Latino Mental Health Research Training Program

[modestmousktr]

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Has anyone ever applied to or been accepted to this program at USC? If accepted, predoctoral students travel to Mexico to conduct research in a Latino population. One of my areas of interest is in minority mental health disparities and in multicultural psychology, so I'm extremely interested in this program; however, as it is in Mexico and the application states that Spanish language skills will be assessed, I'm assuming they are seeking bilingual candidates. I did four years of honors Spanish in high school, but I am not a Latina nor have I kept up, so I am completely useless in a professional setting.

I'm wondering if anyone has done this, or anything like it. Is it worth applying if I'm not bilingual? I can get by conversationally, but if I actually need the language to conduct the research, I would be extremely disappointing.

 

[docma]

Has anyone ever applied to or been accepted to this program at USC? If accepted, predoctoral students travel to Mexico to conduct research in a Latino population. One of my areas of interest is in minority mental health disparities and in multicultural psychology, so I'm extremely interested in this program; however, as it is in Mexico and the application states that Spanish language skills will be assessed, I'm assuming they are seeking bilingual candidates. I did four years of honors Spanish in high school, but I am not a Latina nor have I kept up, so I am completely useless in a professional setting.

I'm wondering if anyone has done this, or anything like it. Is it worth applying if I'm not bilingual? I can get by conversationally, but if I actually need the language to conduct the research, I would be extremely disappointing.

You can email the program to ask if fluency is required (fluency is very different from some proficiency in conversation). I would assume that they may be flexible if the program is new but probably expect more proficiency than it sounds like you have. For our internship track in this area, we always do part of the interview in Spanish as that quickly shows whether the stated skill level is real.