On r/psychologystudents the other day:
What are the things that would have made your life easier, had you known sooner. Things you’d tell your younger self
Well! As it happens…
There were a lot of things, I’ve realized over the years, that I wish I’d known back in 1973 when I declared my major. When I started teaching 27 years or so ago, I quickly discovered that nobody else was telling students these things so I started a list that I now share with new students every semester.
Needless to say, by now it’s become way too long at this point to insert in a Reddit comment so I limited my comment there to the thing that’s been on my mind most recently, to wit:
Behave professionally. Your faculty are evaluating you as future colleagues.
Here, for the rest of you, is the whole enchilada:
Professionalism
The psych majors in my introductory course often do not behave professionally.
I tell all my students, regardless of major, that the day they walk through the front gate of the university for the first time they are beginning their professional journeys. They will be studying with people who are the top experts in their chosen field, people who can open doors to them–or slam them in their faces.
Your professors are evaluating you as a potential future colleague. Unreliability, cheating, dressing unprofessionally, gossiping (especially about one professor to another), poor boundaries, snark, or any sign of prejudice or bias of any kind… none of those things are going to stand you in good stead in this regard. Don’t, as one of my TAs did some years back, get drawn into a slanging match with a student under you.
“Dressing unprofessionally” I do realize is freighted with gendered and racialized/cultural meanings. I’m not intending to weaponize it here against anybody who isn’t white/straight/middle class. Just do keep in mind that (a) you’re selling yourself here, (b) in grad school you’re selling your potential as a psychologist, and (c) if you are intending to go into clinical work you will be selling your expertise as a therapist.
You’re not selling your body, your sports prowess, your politics or hobbies, or even your fashion sense. So especially on days that you are representing, keep that in mind! What role are you auditioning for today? And dress/groom yourself accordingly.
Come to class in board shorts: I don’t care. But don’t show up to a poster presentation attended by students and faculty from all over in your track suit, ‘k?
Reliability
Show up on time to classes, meetings, and the lab. Get your work in on time. Never, ever no-show an appointment or ghost a professor or class. If you commit to some task as teaching assistant (TA) or research assistant (RA) then do it. And do it on time! Professors who have to chase you down are not going to write good letters for you.
Accept responsibility–and not in a token manner, like the ChatGPT-generated emails I get that always either start out or close with, “I accept full responsibility…” and then start making excuses and asking for special favors.
- Do not whine.
- Do not offer excuses.
- Do not, except in exceptional circumstances, ask for special consideration.
Pro Tip: Some of the most unreliable students and TAs I’ve had in my 27 years as a college psychology instructor turned out to have been off on drinking binges, sometimes for weeks at a pop. My recommendation to you is that you curb your drinking and drugging, if not for your own health and safety, then at least when school is in session for the sake of your career.
There is not much that will shoot you down faster in a psych department than a reputation for unreliability. And a felony conviction can prevent you from obtaining a professional license, malpractice insurance, and more.
Ethics
Know your professional ethics code (in the United States, it is found here) and live by it from Day One. Graduate schools, and in their turn, licensing boards and employers, will ask about your ethical conduct as an undergrad.
Know your school’s Code of Conduct as well. And regardless of what it says about your responsibility to report violations should you become aware of them, do not tolerate cheating amongst your peers. These are your future colleagues, people who will carry great responsibilities, and you want to give a thought to who you want filling those positions and wielding power and influence over people’s lives five, ten, fifteen years from now. Your professional code and your mentor can offer guidance on how to address this if it comes up.
And for goodness’ sake don’t, as a colleague’s TA once did, share tips with your students on how to cheat and get away with it.
Boundaries
Life/Work Balance. Set a boundary between your academic/professional and personal lives. Graduate schools will do their best to obliterate them, and so will academia if that’s where you wind up post-grad. If you get four years of practice in now, you will have a better chance surviving with your mental and physical health (and relationships) intact.
Sexual Boundaries. In some departments you will find that it will be up to you to also set and maintain appropriate boundaries between you and your faculty. Never hesitate to do so! Boundary violations by professors can damage your mental health and completely derail your career. Know their ethical responsibilities to you (you can read all about that in the Code referenced above, if you are stateside), and don’t allow behavior that falls outside those guidelines.
As a TA, you may not date your students. (That should go without saying, but you’d be surprised.)
As an aside, this is another place where curbing your drinking and drugging will pay off. Reduced inhibitions and clouded thinking get a lot of people in trouble in this regard.
Candy’s dandy, but liquor’s quicker.
