s/he couldn't find anything more relevant. But often the issue is that the student didn't look through enough of the results in his/her search. When I do a search, I generally look through every article that comes up. That's why you want your search to be specific enough that it produces < 1000. The most recent research may be great, and you want to include the most recent research, but if you're not going more than 2 years back, you're likely excluding a lot of other great research.

Finding the right articles is a critical step to an effective literature review, and will save you so much time later when you are actually trying to summarize others’ work or relate it to your own.  
 
“Good journal article searching habits first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on October 30, 2018.”

I speak a lot about intentional writing, and you can find links to all my prior posts on intentional writing here. The most similar topic to today’s topic is about the importance of integrating, rather than listing, prior studies’ findings.
 
Today I want to talk about the importance of centering your summary of others’ work around the research findings, rather than the authors. I’m going to cheat and use the same example I used previously with slight alterations. Here’s an example of author-focused summaries:
 
Smith, Bogle, Talbott, Grant, and Castillo (2006) found that college students are more likely to drink, and drink more heavily, on their 21st birthday compared to other days. Rutledge, Park, and Sher (2008), in a more representative study, found similar increases in drinking on 21st birthdays. Neal and Fromme (2007) found that alcohol use was elevated on holidays like New Year’s Eve, as well as on football weekends. Similarly, Del Boca, Darkes, Greenbaum, and Goldman (2004) found that alcohol use increases on New Year’s Eve and other holidays. Other researchers have also found elevated rates of drinking on Halloween and St. Patrick’s Day (Glindemann, Wiegand, & Geller, 2007). Patrick, Morgan, Maggs, and Lefkowitz (2011) found that another event, Spring break, also has higher rates of drinking. Finally, Grekin, Sher, and Krull (2007) found that increased drinking during Spring break occurred only when students were with friends.  
 
That paragraph is written so that the authors are the subjects of each sentence, placing the most importance on the author names (or in one case, “other researchers”). However, when you are reading an introduction, you rarely care who did what study (sorry authors! I know you care!). What you do care about is what the authors found. In the occasional instances where, as a reader, you do care about who did the study, the information will still be easily accessible, it’s just not distracting you from the main findings. Here is the passage in the actual paper – much shorter, but without any loss of information:
 
College student alcohol use is known to increase during the celebration of special events such as 21st birthdays (Rutledge, Park, & Sher, 2008; Smith, Bogle, Talbott, Grant, & Castillo, 2006), football games (Neal & Fromme, 2007b), Spring Break (Grekin, Sher, & Krull, 2007; Patrick, Morgan, Maggs, & Lefkowitz, 2011), and holidays like Halloween and New Year’s Eve (Del Boca, Darkes, Greenbaum, & Goldman, 2004; Glindemann, Wiegand, & Geller, 2007).  
 
In the second example, we have integrated the findings across studies, but we also have made the research findings, rather than the author names, the star of the sentence. Which is now one sentence. No information was lost, but the reader comes away with a much better sense of what has been found in this research area.   
 
It probably takes a bit more time to write the second example than the first. But that’s because you are doing the work for the reader, and therefore, it will take the reader a lot less time to understand your points – which should be the goal of writing in any context.
 
“Intentional writing: Finding-focused, not author-focused literature summaries first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on October 25, 2018.”

Why you should do a research project as an undergraduate
 
There are a few different reasons why someone might get involved in a research project as an undergraduate student. First, a few students in social science fields (e.g., HDFS, psychology, sociology) already have an inherent interest in research. They seek out involvement in a research project because they are excited about research and scientific inquiry and want to get involved. Second, students in the honors program usually are required to get involved in research at some point, leading up to the experience of doing an honors thesis. These students seek out involvement on a research project because someone told them to. Third, some students want to go to doctoral programs and know that getting involved in research as an undergraduate student is important for their grad school applications. So, they get involved in research to check that box off on their “things to do to get into grad school list.”
 
Even if none of these three reasons apply to you, however, you should seriously consider getting involved in a research project with a faculty member. Often students do so in their junior year, though if you have time to do it as a sophomore, it may open more opportunities.

