Careers while in grad school

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

clawless23

Membership Revoked
Removed
10+ Year Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
Messages
36
Reaction score
0
Hello all,

I'm currently a first year student in a Psy.D. program which holds classes at night and allows for students to have a full time job during their studies. I hold a bachelor's degree in psychology and was curious if anyone had any opinions about jobs that could be held. Currently, I am doing TSS full time and would like something more clinical/steady. Any advice is appreciated thank you!

Members don't see this ad.
 
Hello,

I wish I had information for you--but I'm still learning about the Psy.D process. If you don't mind me asking, which Psy.D program allows for a fulltime job during the day? That sounds wonderful. I wish you the best of luck!
 
Members don't see this ad :)
I do not think its wise to try to work full-time outside your program. When would you do your practica, research projects, dissertation, read, study, write papers, etc?!
 
.
 
Last edited:
mental health tech at a psych hospital/psych unit.
 
to be fair, you said "any advice is appreciated" they gave you advice. Just not what you were looking for.
 
I would go on indeed.com and search for part-time counselor jobs in your area. Some people will wait tables through grad school, but I think there are a few more dollars per hour that come with B.A. level counseling positions. Plus, you have the benefit of adding to your resume and CV, while not taking a job (retail, as another example) that puts you at risk for some awkward bump-ins with your clients at field placement. You could probably most easily secure something as a resident counselor at a group home, or if you have inpatient experience, you might be able to get an inpatient unit position at a local hospital (but any hospital position can be competitive if you don't know anyone).

Hope that helps.
 
what psy.d. program has a great reputation, holds night classes and allows students to work outside?
 
The only APA-acred clinical psych doctoral program I know of that offers evening classes is Antioch (somewhere in the Northeast....CT/VT?). They now have other "campuses", but I'm not sure about their APA-acred. status or reputation.

*edit*

The Northeast campus had an APA-acred match rate of 44% and 48% for the past two years. That raises a red-flag right there.
 
Last edited:
NYU (PhD) and Carlow (Psyd) counseling programs claim to allow for full time work but I don't know the details.
 
With all due respect, not everyone has the luxury to make being a grad student the sole focus of their lives. Some people actually raise a family while going through graduate school, take care of sick or aging relatives etc. or are involved in their communities or political causes. And many simply need to take on a job to make money. These are the realities of life, and while we all would prefer it, not everyone is offered a nice financial package by their program.
Thus if you need to earn income, it is only reasonable to look for a position related to your field.
Peace and All the Best for 2013!
 
Though my situation is different (I didnt match last year; am done with courses, and nearing completion of the dissertation) I now work full time at an oupatient mental health center. Having said that, it would be nearly impossible for me to have the time to do this on the front end of my graduate training. If you can do that, awesome for you, but I just didnt have the time.
 
With all due respect, not everyone has the luxury to make being a grad student the sole focus of their lives. Some people actually raise a family while going through graduate school, take care of sick or aging relatives etc. or are involved in their communities or political causes. And many simply need to take on a job to make money. These are the realities of life, and while we all would prefer it, not everyone is offered a nice financial package by their program.
Thus if you need to earn income, it is only reasonable to look for a position related to your field.
Peace and All the Best for 2013!

Another reality of life is that not all career paths are possible for everyone who may want to them. Assuming the academics and fit are already present, geographic restriction and the time commitments are probably the next most common reasons why doctoral training may not be possible for some people.
 
With all due respect, not everyone has the luxury to make being a grad student the sole focus of their lives. Some people actually raise a family while going through graduate school, take care of sick or aging relatives etc. or are involved in their communities or political causes. And many simply need to take on a job to make money. These are the realities of life, and while we all would prefer it, not everyone is offered a nice financial package by their program.
Thus if you need to earn income, it is only reasonable to look for a position related to your field.
Peace and All the Best for 2013!

Another reality of life is that not all career paths are possible for everyone who may want to them. Assuming the academics and fit are already present, geographic restriction and the time commitments are probably the next most common reasons why doctoral training may not be possible for some people.

Another reality is that there are students in full-time accredited programs that do these things. They make sacrifices in other areas to accomplish this. It's doable. More difficult? Most definitely. But possible.

And T4C brought up my other point. We can't do anything and everything we may want. Those are lies told to us by kindergarten teachers and parents. Tough frakkin' luck. Either figure out how you can make it work for you without sacrificing one's quality of education/training or find another path.
 
Somehow, I knew that these were the responses I would have gotten from this site. If I wanted an opinion of my program then I would have asked for it. However, that's not the case. I wont spend time defending the program, but it does have a solid reputation on the east coast, is APA accredited, and has a decent match rate . Now if anyone can answer the OP, it would be greatly appreciated.