–Dorothy Parker
Exploitation. Some professors/lab directors treat their students like personal assistants. This is not OK. It’s perfectly OK (and, indeed, recommended) to say “No, sorry, I can’t.” Not only is it exploitative but if that interaction (baby-sitting, house-sitting, pet-sitting, catering/bartending parties — yes, it happens — and the like) goes sour, it can’t help but spill over into the lab and classroom.
Nuts and Bolts
Create a functional resumé or C.V. (curriculum vitae, for academics) and keep it current: You never know when you might get a sudden opportunity for some work experience, so you want it always at the ready.
Create and practice an elevator speech. The first time I had my clinical students do that, within a few days one of them unexpectedly wound up on the phone with the director of her most-hoped-for graduate program and was able to reel it right off. You never know when you will have the opportunity to make an important connection, so have it ready!
Develop Your Expertise
Learn to take smart notes (Ahrens, 2017), develop the habit, and build a Second Brain (Forte, 2022). If there is anything that I wish daily that I had, it is a database of all my notes going back to my very first psychology class!
You can build expertise even as an undergraduate if you have a general idea what you want to do with your degree. Spend your next years here getting completely familiar with the literature in your planned specialty area. Whenever you have a choice of subjects for papers or projects, work in that area, building on your past work and developing an extensive bibliography. Zotero is the bomb for this! Make filing articles and book chapters there a habit. Build a body of notes in Evernote, OneNote (comes with Windows), Obsidian, or whatever app floats your boat.
If there is anything that I wish daily that I had, it is a database of all my notes going back to my very first psychology class.
You will thank yourself down the road when you are writing your senior thesis or dissertation proposal.
Get a Mentor
A good mentor can smooth your path.
Look for someone in your department who is widely published and therefore well known in the field of study that most interests you. Bonus if they went to the school you want to attend or have contacts with someone there.
Look for someone who can use you in their lab and help you present and publish your work.
How do you find such a person? Go to the Department web page and read the profiles of all tenured and tenure-track faculty. For those you find who are in your focus area, do a literature search. Familiarize yourself with their work before you approach them and ask them to mentor you.
Check in with them about registration every term. Stay in touch even if you aren’t in a class or lab with them in a given semester. Take as many classes with them as possible, though, as someone who knows you better can write a better letter for you–not to mention, they will know you well enough to be able to give better advice than someone you only had for one class three years ago.
Teaching and Lab Assistantships
TA for people who specialize in what you want to study. Do it for as many semesters in a row as you can, and present mini-lectures on your topic.
Join the lab of someone who works in your area of interest. Try and publish with that person; at least get them to take you to conferences and introduce you around.
These will become the people who can write the strongest recommendations for you, especially if they went to the schools to which you are applying but certainly if they are well known in your field of study.
Networking
To some students, this is a dirty word. It smacks of manipulation and self-promotion. It did to me, and I didn’t do near enough of it. I know now that none of us lives or works in a vacuum and networking is just another word for living in community–in this case, the psychological community.
- Join your national professional organization. In the U.S., of course, that would be the American Psychological Association.
- Get a student membership in your state or regional association.
- If your school has a chapter, join Psi Chi.
- If your school has an undergraduate research club, join it.
Volunteer to work conferences and workshops in topics you are interested in so that you can attend free or at reduced rates and meet people working the areas that interest you most.
Networking is just another word for living in community–in this case, the psychological community.
And Finally…
Start working on getting into grad school now! Get this book and start today.
TL:DR
- Be professional.
- A good mentor can smooth your path.
- Your career starts now.
- Good boundaries will save you.
References
Ahrens, S. (2017). How to take smart notes: One simple technique to boost writing, learning and thinking (Second Ed.). Author.
Forte, T. (2022). Building a second brain: A proven method to organize your digital life and unlock your creative potential. Atria Books.
Note: As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
However, I have recommended these two books for a long time without anything in it for me, and will continue to long after I am no longer an affiliate. I will never, ever recommend anything I don’t use and believe in myself, and I teach this material in addition to using it in my own life daily. The links are primarily for your convenience: Buy from an independent bookseller if you can!
You can get Sönke Ahrens’ book from Amazon here. I’ve had mine since the summer of 2023 and as of this writing am on my third read-through. It is completely different than what most of us are taught in school about note-taking (and writing!) and it has revolutionized my note-taking (and writing). I’ve been teaching it in my classes and getting good feedback from students.
Click here to get Forte’s book from Amazon. I bought my copy of Building a second brain in the winter of 2023 and am on my second reading, this time with a book club. He includes a good bit of information on his note-taking system, which is different from Ahrens’. I like it though, and have incorporated it as an intermediate step, saving it into Zotero when I’m done.
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