What do you do on a research project?  Obviously, student research activities can vary dramatically depending on the field, topic, and stage of research. But, these are common activities:

• Attend meetings where faculty and students talk about research ideas, plan research studies, and talk about research findings and papers they are writing
• Help with data collection, with activities such as administering surveys, participating in experiments (e.g., performing tests on babies; helping participants with fMRI), calling and/or scheduling participants
• Help with data entry and data cleaning
• Code data, e.g., watch videotapes, listen to audiotapes, or watch live to rate participants on different behaviors or characteristics
• Find research articles on specific topics

 
Why should you participate in a research project if you’re not in the honors program and you’re not thinking about doctoral programs? Or if one of these things is true for you, but you’re not yet a senior?

• Get to learn more about how to do research, and a particular research project

• Get to know a specific mentor. At large universities, you may not have many opportunities to talk to faculty, even in your major. When you apply for graduate school or jobs, it can be challenging to find faculty to write you letters of recommendation. But, if you participate on a research project your mentor will get to know you well and will most likely be willing to write a letter for you.
• If you are planning to do a thesis, starting research earlier in the program gives you a chance to make sure a particular project/mentor is a good fit before committing to a yearlong project like a thesis.
• If you're planning to go straight to graduate school, you will be applying in Fall of your senior year. If you wait until senior year to get involved in a research project, your mentor will only know you for a couple of months before you ask him/her to write a letter. If you start sophomore or junior year, s/he will know you much better.
• Participating on a research project often opens up many other opportunities. You may have opportunities to apply for funding in the summer to continue your research. You may get to present your research at an undergraduate (or even local/national) research conference, increasing your networking opportunities and building up your resume.

In the 26 years since I started graduate school, I’ve supervised about 200 undergraduate students in research projects, as many as 24 in one semester. Some of these students went onto doctoral programs and are now professors. Others went onto masters programs to end up as social workers, academic advisors, or sex therapists. Others went into careers that have nothing to do with HDFS and perhaps not research, such as public relations, insurance, or lawyer. During grad school, one of my students started the project saying he wanted to go to a doctoral program in psychology. About a year after he graduated, he sent me a letter saying that watching me as a grad student helped him realize that was not what he wanted to do in life – and he was now a prison guard (yes, we made many jokes about how watching grad student Eva made him turn to an easier life – prison guard). That’s okay – better to realize your preferences sooner than later. Through the years I have gotten to know some of these students well, and have enjoyed watching their lives on social media, and even occasionally attending their wedding. Once, when I was on sabbatical and without childcare, a former undergraduate research assistant, who had become a professor, even offered to hang out with my children so my husband and I could both go to back to school night! 

Your involvement on a research project is often critical to the faculty member or graduate student’s completion of that research project. But it also can be critical to you in multiple ways – figuring out what you want to do career-wise, making connections that will help you later, and getting an enriching experience outside of the classroom.

“Why you should do a research project first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on October 23, 2018.”

*Side note: My blog had been rather neglected for the past 2 years. I always have good intentions, but they rarely translate to finding the time to write here. This summer, for whatever reason, I found the motivation to regularly open up my file of “future blog posts” and sit down and write them. In almost exactly three months (5/25 to today, 8/26), I wrote 42 posts, 27 posted for three months, twice a week, and another 15 scheduled to post through 10/16 (this one I’m writing right now for 10/18 makes 43).  That’s a lot of writing time, and one might argue that I could have written one or more manuscripts in the time I spent writing blog posts. But it’s debatable whether I would have used the time as effectively if it was manuscript-focused time. And, at some point in your career, you can take a bit more freedom to make choices, such as being generative in different areas than the traditional ones. I recognize, though, that I cannot write nearly as frequently during the academic year. So, perhaps my posts will continue beyond mid-October, but if there’s another hiatus, thanks for coming along for the ride and I hope you found something useful.
 
And now, student evaluations of teaching. I will refer to them as SETs which is what they are called at UConn.
 
The first time I received student evaluations of my teaching I was a graduate student TA for a section of research methods. I called a friend and told her I was sad because I had a really negative review. She said, really, I had great reviews! And after we talked for a while, we figured out that both of us had mostly positive feedback with 1-2 negative people in the pile, it was just that I perseverated on the negative one and couldn’t remember the positive ones, and she ignored the negative and focused on the positive.
 
I still find it hard not to perseverate on negative feedback in my SETs. I think it’s because the most negative ones are generally the most strongly emotionally valenced, and so they are the most memorable. At least to me. I really want to take student evaluations into account when I revise my course each year. But I find that if I’m not careful, those highly emotionally valenced ones may sway my view. I have even at times changed a course in response to such a review, having then the next year more students complain about the new format.
 