Regardless of your program, I'll give you my two cents also, but I concur with the following...

Another reality of life is that not all career paths are possible for everyone who may want to them. Assuming the academics and fit are already present, geographic restriction and the time commitments are probably the next most common reasons why doctoral training may not be possible for some people.

Another reality is that there are students in full-time accredited programs that do these things. They make sacrifices in other areas to accomplish this. It's doable. More difficult? Most definitely. But possible.

And T4C brought up my other point. We can't do anything and everything we may want. Those are lies told to us by kindergarten teachers and parents. Tough frakkin' luck. Either figure out how you can make it work for you without sacrificing one's quality of education/training or find another path.


However, Clawless23, you said you are a first-year. The first year of doctoral training (whether clinical psychology phd or psyd) is very different from the second or third year because it EXPOTENTIALLY gets challenging. Essentially, you are being tossed into a funnel and popping out with a different mindset and worldview. This is time-consuming and intense. I've stressed how important self-care is ad nauseum (all over this forum). If you maintain a full-time job while doctoral training when will you have time for self-care? And if you have no clue what I'm referencing, then you haven't yet experienced those moments when you feel like quitting (your program) because you can't possibly accomplish all that you have to do in the necessary timeframe. I have 4 children and I'm nearing the end of PhD program (which is also not recommended and I'm clearly an exception to the rule). Motherhood is more than a full-time job and my doctoral work has paid the price because my priority has been family and life. I have essentially worked two full-time jobs (being a wife/mother & doctoral student) for the past 5 years. Sure it would've been nice to have only my doctoral training to suffer through, but I would not trade my life experiences and family for the world because they are my soul and give meaning to my work.

With all this said, expect to take longer than usual if you take on a full-time job while clinical psychology training (again, either phd or psyd). If your psyd program requires a dissertation, I would recommend finding an academic medical center that does research in fields of psychology (such as rehab medicine, adolescent health centers, biobehavioral departments, psychiatric research). This way you can incorporate your research ideas into your paid-work and possibly benefit by using your work as part of your dissertation/data collection. My most important piece of advice is no matter what job you get, prepare your employers for the likelihood of leaving them in several months/one-year when the going gets tough (reality check here, please). If you incorporate your work into your research, then the ties that you maintain will support your endeavors rather than turning into a feigned attempt at self-supporting yourself (without graduate school loans) which may make you feel badly about yourself (because you couldn't handle it all) or make your employers feel like you were only 'temporary staff.' I have done all of the above and have maintained strong ties with highly respected researchers that understood that I couldn't possibly work at my position (even part-time), have a family and train to be a clinical psychologist concurrently. (And, in actuality, my program didn't allow for full-time work outside of the program because it was impossible with clinical externships plus coursework). When you're on your way out, your employers in your first-year may have a post-doc waiting for you.

Clinical work may be harder to find when most clinics can get externs for free. If you've already had your psychological assessment courses, you could try psych assessement centers where you would be supervised by licensed clinical psychologists at the report writing stage.

Also, ask around your program to see what others in 2nd and 3rd years are doing. They might have better suggestions than you will find here because I could not fathom working a paid-job on top of my training. I'm sure my husband would've appreciated the extra income, but that's where loans and scholarships help. I empathize with your need to support yourself by finding paid-work and that's why I can equate it to my job of motherhood (which is more intense b/c your boss doesn't follow you into the bathroom, like my 20-month old). But, I'll tell you, once you start doing what clinical psychologists actually do, you will wish that you allotted more time to read, think, and write reports rather than using 2:00am as your "academic time" or falling asleep in class because you've pushed yourself too hard (not that I ever fell asleep in any of my graduate school classes, but a cat-nap between patients was called for when I was pregnant, for sure!).

Good luck! :luck:

Happy 2013 to all you SDNers! :biglove:
 
I think working as mental health tech is an excellent way to gain experience working with a clinical population. Or perhaps w/ geriatrics at an assisted living/residential facility/group home? Perhaps this is edging too far away from clinical, but a daycare might be a good experience if you are considering working with young children.

Psychosocial rehab positions are available in some states and paid through medicaid. These jobs in my city are generally home-visits, so please consider the time you might be in transit.

I am currently an applicant to doctoral programs and can only speak from my limited experience. I feel a program as intense as clinical psychology might balance better with a job where you can sometimes have a break from psychology. I enjoyed babysitting, administrative work, and paid data entry when I was in my masters program. Sometimes, having steady part-time work and taking out a smaller loan to get by is better than working day and night to avoid the loan!
 
The only people I know of that worked full time outside of their programs were from FSPS PsyD programs. They had enough time to do it without RAships and laughable research requirements. If you have time to work full time, then your training is likely not very good.
 
Top