SETs don’t have the same meaning for me now that I am post-tenure, post-full professor. Previously it at times felt like SETs were linked to job security. Now, to be honest, as long as I don’t get scores low enough to raise eyebrows in the Provost’s Office, no one is going to care much about my SETs.
 
All that said, I do want to learn what students did and didn’t like about my courses, and figure out how to improve them. I had a colleague who prided himself on never looking at his teaching evaluations. I’ve had other colleagues who, when I was Undergrad Director and met with them to discuss lower ratings, would blame it all on the students, such as, “this was such a bad bunch this semester.” I can’t quite understand that. I don’t think we should bend over backwards to please students all the time, but I do think we need to consider students’ perspective on the course.
 
When I was Undergrad Program Director, I often had to help other faculty interpret their SETSs and figure out how to respond to them in course design. During this process, I developed a way to summarize the SETs for others, and I now use that technique with my own SETs. If you teach a small graduate course, you may find this technique less useful. But if you have a large course like mine, then summarizing them may help you find patterns.
 
Essentially what I am doing is coding the responses. I pull up the open-ended responses, open an Excel file, and read through them one at a time. For each one, I try to code or categorize any unique point that person says. I keep a running tally of each point, so that the second time someone says “she was so enthusiastic!” I don’t make a new line, I just add a count to the line “enthusiastic/energetic/engaging.” I do separate summaries for “Most positive aspects” and “What can instructor do to change.” Once I’m done coding, I sort them by # of responses in descending order, and I can much more easily see the patterns and get a sense of the overall student perspective, rather than only remembering the most strongly worded ones.
 
This year, when I first received my SETs for my 290 student class at the end of the semester, I skimmed them but didn’t take the time to read them. The sense I came away with from them was that they overall liked me and thought I was enthusiastic, but that students also were unhappy that I made them do group assignments because the class was a mix of freshmen – seniors; unhappy that instructor seemed unsure of herself; and unhappy that I relied on my notes too much. But when I tabulated, those last three points were literally each from one person – in a class of 290. That’s what I remembered the most, though. So instead, when I tabulated them, I could much more easily see the trends. Here are all of the answers to the question about “most positive aspects” that 5 or more students made:

`So I get a clear sense that students like that I gave lots of personal examples, and real world examples, and students found me engaging/enthusiastic/passionate. All of these positives even won out over showing videos, so I take that as a strong win.
 
Toward the bottom I can see the things that only one student mentioned as a positive:

These are things that might make me feel good in some cases, but I don’t have to spend a lot of time thinking about them, either.  Now, here are all of the things that 5 or more students said I could do to improve the course:

I’m feeling quite good that the most common response was for students to say “nothing” or “N/A” or “I can’t think of anything.” After that, I’ve highlighted for myself the next most common things that students said. Lots of students would like me to have more detail in my notes. That’s something that I’m not willing to change, because there is research on learning and memory to support my decision to have PP slides without a lot of detail, forcing students to pay attention and take better notes. In fact, 9 students said they liked the brevity in my slides. My best guess is that most of the students who asked for more detail in my slides were among the students who attended class infrequently, and they want me to post notes on Blackboard that have enough information that they didn’t miss anything. I’m not going to do that, but I can spend more time on the first day of class this semester explaining why my notes are the way they are.
 
Some students thought my (open-notes, open-book) exams were tricky. And some students thought I should be more clear about what exams would be like and what would be on exams. So I can probably spend more time in class pointing out some of the concepts that students find tricky, and talking about how to use the weekly review questions I post. A lot of the things I got out of this section of my SET’s are about ways I can help the students understand what is happening in the course, rather than changing my policies per se. But there definitely have been times that I have read something in my SET’s that has made me make some more radical changes in my course.
 
This technique has really helped me take the emotion out of reading my SETs, so that I can concentrate on what students do and don’t appreciate about the course, and respond appropriately. How do you deal with student evaluations of teaching?
 
“How to gather useful information from student evaluations of teaching first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on October 18, 2018.”

Last week I described different types of graduate programs if you want to be a clinician/counselor/therapist of some kind. This week I want to address the issue of choosing a specific graduate program once you know the general type of program you want.

First, think realistically about what limiting factors you might have in choosing your graduate program. Can you move anywhere in the country, or do you have geographic limitations (e.g., want to be within three hours’ drive of your family; have a partner who has to find work in a specific city; prefer to live in a big city or a small town; know you want to settle in CT forever)? If you have no geographic limitations you will have more possibilities for finding an ideal fit, but it doesn't make sense to look at programs that fall outside of your expectations of where you will live if you do have geographic limitations. If you are interested in programs that are very competitive (like clinical PhD programs, for instance), you might want to consider a broader geographic search. Perhaps you and your partner can live a couple of hours apart for a couple of years. In addition, think of your financial limitations. Do you have parental or other money to support your time in school, or will you have to take out loans? If you're going into a career like social work, you are unlikely to have a huge salary right after graduation, so considering the cost and what you can afford in loans after you finish is important. Programs can vary greatly. For 2018-2019, full time MSW tuition at NYU is $46,266; at Southern Connecticut State it is $12,143 in state, $24,487 out of state. Over the two-year degree that could be a difference of $60,000.

Once you have a sense of the type of program you want and any limiting factors you may have, you can start to research specific programs. Obviously, the Internet is a great source for finding out about programs (picture me, in 1991, sending letters to 30 psychology PhD programs, and then waiting for them to send me brochures about each program, and having those brochures take over my bedroom in piles of Yes/No/Maybe, and you'll start to realize what a truly great resource the internet is for this task!). There are different places you can look. US News & World Report ranks some types of programs, and so it can be a useful place to look. Let’s say I know I’m staying in North Carolina, and I’m interested in an MSW. It gives me 12 MSW programs in North Carolina. gradshools.com can sometimes be helpful. You can narrow your search down by discipline (e.g., social work), and then, if you'd like, state and/or city. If you're not interested in an online degree, make sure to check "campus" as one of the options. It is very important to note, though, that universities have to pay to advertise on gradshools.com, so you will not find every program there. Also note that there are a lot of other websites that compile graduate school information, and they may or may not charge to be listed – just be a bit careful when you are searching, as the listing could be incomplete or the information inaccurate. When I did the North Carolina MSW search on gradschools.com, I came up with only 5 programs.

You can also visit the websites of professional organizations. For instance, the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy has a directory of training programs that lists US and Canadian programs.

Another option is a general google search. For instance, "graduate school North Carolina social work." When you do so, you will get a lot of different websites like gradschools.com, that try to compile lists of programs. You will also get a lot of ads for online programs.

But if you scroll down enough, you will also find specific programs.

 For instance, when I did this search, I found North Carolina Central University, which was not listed on gradschools.com.

When you look at specific programs, read their website carefully, and look for some of the following components (what you look for is going to vary by what kind of program you're considering):

• How do they describe their philosophy? What is their mission statement?
• What areas of specialization/emphasis do they describe, if any?
• What type of careers do they describe their graduates going into?
• How research focused is the program?
• Do they provide any information about the ranking of the program?
• Are they accredited?
• What courses do they offer? Do these courses match your interests?

For instance, back at NCCU, their mission statement includes: " The mission of the Department of Social Work is to prepare students to promote social and economic justice by engaging in problem solving efforts and offering direct and macro interventions with individuals, communities and organizations… The graduate program places special emphasis on preparing students to develop, deliver and evaluate services either for youth involved or at-risk of being involved in the juvenile justice system or with families involved with child and family services agencies." That may be great if you plan to practice in settings with at risk youth or family service agencies, but less so if your long term goal is private practice with adults. You can learn a lot about a program’s focus in their mission statement.  Over at the University of Pittsburgh site, I found information about skill concentrations, where they describe emphases in Direct Practice or Community, Organization, and Social Action. Some programs may only focus on one or the other, which you can learn pretty quickly by reading their website. They also offer a certificate in gerontology so if you're interested in aging, it could be a better program than MSW programs that don't offer such specialization.

Also consider talking to people you know. Talk to your professors, people where you work, other students. You may find someone who knows someone at a specific program, or knows about a specific program. Firsthand experience can provide information you may not find on a web site.

Throughout this process, the important thing will be finding the program that's right for you. Be realistic about your qualifications. If you don't have the highest GPA, consider programs that are not the highest ranked programs. If you're not certain whether you want to do community work or private practice, or work with children or adults, make sure you select a program that trains in both.

Also, be careful to determine the licensing regulations and requirements. Different types of degrees have different licensing requirements, and sometimes they're state specific. Some states have sharing rights for licenses, others do not. Consider these issues carefully when you decide where you want to train, and where you want to live afterward.

The better idea you have of what you want when you start this process, the easier it will be to narrow down your choices. That said, even if you start out with little sense of how to narrow things down, reading about all of the different programs will likely help you figure out what you do and don’t want in a program. Just like reading all those hard copy brochures in 1991 helped me – and you’ll harm fewer trees in the process.
 
“How to choose a graduate program first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on October 16, 2018.”

Note: Now over 90.

​In the past couple of weeks, I described different types of funding for graduate study, and why you should get external funding while a graduate student. And a few weeks ago, I shared my list of over 120 post doc opportunities related to Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS). People found that list helpful, so today I’m sharing another list I compiled (with graduate student help), of over 50 (hopefully more by the time this posts; it’s a work in progress) graduate fellowship and grant opportunities also related to HDFS.
 
As with the post doc list, it’s a broad list. I did limit it to ones that can fund you during grad school, and excluded fellowships that require you are a student at a specific university. The list includes some that cover tuition as well as a stipend, and some that are stipend only. Some are only for a couple thousand dollars (e.g., Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.), and others are for tuition plus a generous stipend (e.g., NSF, tuition plus $34,000 a year for 3 years). There are dissertation-specific grants, and grants that you can apply for earlier in your graduate education.
 
Some are very general, such as any discipline, or any social science discipline. Others are more specific, and for these, areas of research vary widely, and include childhood, health, diversity, cultural studies, studies of specific cultures, education, evaluation, gender, social services, and brain sciences. They are certainly relevant to HDFS students, but also to students from multiple psychology areas (e.g., developmental, health), social work, education, sociology, gender and sexuality studies. Some are only for US citizens, but some are only for non-US citizens. There are some that are specific to women or to underrepresented ethnic/racial groups, veterans or LGBTQ individuals. 
 
Due dates range widely, with some in summer, fall, winter, or spring.
 
I make no claims that any information, including information about citizenship requirements, is accurate.
 
I hope that you find this information useful, as you plan out your funding for your time in graduate school.
 
FIND IT HERE.
 
If you have suggestions of other graduate fellowships or that fit these criteria, please share them and I will add them to the list. If you find errors or broken links, please let me know.
 
“50+ fellowship opportunities related to Human Development and Family Studies first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on October 11, 2018.”

For individuals considering graduate school (after taking a couple years off, of course), figuring out what kind of program to attend can be challenging. I know that among HDFS majors, we often have a huge range of interests, including medicine, law, education, physical therapy, rehabilitation, speech therapy, human resources, other business areas, and research-oriented PhD programs. Today, I want to talk about a specific set of programs -- degrees that can lead to some form of clinical work. There are a lot of different ways that you can become a clinician and/or therapist, and it can be confusing to sort out the similarities and differences. Here are a few things to keep in mind about the different programs:
 

• PhD in Clinical Psychology: Often when people think about being a clinician, they think that this degree is the one they need. With a PhD in clinical psychology, you can become a licensed psychologist, and during graduate school you get many hours toward licensing. Clinical psychology PhD programs tend to be very research focused. They are based on the scientist-practitioner model. You need to be involved in research throughout your time in grad school, you need to complete a research-based master’s thesis, and a research-based dissertation. You complete a one-year full time clinical internship as part of your degree, as well as other clinical training and clinical hours throughout your program. With a PhD in clinical psychology, you can also move into a research or academic career, including a position as a professor. An advantage of these programs over others is that you can often get a stipend and tuition coverage to support your time in graduate school. A disadvantage is that these programs tend to be some of the most competitive (I know of programs that receive 600 applications for 10 slots). If you are not interested in research and having your career involve research, you should seriously consider a different type of program.
• PsyD in Clinical Psychology: A PsyD is also a doctorate, but is less focused on research, following a practitioner-scholar model. These programs tend to take a bit less time than PhD programs, and focus more heavily on clinical training. You also complete a one-year full time clinical internship. For students not interested in research, PsyD programs are a more efficient way to get a doctorate. These programs are generally less competitive than PhD programs, and therefore easier to get into. However, there are few opportunities for fellowships/funding, so if you have to take out loans, you could end up graduating with a lot of debt.
• MSW (Masters of Social work). There are a number of different types of MSW degrees. If you want to be a clinician, you need to make sure you attend the correct program (I'll discuss this issue in more detail in a subsequent post). MSW degrees can lead to a number of different careers. With a clinical MSW you can become a therapist, but other MSW degrees include medical social work, psychiatric social work, school social work, or jobs in hospitals, criminal settings, administrative positions, etc. MSWs generally take 2 years, and require some supervision hours after graduation. There is some variation by state in how to become licensed with an MSW. These obviously take less time than doctorates. Because they are professional degrees, funding is generally not available.
• Masters or PhD in Counseling Psychology: Most counseling psychology programs are through colleges of education. Often, degrees in counseling psychology lead to school-based work, such as becoming a guidance counselor. However, some counseling psychology programs can lead to family counseling. PhD programs often have opportunities for funding, though perhaps not at the same rate as clinical psychology programs. There is a lot of variation between programs. Like a clinical psychology doctorate, if you go for a PhD, there will be much more research focus.
• Masters or PhD in Counselor Education: These programs often train you to be a professional counselor in a school or community based setting, and like counseling psychology, often are within a college of education. Training can lead to a number of different foci, including being a school counselor, a career counselor in higher education, a clinical and mental health counselor, or rehabilitation counseling. These programs often have somewhat less focus on research than counseling psychology.
• Masters or PhD in MFT/CFT (Marriage/Couple and family therapy): A masters in family therapy can lead to a career as a therapist, generally at the family level. MFT's can work in many different settings, including social services, mental health centers, schools, and private practice. There is more variability with MFT degrees across states than with some other degrees, so you want to be clear on where you are training, and where you want to be afterward (to some extent, this is true with any of the degrees listed here). As with other degrees, the focus on research will be higher at the PhD than at the master’s level.

 
There are obviously a lot of other subtler differences between different types of programs. There is also great variability across universities in different programs for the same degree. I'll address this issue more in the future.

Trying to figure out future plans can be both exciting and intimidating. Make sure you give yourself enough time so that it's more the former and less the latter.
 
“Graduate programs in clinical work first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on October 9, 2018.”

Last week I described different types of funding during graduate school. There are some students who must apply for funding external to their department during graduate school. Students in programs that don’t guarantee funding may scramble to support themselves throughout their graduate program. For these students, applying for funding outside their department is survival.
 
Other students, however, enter doctoral programs with 4-5 years of guaranteed funding – often in an assistantship with tuition, stipend, and access to health insurance in exchange to 10-20 hours of work per week. Students with generous departmental support may believe they do not have to apply for funding outside their department during graduate school, because they already have support. Students may also feel that spending time applying for additional funds is time they could spend getting research done. However, there are several benefits to applying for external support even if you don’t financially need it. So, before you write off getting funding external to your department (whether applying within or outside your university), consider the following.
 

• Money. You may not need money to support you, but it’s rare that graduate students feel so financially comfortable that they would turn down extra money. I’ve never heard a grad student say, my stipend is so generous, I really don’t know what to do with all this money. When we have scholarship competitions (not for huge amounts of money), I’m surprised at the small number of students who actually apply. Who wouldn’t want extra money, even if it’s for more flexibility for going to the movies or out for dinner, or for your savings account?
  
• Dissertation research. You may have funds to support yourself, but what about funds to do the dissertation (or other) research project you really want to do? Students often use their mentor’s, another faculty member’s, or publicly available data. But is there a research project you really want to do during graduate school, and could a couple of thousand dollars provide support to complete that project? Grants can support a range of research expenses, such as participant payment, access to measures or software, travel, and other research costs.
• Build your CV: Demonstrating you have successfully secured your own funding positions you well for many jobs. If you are interested in a tenure track position at a top research university, demonstrating the ability to secure funding can be critical. There are other jobs with similar expectations – e.g., soft money jobs at medical schools (though sometimes you can demonstrate this ability after you start the position and start off paid on others’ projects). In addition, many people who work at research institutes have to secure external funding to support various projects. When I received a tenure track position at Penn State right out of my PhD program, I was told the only reason they considered my application was that I had gotten an F31 from NIMH. I know that was 20 years ago, and it’s even harder now to get tenure track positions without doing a post doc first, but whenever you go on the faculty job market, demonstrating your ability to secure funding is highly valuable.
• Practice: For many different careers (tenure track faculty at research-oriented university; faculty at medical school or other soft money position; research institutes), part of your job will be to obtain external funding. This need isn’t limited to researchers working at large universities and institutes. Many smaller local agencies and organizations survive on grants and contracts. So, you might as well get started as a graduate student when the stakes may be lower, and you have built in mentors to help you with the process. Also, habits you form in graduate school often stick – make yourself the person who applies for funding now, and you’ll consider it part of your job for the rest of your career.

 
“ Why you should apply for fellowships and grants during grad school first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on October 4, 2018.”

Although in this blog I frequently focus on advice for graduate students and early career professionals, I have occasionally written posts aimed at undergraduate students. And some of my advice aimed at graduate students – for instance, advice on writing – is applicable to undergraduate students as well. Before I was department head at UConn or graduate program director at Penn State, I had several roles at Penn State relevant to career and grad school advice for undergraduate students: chair of graduate admissions committee; director of life span developmental science program (a research-oriented undergraduate track for non-honors students); undergraduate director. So, for the next few weeks, my posts once a week will focus on advice to undergraduate students, particularly (though not limited to) students in HDFS and related fields like psychology and sociology.
 
Have you ever been to career counseling? Have you even been to their website? At UConn, we have the Center for Career Development, and I’m often surprised how little students take advantage of the services there.

Of course, if you are you a senior and planning to graduate in December, May, or August, you should get yourself there asap. But if you are a sophomore or junior (maybe even freshman) who is not yet sure what to do when you graduate, now is the time to start reading about careers and talking to career counselors. You don’t have to figure out your career early during college – exploring majors and careers is great. But as with many things, the sooner you figure out what you want to do after you graduate, the better you can tailor your college experiences to have the strongest record possible to obtain that job or get into that graduate program.

It's never too soon to start thinking about your future career.
 
Previously I discussed why you should consider not going straight to graduate school after you graduate. I think there were even a couple of parents angry at me when their kids decided to take my advice (sorry moms and dads!).

It’s possible you know exactly what you want to do when you graduate, and have started on a steady path toward that goal. Good for you!

But if not, don't worry. I didn't know what I wanted to do when I was a junior (or even by graduation). At graduation, my best idea was that I wanted to go into advertising or market research. Some of us take more time to figure out our career paths. That’s totally fine.
 
You may have talked to your academic adviser, and/or your faculty adviser about what you want to do. That’s great. Faculty advisers are often great for advice on going to doctoral programs, because… that’s what we did! But also know that on most college campuses, there are people who literally have degrees in how to help people figure out their careers. It makes sense to also get advice from them.
 
Did you know that many people around the country who are not students pay career counselors a lot of money for their services? While you’re a student, you can access these services for free.
 
First, you can check out their online resources, which at UConn include:

• How to develop a career plan
• Career and major exploration
• Diversity and inclusion resources
• Resources on writing resumes and cover letters,  interviewing, and the job search
• List of internship sites and suggestions on how to find others  

 
There is a wealth of information available without ever leaving the comfort of your computer screen.
 
But, I highly encourage you to make an appointment (link for UConn students) and talk to someone in the Center for Career Development. Actually, you don’t even have to leave your computer screen to do so – you can do it by Skype (though I still encourage you to walk over there and meet with someone face-to-face). Why meet with a career counselor?

Career counselors can help you:

• Decide on a major
• Take assessments to identify your strengths and interests
• Learn about resources for researching career options
• Explore and choose a career plan
• Plan your time in college wisely to set yourself up for a great career
• Learn about internships
• Research job vacancies, alumni contacts, and job leads
• Develop your resume and cover letter
• Practice interviewing skills

So, even if you know exactly what you want to do, career counselors can help you finalize your job application materials and practice interviewing for your dream job.
 
I recommend that you consider visiting the Center for Career Development, or your university’s career counseling center soon, whatever part of the career planning process you are in.

Planning for the future is an exciting part of the college experience, and the more you plan for it, the less overwhelmed you're likely to feel.
 
“Why you should go to career counseling first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on October 2, 2018.”